Violence in home of Molly Martens and Jason Corbett recounted by witnesses
Further evidence of arguments and violence in the home of Jason Corbett and Molly Martens was given in court yesterday.
A superior court in North Carolina is holding a sentencing hearing in relation to Ms Martens and her father Thomas Martens.
They have pleaded guilty to voluntary manslaughter of Jason Corbett in August 2015 after their original conviction for murder was overturned.
Mr Corbett, a 39-year-old man from Limerick, and a father of two from a previous marriage, was found beaten to death with a metal baseball bat and a concrete slab at the family home in North Carolina.
Friends and neighbours gave testimony yesterday detailing arguments, physical violence and controlling behaviour in the Corbett’s marriage.
Witnesses spoke of late night phone calls, in which rows could be heard, and personal conversations with Ms Martens as well as displays of anger and controlling behaviour by Mr Corbett.
Shannon Grubb who knew the Corbett family, said that on August 1, 2015, a day before Jason Corbett was killed, she saw Molly Martens bleeding from an ear injury, and Ms Martens told her that she and Jason Corbett had been in a fight.
“I said that this cannot continue,” Grubb said. “She's going to get hurt or worse than that if this abuse goes on. She said she would not leave the kids.”
Grubb said she received a phone call from Molly Corbett’s phone on October 12, 2014. Grubb said she heard Jason’s and Molly’s voices amid screaming and yelling.
A worried Grubb hung up four minutes later. The next day, Grubb talked to Molly Corbett, who said she was embarrassed by the incident.
Grubb encouraged Molly Martens to get help in dealing with her husband. Ms Martens replied that she was coping with many factors, and that she would never leave Jason’s son and daughter.
“It was a lot to process,” Grubb said about the couple’s relationship.
When she was asked did she have fears for Ms Martens' safety. Grubb replied "yes".
Melissa Sams, a family law attorney who lives Wallburg, said she recalled that Molly Martens had dressed up for a social event. Sams told her friend that she looked nice, and Ms Martens replied that her husband told her that she looked like a whore.
“Jason screamed at her a lot and called her names,” Sams said.
Molly Martens asked Sams for legal advice as she was considering divorcing Jason Corbett, Sams said.
Sams encouraged her to meet with a family law attorney in Winston-Salem who specialized in cases involving stepparents, Sams said.
Helen McCormac told the court that Mr Corbett would control what she was wearing and that she once heard him on a phone call to his wife “screaming down the line” and calling her a “bitch”.
A friend of Ms Martens, Billie June Jacobs, said that when they were out for a walk there would be frequent phone calls and texts from Mr Corbett demanding to know where she was and who she was with.
Ms Jacobs said that sometimes she could hear him “yelling” down the phone even without the speakerphone on and that he called her names. She told the court:
She said Ms Martens had said she had concerns over the death of Mr Corbett’s first wife and felt that things were happening to her that she thought were the same as happened to Margaret Corbett.
Ms Jacobs said Ms Martens told her that when they were having sex Mr Corbett would cover her face with a pillow or would strangle her.
She said she passed out on a number of occasions and worried that she would never wake up one day.
She said Ms Martens believed something similar had happened to his first wife.
The testimony came during a week in which the trial heard claims that Ms Corbett did not die from asthma as documented in the Irish autopsy report.
A medical expert, who was commissioned by the prosecution, said it was possible that the death of Ms Corbett in 2006 could have been a homicide.
Dr George Nichols said the findings of the autopsy report were “completely wrong”.
Ms Martens’ counsel has told the court that her client believed that Ms Corbett had been killed and that the same fate could befall her.
Dr Nichols, a former chief medical examiner in Kentucky said Ms Corbett had received treatment for asthma in Ireland.
He said she had died in the family car on the way to hospital, but told the court that she “did not die from an asthma attack”.
He said that while the manner of death was undetermined it was possible that it was as a result of homicide.
The hearing previously heard claims that Mr Corbett had forced Ms Martens to have sex, during which he allegedly placed his hands over her mouth and nose until she passed out.
Investigative social worker Sheila Tyler told the court that she interviewed Ms Martens the day after Mr Corbett was killed in August 2015.
She told Davidson County Superior Court the claims Ms Martens had made to her in the interview: "He would force her to have sex and that when they were having sex he would place his hand over her mouth and nose so that she couldn’t breathe.
“Each time he would keep his hand over her a little bit longer. She passed out and she didn’t know how long she was out for.”
Prosecutors have told the court that Ms Martens "has struggled with and has had a very complicated relationship with the truth" in her life.
Ms Martens and her father served three and a half years of a 20-25 year sentence for second degree murder imposed in 2017.
This conviction was quashed by North Carolina Supreme Court.
The current hearing is determining what sentence to impose, which could range from probation to nine years imprisonment.
Any prison sentence imposed will factor in the time they have already served.
Mr Corbett's children, Jack, aged 19 and Sarah, aged 17, are attending the hearings at court, accompanied by their aunt and Mr Corbett's sister and her husband.