Corbett family in emotional plea to Coveney over Martens retrial
Seven years after Jason’s death, relatives call for new trial date
THE daughter of murder victim Jason Corbett has pleaded with North Carolina judges to set a new trial date for his alleged killers.
Sarah Corbett Lynch included Foreign Minister Simon Coveney in the tweet in the hope that he may be able to raise it with the US government.
She was making her plea yesterday on the seventh anniversary of her father’s brutal death in his North Carolina home.
Jason’s wife Molly Martens and her father Tom are due to be retried for the murder of the 39year-old Limerick businessman, but no trial date has yet been set for the accused pair.
‘Today is 7 years since my Dad’s death. I miss him every single day. Everyone tells me the retrial dates will be set. How many children in the world are carrying a burden like me?’ Sarah wrote on Twitter yesterday. She included Mr Coveney in the tweet, along with a victim rights group in North Carolina that had been helping her family.
Sarah, 15, recently tweeted support for Jason’s sister, Tracey Corbett Lynch, who will be releasing a
‘I miss him every single day’
memoir called Living And Loss in October. The book, written with journalist Ralph Riegel, will set out her fight for justice since Jason was killed in 2015.
It was prosecutors’ contention that Molly Martens, 38, killed Jason so she could gain custody of his two children, and that she enlisted her former FBI agent father, 72, to carry out the killing with her – a claim both accused deny.
They were previously convicted of murder but a North Carolina appeal court has ordered a retrial because Jason’s two children, Sarah and Jack, allegedly gave contradictory accounts of what happened. Yesterday, the Jason’s Journey support group wrote a Facebook post in which it called for Molly and Tom Martens to be reimprisoned while waiting for a new trial.
‘The loss of a family member by murder is like a life sentence without any possibility of parole. So how in God’s name are those two murderers walking free? Surely, it is Tom & Molly Martens that deserve a life sentence – at the very least…,’ it posted. ‘Jason, we will honour you by keeping your memory alive, we will honour you by loving & protecting your greatest achievements Jack & Sarah. And finally we will honour you by forever holding the hands of those you loved.’
It added: ‘Seven years have passed since your life was brutally stolen from you. Your future stolen from your children and from your family. As ever, the wheels of life keep turning, even in the face of death. But you are a constant in everyone’s lives, even those that never knew you, but have shared your journey to justice.’
Last week, the group posted a link to Jason’s autopsy report, showing he had blood under his fingernails and toenails, along with massive head trauma, such was the extent of the beating he received. Tracey Corbett Lynch, legal guardian to Sarah and Jack, 17, recently criticised the delay in the Martenses’ retrial.
‘Seven years ago Jason was beaten to death by Molly & Tom Martens with a paving brick & baseball bat while drugged with medication prescribed to Molly. [For the past] 16 months they are walking free. No retrial date, no hearing date to set a retrial date,’ she wrote on Twitter last month.
Molly Martens – Jason’s second wife – and her father face a retrial after their convictions were overturned by the North Carolina Supreme Court last year.
They had been unanimously convicted of second-degree murder after a five-week trial in August 2017 and received 20- to 25-year prison terms. Both served three-and-a-half years in prison before being freed after their legal challenge proved successful.
A spokesperson for Ireland’s Department of Foreign Affairs said last night that it ‘continues to provide consular assistance to the family of Jason Corbett’, adding that it ‘does not comment on the details of individual cases’.
Jason’s twin brother Wayne Corbett also said yesterday that ‘justice needs to be done.’
‘Your life was brutally stolen’