Killer Molly to face extra three years in prison
KILLER Molly Martens faces up to three extra years in prison after being cited for breaching strict rules in the high security North Carolina jail where she is serving a sentence for the murder of her Irish husband.
The former au pair (34) also learned earlier this month that her appeal against her murder conviction had been rejected by Davidson County Superior Court.
Martens and her father Thomas (67), a retired FBI agent, were both convicted last August of the second-degree murder of Limerick father-oftwo Jason Corbett (39).
Both received sentences of 20 to 25 years, with a minimum of 20 years having to be served.
Mr Corbett was battered to death with a brick and a metal baseball bat in the master bedroom of the gated community home he shared with Martens, his second wife.
Davidson County Superior Court’s Judge David Lee rejected submissions for the two convictions to be quashed and a full retrial ordered.
Both the father and daughter had sought the retrial on the basis of what they claimed was juror misconduct.
Now it has emerged that Martens may face her prison term being extended by between two and three years because of her being cited for a breach of strict jail rules.
The North Carolina Department of Public Safety (NCDPS) revealed Martens was cited on November 21 for what was termed ‘unauthorised leave’ at Southern Correctional Institution.
Martens, whose inmate number is 1551729, is believed to have either left a supervised area without the permission of prison guards or did not report to a supervised area as required.
US prisons treat any unauthorised movement by inmates as an extremely serious matter.
Now NCDPS files have revealed that while her father has a scheduled release date of August 3, 2037 – a minimum 20-year prison sentence – Molly Martens has a scheduled release date of July 28, 2041.
She had originally been scheduled to have the same general release date as her father in 2037.
It is understood her release date, which will ultimately be determined by a parole board, was provisionally revised after her infraction.
The incident did not involve Martens leaving the prison.
The former nanny, a native of Knoxville in Tennessee, was moved from the North Carolina Correctional Institution for Women outside Raleigh to the Southern Correctional Institution, which is just south of Lexington in the US state, on August 30.
She is now in the regular prison population and, like her father, will have a routine custody review in February.
Judge Lee jailed the father and daughter after they were both convicted by unanimous verdict of the 12-member Davidson County jury of the second-degree murder of Mr Corbett.
The duo now have just a single legal avenue left to overturn their murder convictions – a pending case before the North Carolina Court of Appeals.
Mr Corbett died from horrific head injuries sustained during a prolonged assault at the luxury home at Panther Creek Court he shared with his Tennessee-born wife.
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-of-two.
It was also suggested that Mr Corbett may have been asleep and helpless in bed when he was first attacked.