Martens bedded Corbett on the day she arrived in Ireland as part of twisted plot to get custody of kids
The beautiful blonde, then aged 24, had arrived in Ireland in March 2008, just four weeks after leaving a psychiatric unit in Atlanta, Georgia.
Corbett (31) had lost his first wife, Margaret ‘Mags’ Fitzpatrick, 15 months before Molly’s arrival.
Martens seduced Corbett within four hours as the first step in what detectives and US prosecutors believe was a pre-determined plan to ultimately take custody of his two children.
Molly Martens Corbett and Jason Corbet
The couple moved to America and married in 2011. Four years later, Corbett was beaten to death with a baseball bat and brick in the master bedroom of his North Carolina home by Molly and her father, former FBI agent, Tom Martens,
Detectives and prosecutors in North Carolina believe Molly Martens planned from the outset to take Jason’s children from him. The details are revealed in A Deadly Marriage, a new book about the killing, which will be published by Penguin on August 21.
As co-producer of A Deadly American Marriage, the hit film viewed 32 million times on Netflix, I spent several years researching the case. The book reveals fresh leads in the killing, a new witness, evidence which appears to have been removed from the crime scene, and a significant twist — previously undisclosed forensic findings, which question whether, ten years after the killing, justice was ever really served.
Jason Corbett and Molly Martens on their wedding day in 2011
The Martens claimed they acted in self-defence when striking Corbett at least 12 times with a Louisville Slugger baseball bat and a brick; that Molly was the victim of domestic violence, and that Jason had been choking her on the night.
They would go on to allege that Jason killed his first wife by strangling her, and that they believed he would kill Molly next.
A North Carolina court heard in 2023 the unanimous verdict of experts for both Molly and Tom Martens and the prosecution that Mags Fitzpatrick did not die due to complications arising from an asthma attack, as previously determined by an Irish pathologist.
However, US detectives, prosecutors, the Corbett and Fitzpatrick families have all dismissed the Martens’ allegation that Jason may have killed his first wife as totally unfounded.
Molly Martens and Tom Martens
The Fitzpatrick family said Jason remained a loved and cherished member of their family long after Mags, his ‘soulmate’, had died.
The lead detectives investigating the killing of Jason Corbett — Michael Hurd, Brandon Smith,and Lt Wanda Thompson — all believed the bloody crime scene did not match claims from the Martens’ that Jason had been choking Molly on the night and that they acted in self-defence.
The back left and right sides of Jason’s skull were crushed from repeated blows.
Martens’s seduction of Corbett is revealed in a tranche of investigative case notes from detectives, prosecutors, and social workers, and in witness statements from Molly and Jason’s neighbours in Meadowlands, North Carolina.
Jason Corbett and Molly Martens Corbett with Jack and Sarah Corbett-Lynch
Lt Thompson’s notes record: “Ms [Tracey] Lynch said her brother told her he started a sexual relationship with Molly Martens on the very first night she arrived in Ireland. She said Jason told her at one point that he had been so lonely and distraught over the loss of Mags that he welcomed Molly Martens into his home and bed to try and fill the void.”
Molly and Tom Martens, meanwhile, had no injuries, and apart from some bloodstained clothes, they showed no sign of having been in a ‘fight for their lives’, as they had described events to detectives hours after the killing.
When detectives learned that Martens slept with Corbett on her first night in Ireland, they viewed it as potentially highly significant, especially when they later discovered that she had spent several days in a secure psychiatric unit in Atlanta, Georgia, just four weeks before she arrived in Ireland to care for Jason’s children, Jack, then three, and Sarah, then 18 months old.
Molly, left, swears on the bible as she pleads no contest to voluntary manslaughter
Martens was suffering a mental health crisis, her bipolar disorder causing her to spiral out of control.
She detoxed from 15 different medications during her stay at Emory Hospital. A month later she arrived in Ireland determined to take Corbett’s children.
This pre-determined plan was confirmed years later when psychiatrist, Dr David Adams, assessed Molly prior to a sentencing hearing in November 2023.
He found Molly’s plan all along — from soon after she arrived in Ireland to work as an au pair — was to take his children.
A young Molly Martens
“The primary focus of her (Molly’s) existence before she married Jason Corbett was to adopt these two children, then divorce him and then have custody rights of the two children,” he said.
Martens consulted a divorce attorney months before marrying Jason to find out her rights to the two children should she divorce the widower.
Corbett paid $25,000 for Molly’s infertility treatments, but she could not have children of her own. He would not allow her to adopt his children, fearful this would give her a legal right to custody of Jack and Sarah should they divorce.
After her marriage, Martens consulted three separate attorneys specialising in family law and custody disputes about her rights to Jack and Sarah. On the advice of one of these attorneys, Melissa Sams, Molly began secretly recording her husband, hiding recording devices throughout the house, including in the master bedroom where Corbett was killed.
Molly Martens
Martens claimed she made the recordings to prove that she was a victim of domestic violence.
Detectives believed there were up to 150 hours of secret recordings and there was a possibility that the killing itself was recorded. However, the District Attorney for Davidson County, Garry Frank, was only provided with two audio recordings, neither of which featured physical violence, just raised voices and arguing.
Lieutenant Thompson, the head of Davidson County’s Criminal Investigations Division, told me that they concluded Molly Martens was orchestrating events to catch Jason losing his temper on the recordings, so that she could apply for an emergency custody order: “Molly put recording devices around the house, but in eight months, all she produced was two tapes.”
Molly Martens-Corbett being led from court after being found guilty of the murder of Jason Corbett. Photo: Donnie Roberts
Molly and Tom Martens were both convicted of second-degree murder and sentenced to 20 years in prison in 2017. Their convictions were overturned on appeal in 2020, on the grounds that the original trial jury should have heard allegations made by Jack and Sarah that their father ‘punched, pushed, and shoved Molly’. The North Carolina Supreme Court ruled that Jason Corbett was the ‘sole aggressor’ on the night.
The children had made these allegations against their father to several social workers while they were kept in the custody of their father’s killers for 15 days after the killing.
When a US court granted custody to Jason’s sister, Tracey Lynch, the children returned to Ireland, and months later, recanted all their allegations. They said Molly coached them into making false allegations against their father.
Davidson County’s District Attorney chose not to have a retrial, and instead entered into a plea deal with Molly and Tom Martens. They accepted the lesser charge of voluntary manslaughter.
A Deadly Marriage
‘A Deadly Marriage’ by Brian Carroll is published by Sandycove, an imprint of Penguin Random House, and is available online and in stores from 21st August.