THE BAT HIT THE DESK... AND THE JURY SHUDDERED

THE chilling sound of aluminium clashing with wood was so loud that people outside the courtroom could hear it. Alan Martin had the Little League baseball bat held high in the air and was repeatedly bashing it off the table in front of him. Bang. Bang. Bang. Each impact was more ferocious than the one before and as the sound got louder and louder several jurors recoiled in their seats.

‘What kind of force does it take to crush a man’s skull?’ Mr Martin asked jurors.

‘It takes “I hate you” force,’ he added, angrily striking the table again.

Observers in the public gallery were shuddering now too, some jumping in their seats as Mr Martin pummelled the desk.

The end, one that brought with it an added sense of tension in courtroom C, was drawing near.

It was the final day of closing arguments and as the bailiffs prepared for a verdict, the front two rows of the public gallery – the rows where the Martens and Corbett family had sat for almost four weeks – were emptied for ‘security reasons’.

The families were moved back a row, one row further away from the two defendants, Molly and her father Tom.

On this, possibly one of her last appearances in court, Molly had come wearing the same loose-fitting dress she had worn multiple times before. She had looked on with unease as Alan Martin pointed her out as a murderer in his closing speech.

He had walked right up to her on the defence bench, seemingly catching her off guard and singling her out as a coldblooded killer.

She dropped her head, her cheeks reddening ever so slightly.

Her demeanour, one of ice-cold indifference, had begun to falter the day before.

On Monday, after prosecutor Greg Brown had accused her father of ‘concocting’ a story to outwit investigators and ultimately the jury, she had stormed out of court at speed.

Opting to take a side exit from court, rather than the main door she exits through on a daily basis, she slammed through the door, and past waiting TV cameras with so much ferocity that she almost fell over several tripods.

Yesterday, as the judge put the jury in charge of deliberations, the colour began to drain from her cheeks.

Her mother Sharon, the person the prosecution alleged had been deliberately left out of Tom and Molly’s ‘story’ of how they killed Jason, watched on from the sidelines.

She was joined by Molly’s two brothers, Bobby and Connor, as well as Molly’s uncle Mike.

In the public gallery on the prosecution side, several familiar faces had come to observe as the final curtain began to fall.

Sheriff Grice, the man who had first revealed to the public that Jason Corbett had been ‘bludgeoned to death’, was at the back, sitting next to Lieutenant Wanda Thompson.

Around them were several officers from the sheriff’s office, many of whom had painstakingly put this case together over the course of two years.

The District Attorney, Garry Frank, was there too, listening carefully as his Assistant DA closed his case.

The Corbetts, appearing drawn and weary after nearly four weeks spent inside court, huddled close as Jason’s picture was shown in court.

THIS is how Jason was, Alan Martin told jurors, showing them a picture of the beaming father-of-two. ‘And this is what they did to him,’ he added, producing a picture of Jason’s bloodied remains.

In the end, it was mention of Jason’s two children that brought Tracey Lynch to tears.

‘His children did not have to become orphans,’ he said, standing over Molly Martens.

‘He didn’t have to die that brutal and savage death at the hands of the woman he came to America for.

‘He didn’t have to die at the hands of his father-in-law.

‘His kids didn’t have to go back to Ireland without their daddy.

‘You have a duty to deliver a verdict that says Jason didn’t have to die. Justice for Jason.’

Yesterday afternoon, as the jury began its deliberations, two families went their separate ways.

The Corbetts, preparing for a long wait, slipped out momentarily for refreshments.

In the hallway outside courtroom C, Molly Martens was on the ground, with a blanket around her, awaiting her fate and eating grapes.