Courage of Corbetts won justice for Jason

IT would be hard to underestimate the trauma the Corbett family have faced ever since the news came through that their son and brother Jason had been brutally killed in North Carolina in August 2015. They knew he had been murdered by his second wife, Molly Martens, and her father Thomas, but to see a successful conviction, they also had to steel themselves to face a different judicial system to the one we know here.

In the first instance, they also had to prevent Martens gaining custody of Jason’s two children from his first marriage. This despite Jason’s clearly expressed wish that if anything happened to him, they were to be returned the Ireland, where Sarah and Jack – who had already been through the trauma of losing their mother Mags in an asthma attack in 2006 – could best be comforted.

The family even had to intervene to ensure his remains were not cremated against their wishes.

Yesterday, a US jury found Martens and her father guilty of second-degree murder, and they received prison sentences of between 20 and 25 years. Not before they had tried to blacken Jason Corbett’s good name, though, by suggesting in court, without any evidence, that he had been an abusive husband.

Listening to those lies must have placed even more strain on the Corbett family, especially Jason’s sister Tracey Lynch who, with her husband David, tirelessly fought to ensure Jason’s wish in his will would be honoured, and that she would be guardian to his orphaned children. For two years, she has assiduously jumped through every hoop placed in front of her to get justice for Jason. At home in Limerick, his mother and father John and Rita waited with quiet dignity for the verdict, supported, at a special Mass on Tuesday night, by hundreds of neighbours and well-wishers who have been on their side since the day they got the awful news.

The entire Corbett family have been exemplary. They have shown extraordinary courage, strength of character and perseverance, and while nothing will bring Jason back, they can rest assured they never let him down.

His wishes were honoured, and justice was done. Insofar as is possible, we hope that brings them some solace.