Molly Martens Corbett and her father, Tom Martens, have agreed plea deals in the case of Jason Corbett.
They have both entered guilty pleas to manslaughter charges, in return for the District attorney dropping murder charges.
Mr Corbett, a 39-year-old business manager from Limerick, was found beaten to death in the main bedroom of his house in Lexington in 2015.
His wife Molly Martens Corbett and her father, former FBI agent Tom Martens, were later tried and convicted on charges of second degree murder and voluntary manslaughter.
Sentenced to 20 and 25 years respectively, they never denied killing Mr Corbett, but insisted they had acted in self-defence.
In 2020 an appeal court quashed the convictions and ordered a retrial, stating that some evidence that had been excluded from the original trial should have been presented to the jury. That decision was upheld by the North Carolina Supreme Court in 2021.
At a special setting of the Davidson County Superior Court earlier today, Judge David Hall accepted the plea agreements entered into by Molly Martens Corbett and Tom Martens.
A sentencing hearing followed, but is not expected to conclude for some time, as it will hear from witnesses.
Tom Martens entered a guilty plea when asked by the judge how he pleaded to the charge of class D Manslaughter.
When asked how she pleaded to the same charge, Molly Martens Corbett replied "no contest".
Judge Hall advised her that a 'no contest' plea will be regarded by the justice system as a guilty plea, and that in accepting the plea agreement she will be treated as a felon by the state.
The Assistant District Attorney, Alan Martin, told the court the state had dropped second degree murder charges against both defendants in return for their guilty pleas to the manslaughter charges.
The judge informed both defendants that in accepting the plea deal they had given up their right to trial by jury.
They had also given up the right to have a jury determine if aggravating factors existed.
The state asked the court to consider the presence of persons under the age of 18 in the house at the time of Jason Corbett's killing as an aggravating factor.
Jason Corbett's two children were asleep in the house at the time he was killed.
The presence of minors was not an aggravating factor in North Carolina law at the time of the offence, but it has been made a statutory aggravating factor since.
As a result of the plea deal, it will be up to the judge to decide if an aggravating factor existed, and how serious it was.
As this was a pre-trial hearing, no jury was selected. The case now moves to a sentencing hearing, during which a number of witnesses will be heard by the judge.
Judge Hall told the defendants that the Class D charge of manslaughter carries a sentence in a range that runs from 17 years in prison for the very worst cases, to probation if the judge finds exceptionally strong mitigating factors.
Molly Martens Corbett and Tom Martens had previously served almost three years of 20 and 25 year sentences respectively, imposed at the original trial in 2017, having been found guilty by a jury of second degree murder and manslaughter.
They appealed the conviction, and the case was quashed by an appeal court in 2020, and a new trial ordered.
The appeal court ruling was upheld by the North Carolina Supreme Court in December 2021.
After many delays a new trial was set to begin next month in the city of Winston-Salem. The guilty pleas to the manslaughter charges today end that process.
