Father and daughter freed from NC prison in twisty case of Irish businessman’s death

The father and daughter duo convicted of beating an Irish businessman to death in his Davidson County bedroom both walked free from prison Thursday, the last chapter in a murder drama that spawned heartache on both sides of the ocean.

Molly Corbett, who pleaded no contest to manslaughter last year, left NC Correctional Institution for Women in Raleigh just after sunrise. She has long insisted she acted in self-defense in 2015 when she struck Jason Corbett in the head with a brick in their bedroom.

A smiling Corbett exited the prison in a striped dress and did not speak as she entered a state corrections vehicle. She waved as the car drove away. Martens’ family declined to comment.

Three hours west in Lenoir, her father Thomas Martens also is leaving prison Thursday, having pleaded guilty to the same charge last year. A former FBI agent, Martens testified he joined the late-night melee in the Corbett bedroom and hit his son-in-law with a baseball bat to stop him from choking Martens’ daughter.

The two spent roughly four years behind bars, off and on, before Thursday’s release. Originally convicted of second-degree murder and sentenced to 25 years, they won a legal victory in 2021 when the NC Supreme Court ruled they deserved a new trial.

Both Martens and Corbett will be supervised on probation in Tennessee for a year.

A notorious, international case

The case found widespread coverage from Winston-Salem to Ireland, serving as the subject of a “20/20” true-crime segment.

The father and daughter sparked much attention and anger overseas, particularly from the Limerick native Jason Corbett’s family. His sister, Tracey Corbett Lynch, has written a pair of books about her brother’s killing and regularly assails his wife and father-in-law online.

“Molly and Tom Martens didn’t just murder my brother,” reads the prologue of “My Brother Jason.” “They didn’t just crush his skull and then cruelly wait for him to die without ringing for help. They also tried to destroy his reputation.”

Judge: ‘It makes no sense’

After their pleas last year, a judge sentenced them to at least 51 months in prison, minus the 44 they had already served.

At that hearing, Superior Court Judge David Hall asked aloud why Martens hadn’t asked his wife to call 911 before grabbing a bat, and also why he and his daughter came out without injury while the deceased was so badly beaten.

“It makes no sense,” he said, according to the Winston-Salem Journal.

An executive in the packaging industry, Jason Corbett had relocated from Ireland to North Carolina with his American wife, Molly, and two children from the marriage to his first wife, who died in 2006.

Former nanny became businessman’s wife

Formerly a nanny, Molly Corbett became romantically involved with her employer in Limerick and the couple wed in 2011.

At trial, prosecutors offered Corbett’s desire to adopt the children — Jack and Sarah — and a hefty insurance policy as a motive to kill, according to the Independent in Ireland.

“(Molly) Corbett had told a family friend that she wanted to leave him ‘because she did not love him any more and did not care what happened to him’ and that she had ‘reconnected with an old boyfriend on Facebook,’ “ the Independent reported. “She would not leave Mr Corbett, however, because she had no legal rights to her husband’s two children, it was alleged.”

Details were omitted at trial

After the Corbett and Martens convictions on murder charges, the NC Supreme Court detailed key evidence jurors never heard:

▪ First, Justice Anita Earls wrote, jurors did not hear Jack Corbett, who was then 11, explain why his mother had a brick on her nightstand. In that interview, the opinion said, he explained that he and his mother had been working on a garden project and had wanted to paint the brick until rain stalled their plans.

▪ Second, Earls wrote, Sarah Corbett, then 8, told DSS that she had a nightmare on the night of the killing, prompting her mother to rush to her bedroom and making Jason Corbett angry to have been awakened.

▪ Third, both children said their father had grown increasingly angry and physically abusive.

“Without evidence supporting their account,” Earls wrote, “it was easier for the jury to conclude that Tom and Molly had invented their story in an effort to cover up their crime and falsely assert that they acted in self-defense.”

Children later recanted

But in the sentencing hearing last year, both of Jason Corbett’s children gave impact statements undercutting this idea, the Journal reported.

Sarah Corbett, now a teen, said defense attorneys and witnesses twisted her words, while Jack Corbett admitted lying to investigators when he was 10.

“My words were weaponized to help Molly and Thomas Martens get away with killing my dad,” he said, according to the Journal.