Jason’s decision to leave America for the safety of Ireland came 24 hours too late
MY brother Jason trusted and loved with his great heart his entire 39 years. Tragically, it was those two virtues that would cost him his life and leave his two adored children, Jack and Sarah, orphaned.
Jason died a brutal, awful and cruel death at the hands of the two people who he should have been able to trust most – his second wife, Molly Martens, and his father-inlaw, Thomas Martens.
Had my brother been less trusting, more selfish and less generous with his love and time, he would probably still be alive today.
But Jason loved his Tennessee-born wife, Molly.
Having lost his first wife, his true soulmate Margaret ‘Mags’ Fitzpatrick, to an asthma attack in 2006, my brother steadfastly did not want to take another parental figure away from his children.
Jason firmly believed his love could rescue his wife from her personal demons and long-standing mental health problems.
He paid a terrible price for that trust.
What my brother – or none of us, for that matter – realised was the horrific extent to which we were being manipulated, deceived and betrayed by Molly.
When Jason realised that his love wasn’t enough and that Jack and Sarah’s best interests were for them to be brought back to the safety of Ireland, he left his decision to depart just 24 hours too late.
My brother was deliberately drugged and then, when he was asleep and helpless in the bedroom of his North Carolina home on August 2, 2015, was attacked by the two people he had loved and trusted.
Molly and Tom used a metal baseball bat and a heavy concrete brick to crush his skull and beat him to death.
Then, in an unspeakable act of cruelty, they left him dying on the bedroom floor – and deliberately delayed ringing emergency services.
When paramedics finally arrived at Jason’s Panther Creek Court home, they all commented on how cold his body was.
Jason’s home resembled a slaughterhouse – there was blood on the walls, floors, bedclothes, furniture, doors, fittings and even on a vacuum cleaner.
What my brother must have suffered in his last moments, at the hands of two people he trusted, still haunts me.
There are days when I think that having to sit and watch photographs of the blood-soaked scene being displayed during a Davidson County Superior Court murder trial was the hardest thing I have ever had to do in my life.
But then I remember what it was like going into a North Carolina funeral home and having to view the body of my adored baby brother – and initially not even being able to recognise him such was the damage to his face and head.
The only word I can use for what Molly did next is ‘evil’.
Having murdered the man who loved and tried to help her, Molly then tried to keep my brother’s two children as her own. But, thanks to the support of the loyal people of Limerick and Ireland, as well as our North Carolina lawyers, Davidson County Sheriff’s Department and Davidson County District Attorney’s Department, Molly’s plan was mercifully thwarted.
Jack and Sarah were brought back to the love and protection of the Corbett, Lynch and Fitzpatrick families here in Limerick.
Molly then tried, having murdered Jason, to assassinate his reputation and good name just to save herself from prison.
She portrayed my gentle giant of a brother as a drunken Irish thug – playing to the age-old stereotype of Irish people.
North Carolina police were told outrageous lies about my brother – that he was a member of the IRA and that he was a mixed martial arts fighter.
Molly also said she was a victim of domestic violence.
But there was never a police complaint, never any corroborating evidence from neighbours or even from her own family.
Her own father, during the North Carolina trial, acknowledged he had never seen or heard anything about domestic abuse within Jason and Molly’s home.
On one occasion, one of the children spotted Molly repeatedly hitting her own arm with a heavy brush, determined to inflict a bruise which might then be displayed to her friends.
In the end, Molly’s own lies caught up with her – and 12 brave souls of that North Carolina jury found her and Tom Martens guilty of Jason’s second-degree murder.
She is now serving a sentence of between 20 and 25 years. Justice was done – but it didn’t bring Jason back.
Jack and Sarah are growing up without their
Had my brother been less trusting, more selfish and less generous with his love and time, he would probably still be alive today
mother and father – and Jason’s death has left a gaping hole in our family.
I regularly go to Castlemungret Cemetery where Jason is buried beside the love of his life, Mags.
Every time I walk out the cemetery gates it is with a broken heart and tears in my eyes at the cruelty and unfairness of the world, most especially for Jack and Sarah.
There hasn’t been a day over the past three years that I haven’t prayed this was all nothing but a nightmare – a terrible dream that we would somehow wake up from.
But it is the reality of our new lives.
Molly and Tom are serving a sentence in two North Carolina prisons.
But we are serving a sentence of a different kind – deprived of the love and company of a truly wonderful father, brother, son, man and friend.
Truth be told, I never wanted to write this book.
In a heartbeat I would swap ‘My Brother Jason’ for having my brother back in our lives.
But I felt the lies told about Jason had to be publicly challenged – I wasn’t prepared to have my brother’s legacy defined by lurid and misleading stories and headlines.
People deserved to know the true Jason – the brave young father who kept going in life despite having had his heart broken, all for the sake of his adored children.
A kind, generous and loyal man who, despite having had Molly’s history of mental health problems hidden from him, still decided to proceed with their marriage in the belief his love would help her and rescue her.
I knew my brother – and I knew he would want the full truth told about how a wonderful father and husband was cruelly betrayed by the two people he trusted and loved.