Killer Molly gets her chance to fight murder verdict

AFATHER and daughter serving 20-year prison sentences for the seconddegree murder of an Irish businessman are set to have a legal challenge to their jury conviction dealt with before their full appeal is heard by a top US court. Molly MartensCorbett (33) and her father, retired FBI agent Thomas Martens (67), were convicted on August 9 in North Carolina of the murder of Jason Corbett (39) in 2015. They were unanimously convicted bya Davidson County Superior Court jury of nine women and three men following a four-week trial that dominated headlines in both the US and Ireland. The Irish Independent and ‘Sunday Independent’ are this weekend publishing a detailed two-part book on the trial entitled ‘Molly Martens – The Making of a Murderer’.

Both the father and daughter are now challenging the Davidson County Superior Court verdict after they alleged juror misconduct.

They are also challenging their convictions with a case lodged with the North Carolina Court of Appeals, the State’s highest appeal court.

The father and daughter are now serving sentences of between 20 and 25 years in separate North Carolina prisons.

Mr Corbett died from horrific head injuries sustained during a prolonged assault at the luxury home he shared with his Tennesseeborn wife at Panther Creek Court in the US state.

The weapons used were a metal baseball bat and a heavy concrete paving brick.

Mr Corbett was pronounced dead at the scene and prosecutors claimed during the murder trial that the father and daughter faked CPR attempts and then deliberately delayed calling 911 for help for the father-oftwo.

It was also suggested that Mr Corbett may have been asleep and helpless in bed when he was first attacked.

The father and daughter are now also defending a wrongful death civil suit filed against them.

The action also lists Thomas Martens’s wife, Sharon, as a co-defendant.

Both the father and daughter have requested that the civil proceedings be delayed given that they are both challenging their criminal convictions.

They have also requested that any hearing of the civil proceedings take place outside Davidson County.

It is now expected that the North Carolina Court of Appeals will not commence any hearings of the case until all matters in Davidson County are resolved.

Judge David Lee of Davidson County Superior Court has already received affidavits in support of the demand by the father and daughter for the conviction to be set aside because of alleged juror misconduct.

Legal teams for both have claimed that there were discussions between some jurors despite the warnings of Judge Lee.