On August 2nd, 2015, Limerick man Jason Corbett was bludgeoned to death by his wife, Molly Martens, and his father-in-law, Thomas Martens, in the couple’s North Carolina home. Jason’s sister, Tracey Corbett Lynch, has written a book about her brother’s life, death and the painful fight she faced after the murder to gain custody of Jason’s children, Jack and Sarah. She co-wrote the book with journalist Ralph Riegel. They both joined Miriam O’Callaghan.
Tracey described Jason as a “super brother”, a “generous and kind and loving” person. She recounted his first day at school. There were four sets of twins starting that day and The Limerick Leader came to take a picture of the unusual event. Jason posed with his brother Wayne.
“Jason was just, you know, always good fun and a glass half full kind of person”.
Jack and Sarah were born during Jason’s first marriage to a woman named Mags, who died at a young age from an asthma attack.
“He was just totally bowled over by her. He was besotted. I remember him telling me like, this is the one.”
Molly Martens was an au pair employed by Jason after Mags’ death.
“He wanted structure and stability for Jack and Sarah and he had responsibilities. You know, he had a job he needed to go back to.”
Tracey told Miriam that initially, she liked Molly.
“We had some shared interests in reading…I tried to include her in my circle of friends. We spent time together…I did like her at the start.”
This wasn’t to last, Tracey explained. She realised that Molly had a habit of lying about things, things she had done or qualifications she had. Tracey shrugged it off at first, thinking it was Molly’s way of ingratiating herself with people.
“She would make up these stories and tell people. If they were, you know, a hairdresser, she was a hairdresser. But in and of themselves they weren’t…you know, we thought it was kind of trying to get closer to us.”
But on Jason and Molly’s wedding day, the lies reached a tipping point. Molly had told people that she had held Mags’ hand as she died from cancer and that Mags had asked her to take care of Jack and Sarah if anything ever happened to her. In reality, they had never met.
“The alarm bells started to ring when the bridesmaid at the rehearsal dinner had told that story about Mags asking Molly to look after the kids, which was completely untrue.”
Ralph explained that Molly had been diagnosed with Bipolar Disorder before she arrived in Ireland. He stressed that while many people with the condition lead “happy, fulfilled” lives, Molly’s treatment was not succeeding at that time.
“Molly had been in a psychiatric clinic in Atlanta, Georgia, just weeks before she had travelled to Ireland to take care of Jack and Sarah.”
Ralph told Miriam that before the murder, Molly had engaged in “a very deliberate campaign” to isolate Jason from his family and friends. A few weeks after the wedding, unbeknownst to Jason, she approached a divorce lawyer and asked about getting custody of Jack and Sarah. Tracey believes that Jason was planning to leave Molly and return to Ireland.
“Everybody would have been aware that Jason was coming back in our circle. But he wouldn’t have told Molly up to the point that he was leaving.”
On the day Jason was murdered, Tracey described “losing control” upon hearing the news and trying to contact Molly to understand what had happened. When she got through to Molly’s mother, she told her “the first version of many stories”, that Jason had fallen and hit his head during a drunken argument with Molly.
“She was very, very cold. I could feel those alarm bells just starting to kind of ring. She wouldn’t answer my questions and when I asked was there an arrest, was Molly arrested, she just completely turned to ice and hung up the phone.”
A post-mortem revealed that Jason had been bludgeoned with a brick and metal baseball bat. Ralph explained that a blood spatter expert concluded that the first blow occurred when Jason was lying in bed, presumably asleep. He had traces of the drug Trazadone, a sedative, in his system.
“Which completely demolishes any argument that there was a confrontation or whatever…There was clearly an attempt to drug Jason and then he was attacked when he was helpless and asleep in bed.”
Tracey took Miriam through the harrowing process of trying to navigate the legal system in a foreign country, all while being “totally shut down by the Martens”, who were trying to paint Jason in a negative light. Molly and Tom Martens were eventually convicted of second-degree murder.
“Jason was just so kind and caring. He loved Molly and I think he tried to save Molly. All the things that they were claiming were just so out of character. Looking back now, I think they took all of their own characteristics and reflected them and tried to make out Jason was this person and nothing could be further from the truth.”
Listen back to the full interview on Sunday with Miriam here.