A Deadly American Marriage review: Excruciating documentary gives Jason Corbett's killers Molly Martens and her father a platform and megaphone
Netflix's
true crime documentary about the 2015 killing of
Limerick
father of two
Jason Corbett
clocks in at more than 90 minutes, and every single one is excruciating to sit through. Not just because of the details it goes into regarding the horrific death suffered by Corbett in his home in
North Carolina
. But also because of the centrality to the story of his children, Jack and Sarah – young adults today but shell-shocked kids (aged 10 and eight respectively) when their father was killed and their new life with a new mother,
Molly Martens
, was turned on its head.
True crime is often exploitative, and that charge can certainly be directed at Netflix, which with A Deadly American Marriage provides a platform and megaphone to the individuals found guilty of his killing: Molly Martens and her father
Thomas Martens
– initially convicted of murder but who later had their sentences reduced to voluntary manslaughter. Freed from prison in 2024, they are allowed to reassert their allegation that the killing was in self-defence and that Corbett had a temper and could be abusive towards Molly. Thomas also repeats the bizarre assertion that Corbett was somehow involved in the death of his first wife, Mags – something denied by her family, who reject outright Thomas's claim that Mag's late father shared his suspicions with him.
In addition to Molly and Thomas Martens, the film features extensive interviews with Jack and Sarah, along with Jason Corbett's sister, Tracey Corbett-Lynch and her husband, David, who are legal guardians of Jason's children. In a statement, the family said they agreed to take part to spotlight injustices in the legal system. 'Participating in the Netflix documentary was important to us because it highlights the profound impact of the absence of justice we faced in the judicial system,' they said on Facebook. 'We are not alone in our experiences. We hope the documentary honours Jason's memory while advocating for justice and ensuring that the voices of victims are heard, especially when the judicial system has failed them.'
Their message is that their father was an innocent man and that his killers have not been made pay for their crimes. Blinking away tears, Sarah speaks about how the Martens's lawyers were able to direct attention away from the brutal violence inflicted on their father and to put him in the dock instead, with no way to defend himself. 'I feel like my dad's on trial. All the focus is on my dad's character,' she says. 'What Molly and Tom Martens took from me I can never get back. I've seen his [Jason Corbett's] bloody handprint on the door ... He did not chose to leave us. He was taken from us.'
READ MORE
The documentary does not pass judgment on either side, but the Corbetts were suspicious of Molly from early on. On the morning of Jason and Molly's wedding, Tracey Corbett-Lynch recalls a bridesmaid telling her that Molly had claimed that she and Mags had been best friends and that she was Sarah's godmother – fabrications that set alarms off.
At the time, Molly had been pressing Jason to consent to her adopting Jack and Sarah, which would have made her their legal guardian, meaning she could have been granted custody if the relationship ended.
'Our theory is that Molly had devised some explosive event,' says Alan Martin, the assistant district attorney in Davidson County, North Carolina, who worked on the case for six years. 'If Molly could get Jason to blow up while her parents were there as witnesses she could apply for a domestic violence protective order. And then she can file for emergency custody of the children. And take his children away from him. When the plan [went amiss] it appears she quit caring whether or not he lived or died.'
[
Netflix applying its binge-watch formula to Jason Corbett's killing is not a surprise
Opens in new window
]
Netflix's true crime documentaries have a habit of outstaying their welcome – of flogging a tragedy for all it is worth and filling out the run time with extraneous detail (2019's The Disappearance of
Madeleine McCann
delved into the history of tourism in the Algarve and the difference in policing in Spain and Portugal). However, directors Jessica Burgess and Jenny Popplewell tell Jason Corbett's story economically, resisting the temptation to pad it out with pointless waffle. Whether A Deadly American Marriage should have been made in the first place is another question – there is always an element of the ghoulish circus to these affairs – but you do have to credit the family for speaking up and giving their version of events.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Irish Times
2 hours ago
- Irish Times
Harvey Weinstein found guilty of sex crime in New York retrial
A Manhattan jury found Harvey Weinstein guilty on a sex crimes charge on Wednesday in a retrial after a state appeals court last year overturned the former movie mogul's 2020 conviction . Weinstein, once one of the most powerful figures in Hollywood, was accused by prosecutors in the case of raping an aspiring actor and assaulting two other women. Weinstein (73) pleaded not guilty and has denied assaulting anyone or having non-consensual sex. The jury found Weinstein guilty on one of the three counts he faced, which stemmed from his alleged assault of former production assistant Miriam Haley in 2006. The jury found Weinstein not guilty of a charge stemming from his alleged assault of Kaja Sokola in 2002 when she was a 16-year-old aspiring actor. The jury has not yet reached a verdict on the third count, which charges him with raping aspiring actor Jessica Mann in 2013. They will resume deliberations on that count on Thursday. In closing arguments on June 3rd, the prosecution told the 12 jurors that the evidence showed how Weinstein used his power and influence to trap and abuse women. READ MORE The defence countered that the accusers lied on the witness stand out of spite after their consensual sexual encounters with the Oscar-winning producer failed to result in Hollywood stardom. Jurors reached their partial verdict on the fifth day of sometimes fractious deliberations. The retrial began on April 23rd. Weinstein has had a litany of health problems and attended the retrial in a wheelchair. A jury had in February 2020 found Weinstein guilty of raping Ms Mann and sexually assaulting Ms Haley. Ms Sokola's allegation was not part of that case. The conviction was a milestone for the #MeToo movement, which encouraged women to come forward with allegations of sexual misconduct by powerful men. But the New York court of appeals, the state's highest court, threw out that conviction in April 2024. It said the trial judge erred by letting women testify that Weinstein had assaulted them, though their accusations were not the basis of the criminal charges. Though the 2020 conviction was thrown out, Weinstein has remained behind bars because of his 2022 rape conviction in California, which resulted in a 16-year prison sentence. He is appealing that verdict. More than 100 women, including famous actors, have accused Weinstein of misconduct. The retrial was handled by prosecutors with the office of Manhattan district attorney Alvin Bragg. They portrayed Weinstein as a serial predator who promised career advancement in Hollywood to women, only to then coax them into private settings where he attacked them. The defence rejected that characterisation, saying Weinstein engaged in 'mutually beneficial' relationships with his accusers, who ended up with auditions and other show business opportunities. Weinstein cofounded the Miramax studio, whose hit movies included Shakespeare in Love and Pulp Fiction. His own eponymous film studio filed for bankruptcy in March 2018, five months after sexual misconduct accusations against him became widely publicised. Weinstein has experienced several health episodes while being held at New York City's Rikers Island jail, and in September was rushed to a hospital for emergency heart surgery. – Reuters
Irish Times
7 hours ago
- Irish Times
Convicted rapist jailed again for sex act with teenager
A man who is serving a sentence for raping a woman in Limerick city has been jailed again after he pleaded guilty to engaging in a sex act with an underage teenage girl in Limerick. Cristian Gogosiou (40), of Mount Kenneth Place, Courtyard, Limerick, had a four-year sentence reduced to 3½ years, after he admitted one count of 'defilement' of a child under the age of 17, at Limerick Circuit Criminal Court. The girl, who was 15 at the time and who cannot be identified to protect her right to anonymity, had run away from home and was living in hotels and staying with friends. Judge Colin Daly said the girl came into contact with Gogosiou while she was staying in a Limerick hotel on July 5th, 2020. READ MORE The judge, who lifted reporting restrictions on identifying Gogosiou, said the Romanian man agreed to drive the girl to one of her friend's homes if she performed oral sex on him. Gogosiou drove himself and the girl to a carpark where she performed oral sex on him, it was heard. Afterwards, she told her mother what happened and they both went to a garda station to make a complaint against Gogosiou. 'He (Gogosiou) knew her young age, he knew she was vulnerable and he took advantage of her,' the judge said. In a victim impact statement, the girl wrote that her mental health and her relationships with her family and a former boyfriend had suffered due to the assault. Judge Daly said that a headline sentence of four years was appropriate, which he reduced by six months. 'He is a 40-year old Romanian national, he has a partner and a child, he has been in Ireland for 10 years and he has a history of employment, he co-operated with gardai.' Gogosiou was also added to a national register of sex offenders for an indefinite period. In 2024 Gogosiou was jailed for eight years for raping a homeless woman in Limerick in 2019.
Irish Times
16 hours ago
- Irish Times
Who is the American who left €535,000 to Sinn Féin's US fundraising group in her trust?
Buried in two half-year filings that Friends of Sinn Féin , the political party's US fundraising arm, submitted were large donations from a previously unknown woman. The group is obliged to lodge the regular reports disclosing its activities and fundraising every six months to the US Department of Justice under the US Foreign Agents Registration Act as an agent of Sinn Féin , and has been doing so for two decades. Friends of Sinn Féin raises annual donations from long-time supporters, mainly from wealthy Irish-American building contractors and their contacts working in the New York and New Jersey area. But on the lists of smaller donors on two occasions in the regular Friends of Sinn Féin filings over the past three years was the name Lauren Harvey. The sums involved stood out from the usual $10 and $25 donations mostly made online. READ MORE In 2022, the group benefited from a windfall of $394,010 (€345,000) by way of a 'distribution' from an entity called the Lauren Harvey Living Trust. Then last month, the latest Friends of Sinn Féin filing for the six months to the end of April shows, a second sum – $216,521 (€191,861) – landed from the same trust linked to the late Lauren Harvey, bringing its donations to $610,531 (€535,000). 'It is still the largest donation we have received. Bequests happen, but that donation was incredibly generous,' said Mark Guilfoyle, president of Friends of Sinn Féin. 'We were very surprised – and are eternally grateful – that Harvey would think of us in her living trust ... she was surely a generous and caring individual.' The late billionaire US philanthropist Chuck Feeney donated $780,000 to the group to assist in its establishment in the mid-1990s, though those donations came from Feeney personally ($380,000) and two entities he was connected with totalling $400,000. She was a quiet adventurer. She cared deeply about people, and she just gave so much of herself in every situation she was in. She had a lot of loss in her life, and out of that loss she brought forth a lot of beauty and a lot of enjoyment for herself and for anyone around her — Kathleen Erickson Harvey has been described as a 'quiet adventurer' who lived in a rural area outside of the desert city of Tucson, Arizona. She may have lived 8,000km from Ireland, but she had a deep love for Irish culture. Harvey was hit by a car on November 12th, 2020, while cycling near her home. She died instantly. But her generosity lives on through the Lauren Harvey Living Trust. Friends of Sinn Féin has been one of her biggest beneficiaries. Guilfoyle, the group's president, said the money is used 'to 'build and maintain support' for the 1998 Good Friday agreement – the landmark agreement underpinning the Northern Ireland peace process – and to 'promote Irish unity through peaceful and democratic means'. 'We do that by providing platforms for Sinn Féin representatives on these issues in the US,' he said. Harvey, who was 60 when she died, created the trust with her now-deceased long-time partner Kathleen Digan, who was Irish and 'completely immersed in Irish stuff', said Kathleen Erickson, Harvey's partner of 16 years at the time of her death. [ Sinn Féin's US fundraising arm raises further €233,000 in donations Opens in new window ] 'They spent a lot of time in Ireland. They travelled to Ireland quite a few times. Kathy was literally born on St Paddy's Day, so she really pursued her Irish heritage,' said Erickson, who is trustee of the fund. 'She was becoming fluent in the language and music and all of that, but they also spent quite a bit of time in Ireland, mostly in Connemara.' The pair stayed at a 'kind of farm' in the Connemara area for weeks at a time every year, Erickson said. 'Ireland was just very important to both of them, so it was very clear that they wanted to leave money to Sinn Féin,' she said. Born in Ohio, Harvey moved to Tucson and earned a degree in landscape architecture from the University of Arizona. She worked for the Pima County Department of Parks and Recreation. She later moved to San Jose in California with Digan, but the pair found their way back to Tucson in 2000 and developed their dream home on a patch of desert. 'In fact, the house that Lauren and Kathy designed and built, which is where I live now and where I lived with Lauren for 15 years before she died, is called Conamara Ranch. That's how important the Connemara region was for Kathy and Lauren,' said Erickson. Harvey took a leave of absence from her work with the parks department when Digan was diagnosed with brain cancer in 2002. Digan died two years later, with Harvey by her side. Eventually Harvey found love again with Erickson, and the pair had a commitment ceremony in 2006. Harvey was an avid hiker and cyclist – 'she died doing what she loved', Erickson said. After retiring early in 2011, she learned how to swim and began practising t'ai chi. After Erickson and Harvey went on a 550-mile walking pilgrimage on the Camino de Santiago in northern Spain, Harvey set about learning Spanish. 'Whenever she did anything, she just threw herself into it. She really gave herself to it. But she never did just one thing at a time,' she said. Harvey also became a sought-after abstract artist. When she died, two shows of her works were planned; since it was during the Covid pandemic, the shows ended up going up online. [ People Before Profit activists quit party over possibility of Sinn Féin-led government Opens in new window ] 'The most significant thing of the last years of her life was that she took a drawing class and one thing led to another, and she just became a wonderful abstract artist, and all of this just flowed out of her in those relatively few years. She had never done anything like that before,' said Erickson. Harvey devoted time and money to many humanitarian causes, including a Tucson-area food bank and the nonprofit Florence Immigrant and Refugee Rights Project, which helps immigrants in Arizona. Gabriela Corrales, the group's director of philanthropy, said, 'She came to our virtual events, always wanting to understand what our clients were facing while detained in Arizona. She was thoughtful and asked great questions. Lauren supported the Florence Project with heart. 'I meet many donors, [but] the ones that stand out to me are those that care beyond the gift. Lauren did that.' Harvey lived her life fully, Erickson said, and touched many lives, as evidenced by the number of messages posted on her memorial page. 'She was a quiet adventurer. She cared deeply about people, and she just gave so much of herself in every situation she was in,' she said. 'She had a lot of loss in her life, and out of that loss she brought forth a lot of beauty and a lot of enjoyment for herself and for anyone around her. 'But she would be shocked to think that very many people remembered her.'
