Jason’s ghost is put to rest by beloved sister

AFTER her tireless devotion to winning justice for her ‘baby brother’ Jason, a book about his bloodcurdling murder in North Carolina was probably inevitable from Tracey Lynch. After all she has been through over recent years, writing My Brother Jason must have been emotionally satisfying and cathartic, and a way of raising funds for Jason’s orphaned children Jack and Sarah, whom Tracey is raising alongside her own offspring.

Like Rose Callely – who championed her daughter Rachel O’Reilly and kept her memory alive during Joe Reilly’s murder trial and throughout the exhaustive appeals process and who also wrote a book – Tracey has been a flagbearer for her late brother’s prosecution team.

Her constant presence in the courthouse and her vigilance about the quality of the evidence presented during the trial kept the pressure on Molly and Thomas Martens. It’s not too much of a stretch to maintain that, were it not for the visibility of the Corbetts, Molly’s attempt to cast herself as a victim of domestic violence may have succeeded and that she and her FBI father, a pillar of his community, would have been dealt with far more leniently.

It can’t have been easy for Tracey and her husband David to put their own lives on hold and throw themselves so wholeheartedly into being campaigners for justice for Jason. B efore the harrowing murder trial, they fought a vicious battle for custody of Jason’s children, as he would have wanted. They also had to counter various underhand attempts by Molly to squirrel away the family silver in order to safeguard it for his children.

Even today, unresolved matters relating to his estate may drag on for years.

Tracey has made 14 trips to the States and there are reportedly at least eight civil cases, as well as criminal cases, being taken against the Martens.

Tracey has shown amazing stamina and selflessness throughout; Jason could not have asked for a more devoted sibling.

Like Ann McCabe, the widow of slain detective Jerry McCabe – who has never let his memory die nor indeed his killing by the IRA forgotten – nothing seems too big a sacrifice for Tracey if it means doing right by Jason.

But there is a fine line between loyalty to the dear departed, and allowing one’s own life be overshadowed by their unjust death. Jason’s son Jack is 14 now and Sarah will soon be a teenager. For their sakes too, it’s important that they can get on with their young lives, never forgetting their beloved father or mother but, at the same time, unburdened by constant reminders of his barbaric end. Jason’s killers are behind bars, they face long sentences, justice has been done and the closure which all victims of violent crime hanker after should be within reach. Perhaps the family rift highlighted when four of Jason’s brothers wrote to their local newspaper to say Tracey did not speak for them and that they opposed anyone profiteering from the murder, is actually less about the book per se and more about their desire to put the devastating past behind them. D redging up details about the unlikely marriage between an ordinary Irish widower with two young children and a US Homecoming queen may awaken our prurient interest in the macabre murder case; describing how Jason had his bag packed on the night of his murder may have readers pondering about how tantalisingly close he was to making his escape.

For those closest to Jason though, their effect may be far different, stirring up painful memories of a neverending ordeal.

But there’s also the possibility that My Brother Jason is Tracey Lynch’s final say on the tragedy that befell her family and her drawing a line in the sand, so to speak.

If that is the case then it appears that she is not about to become a prisoner of the past and that she has every desire to lay her beloved brother’s ghost to rest.