Family’s relief as Facebook remove killer’s pictures
THE sister of murdered Jason Corbett yesterday told of her relief she has been able to have his children’s pictures removed from his murderer’s social media account.
Tracey Corbett-Lynch recently succeeded in her appeal to Facebook to have images of the Corbett children taken down to prevent relatives of his killers from causing the family ‘further distress’.
The 39-year-old father of two from Limerick was beaten to death with a brick and an aluminium baseball bat in the bedroom of his home in North Carolina on August 2, 2015.
His second wife, Molly Martens, and her father Thomas, a former FBI agent, were both convicted of his second degree murder.
Molly Martens, a former model and au pair, moved to Ireland to care for Mr Corbett’s children following the death of his first wife Mags Fitzpatrick, 30, as the result of an asthma attack.
After his murder, Ms Corbett-Lynch and her husband David fought an intense custody battle to become guardians of his children and bring them home to Ireland. After her personal plea to Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, images of Jack and Sarah Corbett have now been removed from the Facebook pages of Molly Martens, her mother Sharon Martens and her aunt, Mona Earnest.
However, despite Facebook’s actions, Mona Earnest is continuing to repost the same image taken one Christmas of herself and her husband with Jack and Sarah, much to the distress of the Corbett family.
Martens’s aunt did so again last night with the caption: ‘Always remembering with love our great niece Sarah and our great nephew Jack.’
Scores of people have again reported this to Facebook, but at the time of going to print last night it remained online.
A number of people responded to her post with an image of Molly Martens in prison, saying: ‘Here’s your real family.’
Ms Corbett-Lynch is also seeking for the removal of photographs of the children on Instagram, which is owned by Facebook.
She told the Irish Mail on Sunday that the battle had taken nearly three years. ‘It’s a relief that it has finally been addressed and it was
not an easy thing to achieve,’ she added. ‘We want to concentrate on our children and protect them. We’re their guardians but it’s hard in the world of social media to protect your kids. Jack and Sarah don’t want their images out there without their permission. They have had enough distress and upset.’
Ms Corbett-Lynch had to provide Facebook with the children’s birth dates, as well as guardianship documentation and evidence of the conviction in order for the images to be removed.
Ms Corbett-Lynch said she is grateful for the reaction she has received from the public to a book she co-wrote, My Brother Jason, with proceeds going towards her children’s future.
‘It’s a great feeling to have such an outpouring of support for it, and such positive feedback,’ she said.
‘We have received so many messages about Jason from people that I hadn’t met and wasn’t aware of their encounters, and friendship with him.’
‘Jack and Sarah don’t want images online’ ‘The children have had enough distress’