The sentencing hearing in the Jason Corbett manslaughter case has heard strongly contested evidence of domestic violence in the marriage of Molly Martens Corbett and Jason Corbett.
Evidence from Sharon Martens, Molly Martens Corbett's mother, was described as not credible by a District Attorney.
Mr Corbett, a 39-year-old father-of-two from Limerick, was found dead at his home in North Carolina in August 2015.
Molly Martens Corbett's defence lawyer read extracts from a statement Sharon Martens had given to police the night Mr Corbett was killed.
In it, she told Detective Nathan Riggs of the Davidson Country Sheriffs Office that her daughter and son-in-law had always fought in their marriage, but said her daughter insisted it was always verbal, not violent.
In her statement to police, Sharon Martens said: "Molly knew I would be hysterical if I knew he was hitting her."
However, she was suspicious, especially when Mr Corbett’s children told her they had seen the couple physically violent. She told police the children said they had seen their father grab Molly Martens and push her into a wall in the house.
Hidden phone number
Sharon Martens said she had trained the children to call her with a phone number she had hidden on the bottom of a wooden doll in a spare bedroom, with a code word to use so she could alert police in case of a violent attack.
She said she had practiced the procedure with the children and told Detective Riggs where to find the hidden phone number.
The statement from Detective Riggs said he had gone upstairs to the guest bedroom and found the phone number written in black marker pen on the bottom of a large Russian doll. Photographs were shown in court of this.
On the night of Jason Corbett's death, Sharon Martens told Detective Riggs she had heard her daughter screaming and dogs barking.
Her husband Tom ran upstairs with a baseball bat, and said he would restore calm or call the police.
She said the noise stopped after a few minutes, and she fell asleep again, not waking again until a policeman entered her room with the two children and asked her to mind them.
Assistant District Attorney Marissa Parker told the court that Sharon Martens had only ever made one statement – that given to Detective Riggs. She had never been compelled to appear at the original trial, and had never made herself available for further questioning.
Ms Parker said the state never had any opportunity to cross examine Sharon Martens and if it had done so would have concentrated on a number of points.
Ms Parker said Sharon Martens statement that "I wasn’t aware of any physical violence", and her subsequent statements that she suspected there was physical violence against her daughter by Jason Corbett, was more about her state of mind on the night of Mr Corbett’s death.
The Assistant DA also said she would point to the unreasonableness of Sharon Martens actions on the night Jason Corbett was killed.
She said that if a mother suspected her daughter was being physically assaulted by her husband, and had been awakened by commotion upstairs, and heard her daughter screaming, and her husband Tom Martens had rushed upstairs with a baseball bat to sort it out, it was simply not credible that Sharon Martens would just turn over and go back to sleep.
Ms Parker said that if given the opportunity she would have cross examined Ms Martens on the reasonableness of her actions as a mother. Because she had not been cross examined, the Assistant DA asked Judge David Hall not give any weight to the statement Sharon Martens made to police.
Ms Parker also said she would have cross examined Ms Martens on her presence at the Dragonfly social care facility, where the Corbett children were interviewed by social workers after the killing.
Ms Parker said Ms Martens had tried to "manipulate" the interview process to get the older son, Jack interviewed first, not the younger daughter Sarah. She said this would become more significant when the sentencing hearing comes to consider the children’s statements in detail.
Earlier, the hearing was told by defence lawyers acting for Martens Corbett that they will present evidence and witnesses to the court that will call into question the cause of death of Mr Corbett's first wife.
Martens Corbett had come to believe that her husband had killed his first wife and was fearful that the same fate would befall her, the Lexington County Superior Court in North Carolina was told.
The claim was made by Douglas Kingsberry, defence counsel for Martens Corbett, who said there was evidence that Mr Corbett's first wife Margaret did not die of asthma in 2006, and that she may have been strangled.
He told the court that Martens Corbett had "confided to multiple witnesses that she believed Jason had killed his first wife, and that a similar fate would befall her".
He said defence witnesses would say that homicide by strangulation was possible.
Defence counsel for Tom Martens, Martens Corbett's father, said that his client did not deny hitting Mr Corbett with a baseball bat, nor did he deny causing his death.
He said his client did not deny anything, but said the question the court had to answer was: "Why"? Why would a law graduate, a 30-year veteran of the FBI, and someone with top level security clearance do such a thing?"
He said Martens lost control, but when asked why in an interview at Davidson Country Sheriff's Office, he said: "I can't really explain what it's like seeing your daughter being strangled."
Mr Kingberry also told the court he would introduce evidence that had been excluded from the first trial.
This includes statements taken by social workers from the children of Mr Corbett, which he said present a pattern of abusive behaviour towards Martens Corbett by Mr Corbett.
The hearing then moved to review evidence, starting with a 14-minute recording of the emergency (911) call placed by Martens on the night of Mr Corbett's killing.
In the recording, Martens says he hit his son-in-law with a baseball bat and may have killed him.
He and Martens are then directed to carry out CPR by the response dispatcher, until an emergency team arrived and took over.
The court also heard in person testimony from Lieutenant Clayton Dagenhardt of the Davidson County Sheriff's Department, who responded to the emergency call and described what he found at the crime scene.
Earlier yesterday morning, the special court sitting was told that Martens Corbett and Martens had agreed a plea deal with prosecutors to accept a lesser manslaughter charge over the killing of the Limerick man.
In return for the guilty plea, prosecutors from the district attorney’s office dropped second degree murder charges against Martens and Martens Corbett.
The two accused have maintained they acted in self-defence in hitting Mr Corbett and that they feared for their lives.
Judge David Hall now must decide on what sentence to impose on the father and daughter and must hear arguments from both sides.
Prosecutors are expected to argue that there was an aggravating factor in the manslaughter in that Mr Corbett's children were present in the house on the night he was killed.
This is now a statutory aggravating factor in North Carolina, but that was not the case at the time of the killing.
Defence lawyers will maintain there were mitigating factors that should be taken into account. The judge said that a defendant with the worst record could face up to 204 months or 17 years in prison.
He suggested sentence in this case could range, depending on whether he found ultimately that there was aggravated factors or extreme mitigation, from imprisonment to probation.
Martens entered a no-contest plea on a charge of voluntary manslaughter in relation to the death of her husband.
She was told by the judge that the justice system would take this to mean a guilty plea, and she would be regarded as a felon.
Martens pleaded guilty to a charge of voluntary manslaughter.
The plea agreement means there will not be a retrial in front of a jury in the case, which was ordered by the Supreme Court in North Carolina after it upheld an appeals court ruling that quashed earlier convictions.
A spokesman for the Corbett family said they would be making no comment during the hearing. The sentencing hearing could run for several days.
