Corbett family is ‘devastated’ as killer Molly gets a plea deal

Victim’s family fear she could be bailed by weekend

WE are devastated that the District Attorney for Davidson County has decided to offer a plea deal and not seek a retrial of Tom and Molly Martens who admitted killing Jason Corbett, leaving his children, then aged ten and eight, orphaned.

What does it say for justice in North Carolina that you can drug a father of two, then beat him to death with a baseball bat and a paving brick, literally crush his skull, and still escape a murder conviction?

What does it say for justice that you can escape a murder conviction so long as you have deep pockets and deep connections?

Would Molly and Tom Martens have avoided a retrial if they weren’t wealthy with deep connections to the FBI? From the night of the [killing], when Tom Martens, a former FBI agent, and his daughter, Molly, were driven back to the scene of the crime within six hours of their arrest and allowed to remove vital evidence from the scene – our family has had to fight a constant battle for justice for Jason.

We are grateful to the detectives who listened to the truth about Molly Martens, and gathered evidence showing she was a dangerous, lying fantasist with a history of mental illness who drugged Jason with Trazodone sleeping pills that had been prescribed to Molly Martens two days prior to Jason’s death.

The detectives provided ample evidence for the District Attorney to successfully prosecute Molly and Tom Martens for second degree murder in 2017.

A jury unanimously convicted both. When the Supreme Court of North Carolina voted by a four to three majority to grant a retrial last month, they did so for two principal reasons.

One reason was a technicality relating to blood found on the inside hem of Tom Marten’s boxer shorts, blood which showed Tom Martens had been standing over Jason beating him with a baseball bat from a height of less than two feet while Jason was on the ground.

Though the other blood spatters on Tom Martens’ boxer shorts had been tested and confirmed as blood, at the North Carolina State Laboratory, the blood samples inside the hem had not been.

On this basis, the Supreme Court said the blood spatter expert’s testimony should be set aside. The evidence still sits in police evidence bags, and would only require a retesting of those blood samples to allow this evidence to be used in a retrial.

It is inexplicable to our family that District Attorney Garry Frank has chosen not to do this and not to proceed with a retrial.

The second reason the Supreme Court majority set aside the unanimous verdict of the trial jury was because of statements made by Jason’s two children – then aged ten and eight – to social workers in interviews which took place immediately after a funeral service for their father – a funeral service Molly Martens banned Jason’s own family from attending.

Jason’s two children, now aged 16 and 14, travelled to North Carolina this week and spent days giving statements to detectives outlining how they were terrified when giving those statements to social workers...

The children told detectives how they had been coached and intimidated by Molly Martens into lying to the social workers. They had been compelled to lie and claim that they had witnessed domestic abuse in the house.

The children were coached from the night of the [killing] in what to say when asked. The children recanted those statements once they returned to Ireland and were safe.

The children also detailed for detectives how they saw key items of evidence – such as Jason’s phone and two of his computers – in Molly’s family’s possession in the days after the [killing]. These items were never found, as they would have proved that Jason was planning to return home to Ireland with the children. They would also have proved that Jason’s life assurance policy was changed a year before his death to make Molly the sole beneficiary.

The simple truth is Molly Martens killed Jason Corbett to get his children. Today the District Attorney for Davidson County has let her and her father get away with murder.

STATEMENT BY TRACEY CORBETT-LYNCH AND DAVID LYNCH, LEGAL GUARDIANS OF JASON CORBETT’S CHILDREN, JACK AND SARAH.

‘The DA has let Molly Martens and her father get away with murder’