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Irish Times
a day ago
- Irish Times
How an anonymous phone call helped convict Molly and Tom Martens of Jason Corbett's killing
Sitting in Cagney's Kitchen, a classic American diner deep in the North Carolina countryside, retired sheriff David Grice pauses over his breakfast of pancakes with buttered syrup and bacon to reflect on a key moment in the Jason Corbett homicide investigation – an anonymous call to the detective unit. The diner is just a few miles from the Meadowlands home where Corbett, from Limerick, was beaten to death in August 2015, aged 39, by his American wife, Molly Martens (31) and her father, Thomas (Tom), a former FBI agent. Although convicted of second-degree murder in 2017 and sentenced to a minimum of 20 years in prison, the Martenses' convictions were quashed on appeal in March 2021. Avoiding a retrial, they entered a plea deal in October 2023, which saw Tom plead guilty, and Molly plead 'no contest' to the charge of voluntary manslaughter. Handed seven-month sentences, they were freed in June 2024. Legally the case was over, but so many questions remained, not just for Corbett's family but for the detectives who had spent eight years investigating the killing. For Grice it began on August 2nd, 2015, when he was awoken by a 5am phone call. He drove 80km to Meadowlands to view the scene. Jason's body had been removed and CSI officers had bagged a bloodied brick and baseball bat found in the master bedroom, but Grice instinctively knew the descending pattern of blood spatter on the south wall did not match the 'self-defence' story the Martenses had told detectives. The scene was so bloody, one of the first responders asked Molly where the gun was, as he assumed Jason had been shot. READ MORE . Sheriff Grice's instincts were shared by the three lead detectives on the case – Lieut Wanda Thompson and detectives Michael Hurd and Brandon Smith. To secure search warrants early in the investigation, all three filed supporting affidavits stating their suspicions about the Martenses' claims of self-defence. [ Fresh information in Netflix documentary sheds new light on the killing of Jason Corbett Opens in new window ] More than 10,000 pages of new documentation, released following a public records request, make clear that the assistant district attorney for Davidson County, Alan Martin, shared the detectives' concerns, particularly over the weapons used. A baseball bat and a brick were not typical weapons used in a crime of passion, he said, and were generally not items often found in someone's bedroom. Tom Martens claimed, in his voluntary police interview with detectives Smith and Hurd hours after the killing, that he brought the baseball bat as a gift for his step-grandson, Jack, Jason's 10-year-old son from his first marriage. Martens said he and his wife, Sharon, both 65, had spontaneously decided that Saturday to drive 4¾ hours from their Tennessee home to Meadowlands, the affluent neighbourhood where Molly lived with Jason, a manager of a paper packaging plant. The detectives found it strange that any grandparent would bring a gift for one grandchild, but nothing for the other – they had not brought a gift for Jason's eight-year-old daughter, Sarah . Tom had met Jack that night, yet he did not give him the bat. The caller told detective Hanna it would 'not be good for me in Tennessee' if he revealed his identity Grice felt the 480km road trip was suspicious, especially as Tom said he was due at work in Tennessee on Monday. His was no ordinary job. He was a counterintelligence officer with the US Department of Energy, charged with protecting US energy secrets from hostile foreign spies. He had a Q Level security clearance at Oak Ridge National Laboratory – one of two sites where the atomic bomb was developed during the second World War – the highest security clearance issued by the department. Martens would later be psychologically assessed – in court documents submitted to the sentencing hearing in 2023 – as a classic Type A personality, calm and unemotional, driven by rules and facts. He was not a spontaneous character. Exhibit 124: Thomas Martens at police station The prosecutors and the investigators all wondered whether Tom had in fact been summoned to North Carolina by Molly. Then the anonymous call came. Det Mark Hanna received the call at 6.50pm on Friday, August 14th, 2015, the same day Molly was in court testifying in a guardianship hearing, where she was battling Jason's sister, Tracey Lynch, for custody of Jack and Sarah. Lynch had been named as Jason's preferred guardian for Jack and Sarah in his will, but Molly wanted a US court to override this and grant her sole custody, as she had been the children's de-facto mother for seven years. She had joined the family as an au pair in March 2008, a year and four months after Jason's first wife, Mags Fitzpatrick, died aged 31. Molly and Jason moved to the United States and married in 2011. The caller told detective Hanna it would 'not be good for me in Tennessee' if he revealed his identity, but he encouraged detectives to look at Tom's phone records. He said the Martenses were lying about their impromptu visit to Molly. In fact Tom had had dinner plans that evening with his boss, Selin Warnell, who was a former CIA station chief in Tokyo and Seoul, before becoming head of the counterintelligence unit at Oak Ridge. The caller told Hanna that Tom had cancelled the dinner plans and sought Monday off work 'due to an issue with Molly'. The caller advised detective Hanna to interview all of Tom's 12 colleagues in the counterintelligence unit. 'The male subject on the phone asked if I was aware that Mr Martens hated his son-in-law. The male stated that Mr Martens made comments to his coworkers about hating his son-in-law.' All the detectives met the following Monday, August 17th, to discuss interviewing Tom's coworkers. That Monday the judge in the guardianship hearing, Brian Shipwash, ruled that the children should be taken from Molly and raised in Ireland by Tracey Lynch. Shipwash later told The Irish Times he believed Molly felt a 'deranged entitlement' to the children, and he was worried about her mental health. Exhibit 116: Molly Martens at police station As Lynch was reunited with Jack and Sarah – bar a brief call with Jack lasting less than a minute, the Martenses had refused to allow her contact with the children for 15 days after the killing – detectives prepared to travel to Tennessee. Tom and his boss were close – Warnell gave Molly and Jason two gifts at their 2011 wedding: a rocking chair and a crib. The crib was never used. Despite the couple spending $25,000 on fertility treatments, Molly could not have children of her own. Detectives believed Molly's burning desire to be a mother was at the root of what happened at 160 Panther Creek Court in Meadowlands. Detectives suspected Molly found out Jason was leaving, panicked and summoned her parents. The anonymous tip-off only underscored their suspicions, according to Lieut Wanda Thompson, the head of the criminal investigations division in Davidson County. Lieut Wanda Thompson and Sheriff David Grice on her retirement in May 2018 'It must have been a real family emergency for him to cancel dinner with his boss,' Thompson told me in 2023. 'You might let friends down, but when your boss is a former CIA chief, that dinner was important. Why did he drop everything?' Detective case notes reveal how crucial the anonymous tip-off proved. It ultimately led detectives inside the counterintelligence unit where they learned that Tom 'hated' Jason and referred to him as 'that son-of-a-bitch son-in-law' and an 'asshole'. One former FBI agent told detectives that Tom was 'manipulative, calculative and a planner' and 'uses things and people to his own advantage'. It was 'odd' for Tom to cancel dinner with Warnell, because Tom was not 'spontaneous', the FBI agent added. Another colleague said Tom spoke of Molly's bipolar disorder and 'openly expressed his dislike for Jason'. Armed with these insights, detectives executed search warrants for Tom, Sharon, Molly and Jason's phone records on the days immediately before and after the killing. These records heightened the detectives' suspicions. Molly had 20 calls on her mobile phone on August 1st, beginning with a 2.21pm call from Tom. Fifteen minutes later Tom made the first of four calls to Jason, but Jason did not answer. On the fourth call, Tom was forwarded to Jason's messaging service, and he left a 37-second message. Sarah Corbett Lynch, daughter of Jason Corbett, on her memoir A Time for Truth Listen | 70:10 While Tom was trying to reach Jason, Molly had a two-minute call with Sharon. What did Molly tell her parents that Saturday to prompt the change in dinner plans and incite Tom to call Jason, the son-in-law he hated? About an hour later the Martenses set off for North Carolina. During the journey, there were 11 calls between Sharon and Molly. Jason's phone, laptop and home computer were all mysteriously missing from the crime scene and were never found. The detectives never discovered the content of Tom's 37-second message to Jason. Journalist Brian Carroll was co-producer of the Netflix film A Deadly American Marriage. A Deadly Marriage by Brian Carroll is published by Sandycove, an imprint of Penguin Random House, and is available from August 21st
Yahoo
06-07-2025
- Yahoo
Daughter of Irish man beaten to death by American wife, her ex-FBI agent father rejects self-defense claims
A new documentary raises questions about the 2015 murder of an Irish-born man in his North Carolina home. Jason Corbett's American wife, Molly Martens, and her father, former FBI agent Thomas Martens, confessed to beating Corbett to death on Aug. 2, 2015, but they have maintained that they were acting in self-defense after Corbett apparently tried to choke his wife. "There were times when I thought, 'I'm gonna die,'" Molly Martens says in the documentary. The Martens were convicted in Corbett's death in 2017, but their convictions were overturned on appeal. In 2023, Thomas Martens pleaded guilty to beating Corbett to death with a bat and Molly Martens pleaded no contest, prompting their respective releases from prison in 2024. Model, Ex-fbi Agent Who Claimed Self-defense Plead In Her Irish Businessman Husband's Killing A Netflix documentary titled "A Deadly American Marriage," which premiered on May 9, follows the case and its many lingering questions, featuring interviews with both sides of the family, including Molly and Thomas Martens, as well as Corbett's two children, Jack and Sarah. Read On The Fox News App The filmmakers also spoke with Corbett's sister, who lives in Ireland and was eventually granted custody of her brother's two children with his first wife because she was listed as their legal guardian if anything ever happened to him. Model, 33, And Her Ex-fbi Agent Father Get 20 Years In Prison For Killing Husband Sarah told Fox News Digital she does not think her father got justice. "I definitely don't think justice has been served. I don't think it could ever be served, but definitely not what the Martens were given," she said. Now the author of a memoir titled, "A Time for Truth," Sarah says she felt the documentary accurately portrayed both her family and the Martens. Follow The Fox True Crime Team On X While the film leaves viewers with lingering questions, Sarah remains firm in her belief about what happened to her father. "Everyone knows that I believe that Molly and Tom murdered my dad. That's my belief," she said. "But that's not what they were convicted of. There's a lot of evidence [in 'A Time for Truth'] that points to that that doesn't get shown anywhere else. So, I think the book has a lot more detail in it." Ex-fbi Agent, Daughter Charged With Murdering Woman's Husband She added that her book is "not just sad" and has happy anecdotes about her father, as well. Fox News Digital reached out to Molly and Thomas Martens' respective attorneys. Molly Martens alleged that her husband was choking her when her father walked into the room and the deadly confrontation began, per local outlet WXII. A medical examiner determined that Corbett had injuries to his arms, legs and torso, as well as a fractured skull. The medical examiner said the man died of blunt force trauma and sustained at least 10 hits to the head. Sign Up To Get The True Crime Newsletter Corbett and Molly Martens met in 2008 following the death of Corbett's late wife, who suffered an asthma attack. Corbett then advertised for an au pair to help him care for his two children with his late wife and gave Molly the job. They were engaged in 2010 and married in 2011. Idaho Murders Timeline: Bryan Kohberger Plea Caps Yearslong Quest For Justice A former North Carolina FBI agent and prosecutor who knew of Thomas Martens said he was a talented agent who supervised a team of employees in Greensboro. "He had a good reputation – a very good reputation," Chris Swecker, now an attorney, told Fox News Digital. "He was in the Greensboro office of the FBI for a good while. I believe he was the supervisory resident agent up in Greensboro, which meant he was in charge of maybe 15 or 20 agents in a pretty active office in the Bureau." Swecker added that Thomas Martens would have had plenty of experience conducting interrogations, and that would have helped him as police interrogated him in Corbett's killing. "Without a doubt," Swecker said when asked if Thomas Martens' professional experience would help him in an interrogation. "He knows where the interrogator is going when he asks a question and… the piece of evidence or point he's trying to extract from him. It's a chess game, if you're trying to protect yourself and your daughter, for example." GET REAL-TIME UPDATES AT THE FOX NEWS True Crime Hub The former FBI agent described Corbett's killing as "one of those cases where you wonder if you ever really get the answers, and there's only two people that will ever know, and it's Tom and his daughter."Original article source: Daughter of Irish man beaten to death by American wife, her ex-FBI agent father rejects self-defense claims
Fox News
06-07-2025
- Fox News
Daughter of Irish man beaten to death by American wife, her ex-FBI agent father rejects self-defense claims
A new documentary raises questions about the 2015 murder of an Irish-born man in his North Carolina home. Jason Corbett's American wife, Molly Martens, and her father, former FBI agent Thomas Martens, confessed to beating Corbett to death on Aug. 2, 2015, but they have maintained that they were acting in self-defense after Corbett apparently tried to choke his wife. "There were times when I thought, 'I'm gonna die,'" Molly Martens says in the documentary. The Martens were convicted in Corbett's death in 2017, but their convictions were overturned on appeal. In 2023, Thomas Martens pleaded guilty to beating Corbett to death with a bat and Molly Martens pleaded no contest, prompting their respective releases from prison in 2024. A Netflix documentary titled "A Deadly American Marriage," which premiered on May 9, follows the case and its many lingering questions, featuring interviews with both sides of the family, including Molly and Thomas Martens, as well as Corbett's two children, Jack and Sarah. The filmmakers also spoke with Corbett's sister, who lives in Ireland and was eventually granted custody of her brother's two children with his first wife because she was listed as their legal guardian if anything ever happened to him. Sarah told Fox News Digital she does not think her father got justice. "I definitely don't think justice has been served. I don't think it could ever be served, but definitely not what the Martens were given," she said. Now the author of a memoir titled, "A Time for Truth," Sarah says she felt the documentary accurately portrayed both her family and the Martens. While the film leaves viewers with lingering questions, Sarah remains firm in her belief about what happened to her father. "Everyone knows that I believe that Molly and Tom murdered my dad. That's my belief," she said. "But that's not what they were convicted of. There's a lot of evidence [in 'A Time for Truth'] that points to that that doesn't get shown anywhere else. So, I think the book has a lot more detail in it." She added that her book is "not just sad" and has happy anecdotes about her father, as well. Fox News Digital reached out to Molly and Thomas Martens' respective attorneys. Molly Martens alleged that her husband was choking her when her father walked into the room and the deadly confrontation began, per local outlet WXII. A medical examiner determined that Corbett had injuries to his arms, legs and torso, as well as a fractured skull. The medical examiner said the man died of blunt force trauma and sustained at least 10 hits to the head. Corbett and Molly Martens met in 2008 following the death of Corbett's late wife, who suffered an asthma attack. Corbett then advertised for an au pair to help him care for his two children with his late wife and gave Molly the job. They were engaged in 2010 and married in 2011. A former North Carolina FBI agent and prosecutor who knew of Thomas Martens said he was a talented agent who supervised a team of employees in Greensboro. "He had a good reputation – a very good reputation," Chris Swecker, now an attorney, told Fox News Digital. "He was in the Greensboro office of the FBI for a good while. I believe he was the supervisory resident agent up in Greensboro, which meant he was in charge of maybe 15 or 20 agents in a pretty active office in the Bureau." Swecker added that Thomas Martens would have had plenty of experience conducting interrogations, and that would have helped him as police interrogated him in Corbett's killing. "Without a doubt," Swecker said when asked if Thomas Martens' professional experience would help him in an interrogation. "He knows where the interrogator is going when he asks a question and… the piece of evidence or point he's trying to extract from him. It's a chess game, if you're trying to protect yourself and your daughter, for example." GET REAL-TIME UPDATES AT THE FOX NEWS TRUE CRIME HUB The former FBI agent described Corbett's killing as "one of those cases where you wonder if you ever really get the answers, and there's only two people that will ever know, and it's Tom and his daughter."
Daily Mail
04-06-2025
- General
- Daily Mail
I woke up in my childhood bedroom with the house full of police and covered in blood - what my stepmother had done turned my life upside-down
A young woman has spoken out about her stepmother's violent killing of her father - which saw her wake up to her childhood home full of police and covered in blood. Sarah Corbett Lynch, 18, appeared on This Morning today, sitting down with presenters Ben Shepherd, 50, and Cat Deeley, 48, to tell all about her experience. It came after a documentary about her ordeal, titled A Deadly American Marriage, was released on Netflix last month, which she features in. She has also written a memoir, called A Time For Truth, about her experience, which came out earlier this year. Her appearance on the ITV chat show saw her recall the night of her father Jason Corbett's death in August 2015, at the hands of his wife Molly Martens and her father Thomas Martens. From A-list scandals and red carpet mishaps to exclusive pictures and viral moments, subscribe to the DailyMail's new Showbiz newsletter to stay in the loop. Sarah explained to Ben and Cat: 'I remember everything from that night.' She recalled being woken up by a kind police officer, who gave her two options: 'I could walk down the stairs backwards with my eyes closed or he could carry me down the stairs with my eyes closed.' The house was full with the sound of police officers - which fell suddenly silent when they reached the bottom of the stairs: 'There were dozens of people inside the house... 'As he carried me down the stairs, he covered my face with his hand and put my head in the nape of his neck.' He was shielding her from the grisly, violent scene that lay below - Jason, then 39, had been beaten to death by Molly and her former FBI agent father. Sarah said: 'I'm extremely lucky for the fact that he did that and I couldn't have asked for a better officer to have been there with me.' Originally from Ireland, Sarah was born to businessman Jason and his first wife Margaret Fitzpatrick, known as Mags - who sadly died when Sarah was just twelve weeks old. The widower, then 32, hired American 24-year-old Molly as a live-in nanny two years later to take care of Sarah and her older brother Jack, then aged one and three. Jason and Molly (pictured, in an old picture shown in the Netflix documentary) soon fell in love, marrying in 2011, with the whole family relocating from Limerick, Ireland, to North Carolina in the US when Sarah was just four Jason and Molly soon fell in love, marrying in 2011, with the whole family relocating from Limerick, Ireland, to North Carolina in the US when Sarah was just four. Sarah said the move was 'really exciting at the beginning... The weather was great, the houses were huge and I remember running around my new bedroom, really excited. 'And Molly and my dad hand in hand picking out furniture and pointing where they were going to put it, so at the beginning, it was like a new beginning. 'She cooked us dinner, my dad would take us to school and she'd collect us.' But things soon turned sour: 'Most of my memories looking back on it now, it probably wasn't a healthy relationship. 'Molly was very manipulative and would pit me and Jack against each other.' She explained: 'If Jack did good at a swim meet, he was the favourite child and she would give him all of the glory and then I would be "the little shrimp", as she used to call me, when I didn't do well in swimming.' Sarah added: 'Molly started telling me that my dad killed my birth mum when I was six years old. She told me my dad was a bad man. 'Molly also taught me that vomiting was OK to keep myself skinny for swimming when I was six and that shoplifting was OK.' The atmosphere at home 'was always tense', with Sarah always feeling 'a ball of anxiety': 'But it was our normal.' She emphasised: 'My dad was always extremely loving to me and Jack and he did try his best with Molly, bringing her flowers home. 'It was really difficult to keep Molly happy and if you didn't, you knew about it.' Following their father's death, Sarah and Jack were soon called in for interviews. But Molly told them beforehand: 'We had to say dad was a bad man and he hit her and if we didn't say those things, we would be separated and we'd never see each other again. 'So, we were really scared and we lied - I told social workers that Molly told me my dad hit her and Molly told me my dad was a bad man.' The siblings recanted those statements just weeks later - but they were nevertheless brought up in court, which saw Molly and her father Tom have their charges dropped from second-degree murder to voluntary manslaughter. They were both released from prison in June 2024. Molly, now 41, and Thomas, 75, still say they killed in self-defence, amid a pattern of abusive, threatening behaviour from Jason towards Molly. Sarah said: 'We have to live with the fact that words we said are part of the reason why the Martens are walking free today.' And her memoir was a chance to tell the truth: 'We didn't have a voice. I wasn't allowed to give evidence. I wasn't allowed to be a character witness. 'I was under a gag order so I couldn't even talk to my friends or family or media. 'And it was extremely difficult because you can't defame the dead so the Martens could say anything about my dad.' It was difficult to hear this 'completely fabricated narrative about my dad's personality': 'That really shows the character of the people that the Martens are.' After their father's death, Sarah and Jack moved back to Ireland to live with their aunt and uncle Tracey and David, who she now calls her parents. Sarah described it as 'the best thing that happened to me... I was put into a safe family environment and I was extremely lucky. 'Tracey and David took us in like we were their own kids. They have never treated us differently. They have two of their own sons who I now call my brothers. 'And another thing was they never said a bad thing about the Martens.' It was to the extent that several years ago, Sarah said: 'I was begging Tracey to say something negative about Molly and she said, "I don't like that woman, she killed my brother", and that was it.' Molly and Thomas's initial convictions, for second-degree murder, in 2017 - for which they were sentenced to 20 to 25 years in prison - were overturned in 2020, over errors in and omission of evidence. The Martens reached a plea deal in October 2023 to drop the second-degree murder charges, with Molly pleading no contest and Thomas guilty to voluntary manslaughter - getting a minimum of 51 months in prison and credit for time served. Sarah and Jack had had no contact with them up to this point - 'other than Molly trying to fly planes over our school and going on social media, trying to contact friends of mine I sat next to in school'. But it was then Sarah was finally able to contribute to the evidence process, reading out a victim impact statement. She said: 'I wasn't afraid of them anymore. They had taken up so much space in my life and I didn't want to give them the power over me anymore. 'I've cried a lot less since writing the book because I took all of my childhood trauma and everything bad that happened to me and put it into it.' She finished: 'People who are going through similar, really difficult situations, know that: you will be able to find the light at the end of the tunnel and have a normal life. 'Everybody has good and bad days, whether they've been through traumatic experiences or not.'
Irish Daily Mirror
20-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Irish Daily Mirror
A Deadly American Marriage on Netflix: Where is Molly Martens now?
New Netflix hit documentary, A Deadly American Marriage, is quickly becoming a favourite with true crime enthusiasts all over the world. A Deadly American Marriage tells the real life story of the killing of 39 year-old Irish father-of-two, Jason Corbett, in his home in North Carolina in 2015. Jason's wife, Molly Martens Corbett, and his father-in-law, Thomas Martens, were both found guilty of second degree murder in 2017. However, their convictions were later overturned on appeal and, following plea bargains, the murder charges were dropped and Molly Martens pleaded no contest to a charge of voluntary manslaughter while Tom Martens pleaded guilty to the same charge. Molly Martens Corbett and Thomas Martens were both released from prison in 2024. The case was widely covered at the time by The Irish Mirror. In fact, award winning Irish Mirror journalist, Nicola Donnelly, exclusively revealed in early December 2023, that prison records showed both Molly Martens Corbett and her father, Thomas Martens were set to walk in that month - after only serving a month behind bars- as our front page on Monday, December 4, 2023 showed. On seeing both their prison records showed Thomas was to be released on Tuesday, December 5, 2023 and Molly on Wednesday, December 6, 2023, The Irish Mirror contacted the Department of Adult Correction in North Carolina who confirmed the release dates were correct. But hours later, red-faced prison officials admitted to a mix up due to 'human error' and reversed their embarrassing error on their release dates which then prevented the pair from walking free. Molly Martens is now 41 years-old and in 'A Deadly American Marriage' she insists both she and her father were fighting for lives the night Limerick father-of-two, Jason Corbett died. 'I was going to save her life or die trying and I have no regrets," said Thomas Martens. In the lead-up to the premiere of 'A Deadly American Marriage', Molly's brother Connor Martens told WBIR-TV in Knoxville Tennessee, that his sister was "doing really well" and she was close to finishing a university degree. Connor said his father was also 'doing really well' and was 'just so grateful for all the small things in life". "Molly definitely has elements of that but it's harder for her. She's in kind of the thick of her life and she's not retired, and there's been a lot more media scrutiny and harassment and she struggles a little bit more with the trauma, but overall I think she's really grateful and she's doing really well, all things considered," he said. 'A Deadly American Marriage' is currently streaming on Netflix.
