The Jason Corbett manslaughter hearing has been told by a medical expert that Mr Corbett's first wife Margaret did not die from asthma in Limerick in 2006.
A pathology expert called by the state prosecutors to rebut two defence experts claims about the cause of Mrs Corbett's death said Irish medical reports did not show any cause of death.
Dr George Nicholls, a veteran forensic pathologist and former chief pathologist of the State of Kentucky, told Assistant District Attorney Alan Martin that he had received and reviewed a post-mortem examination report, a coroner's report and medical records from Limerick over the summer, to give evidence for the prosecution.
Asked if he agreed with the pathology report that described the cause of death as an acute cardio respiratory attack following acute bronchospasm in a known asthmatic, Dr Nichols said he did not agree.
He said fatal asthma attacks are marked by over inflation of the lungs due to an inability of gas to escape.
Dr Nichols said the two-page pathology report from Limerick made no mention of the state of the lungs, nor was the upper respiratory tract removed and manually assessed by the pathologist.
Because of that he rejected the claim that Ms Corbett died from an asthma attack.
Asked about claims made by two defence expert witness reports on the same material, which said it was possible Ms Corbett's death was due to homicide, Dr Nichols said it was possible.
Dr Nichols then listed a whole series of tests and checks that had not been recorded in the pathology report. He said: "We have nothing to indicate the cause of death of this woman."
He added that there was no information in the report to indicate any sign of choking or asphyxiation.
Dr Nicholls also rejected defence expert testimony on an alleged strangulation attempt on Molly Martens Corbett the night Mr Corbett was killed.
He said one of the experts had taken what is possible and made it into something plausibly probable without any basis in science.
Mr Corbett, who was originally from Limerick, was beaten to death at his North Carolina home in 2015.
Manslaughter case hears voice recording of Jason Corbett
Earlier, the case heard the voice of the late Mr Corbett.
A secret recording made by his wife, Martens Corbett, on Pancake Day in 2015, detailed a family argument over dining arrangements.
In the recording, Mr Corbett is heard complaining that, despite his request in a phone call to his wife to prepare a meal for him and his children when he returned home from work, she had fed the children earlier and taken them to play in the snow.
Mr Corbett and Martens Corbett raise their voices at several points in the recording. Also heard on the tape are the voices of Mr Corbett's children, Jack and Sarah.
At several points, the children appeal to their parents to stop arguing. At one point, Mr Corbett stands up abruptly and a loud crash is heard.
Jack tells his father to be careful of the chairs, since they are expensive. Mr Corbett remarks that they cost $100 each.
"I know - I paid for them," he said.
Family finances and work finances appear to have been stress points for Mr Corbett.
The secret recording was played to the court by defence lawyers for Martens Corbett, who said it corroborated evidence presented earlier.
Martens Corbett was referring to interviews made by an investigating social worker with the Corbett children two days after the killing of Mr Corbett, and videotaped interviews with the children made six days after the killing, in which both children detailed allegations of domestic violence and arguments between their parents.
Those video interviews, made at Dragonfly House, a specialist child assessment centre, were played to the court yesterday.
The district attorney's office, which is prosecuting the case, introduced recantation statements made by the Corbett children after they had returned to Ireland in 2015, and again in 2021, after the Appeals Court in North Carolina had ordered a retrial.
In the recantation statements, both children said they did not see their father hit Martens Corbett, or engage in abusive behaviours.
They both said they loved their father, and Jack said he never felt unsafe when his dad was in the house.
There was intense argument between defence and prosecution lawyers over the secret recording evidence, with prosecutors from the District Attorney’s office stating they were aware that more such recordings existed.
Following submissions about whether the children had been coached or conditioned to say things that favoured Martens Corbett and or her father Tom Martens in their interviews with social workers in the days immediately after the death of their father, Judge David Hall said there were indications that proved both the accuracy of what they said, and of coaching, either direct or indirect.
But, on balance, he said that he found there was not enough time to successfully coach such young children in such a detailed presentation of facts.
He also said that, if the prosecution were alleging that the children could have been coached or influenced to make statements in the course of four or five days, then that also applied to the recantation statements that were made from the other side of the ocean months and years after the death of Mr Corbett.
