Jason, he was an amazing human being. When he was young, he was fun, vivacious, a little bit giddy. So you're the big sister? I'm the big sister, yeah. About three and a half years. That's just enough to be able to tell him what to do. Absolutely, yeah. I don't think he always appreciated it. Jason was a 31-year-old widower with two tiny children. He decided that he needed support and decided to engage the services of an au pair. That was Molly Martins. I always knew her as kind-hearted.
She loves other people more than she loves herself. I would describe her even growing up as just remarkably altruistic. She was good with the kids. Jason started to smile a bit more. There was definitely something between them. The two of them looked very happy. Jason was always the romantic type. He shouldn't have been alone for the rest of his life. He proposed to her on Valentine's Day. The wedding was beautiful. She seemed happy. There was a lot of things changed when they moved to America. Jason starts to talk about moving home. He wasn't happy.
He said she was acting strange. He would open up and say they were having difficulties, and then he would change the subject. When they moved to the U.S., I definitely started to notice more verbal altercations and verbal abuse. Jason was yelling at Molly. He walks in that scene, a nightmare. Without Tom Martin's heroic efforts that night, Molly would be dead. They claimed that it was self-defense. So you're telling me you think that whole thing was staged? Yes, 100%. And the entire story that the two of them tell about Jason choking Molly, in your mind, that is entirely a lie? Yes.
The Martins didn't just murder Jason. They tried to destroy his character. I would have done anything I needed to do to get justice for Jason. The call came in the early morning hours of August 2nd, 2015.
Police arrived at this Winston-Salem, North Carolina home to find Jason Corbett beaten to death and his blood on his wife, Molly. They knew who did it, Molly and her father, Tom Martins. The question was why. Just hours later, Tom, a 30-year FBI veteran, explains he'd been spending the night at his daughter's home. After being awakened by a commotion upstairs, he says he grabbed a Little League baseball bat he brought as a gift for the kids and ran to her room. Tom says his protective instincts as a father instantly kicked in.
Molly told investigators the same story. She hit Jason with a paving stone that was sitting on her nightstand. In Ireland, Jason's sister, Tracy Lynch, still cannot comprehend that he died this way.
Tracy and Jason were part of a big Irish family in Limerick. She remembers her brother as a kind and caring soul. We would just spend summers in Spanish Point in County Clare, hang out, fish, just kind of normal traditional Irish upbringing really. We looked like we were different in so many ways. Jason was Wayne Corbett's twin. Would he have been the quiet one or the middle of it? No, no, no, Jason wouldn't have been quiet. You would hear him before you see him.
Jason married his first wife, Mags Fitzpatrick, when he was 27. They had two children, Jack and Sarah. They were just so happy and so excited with life and so enthusiastic about it as well. And they had Sarah and, you know, I remember them saying that their family was complete. They had their little prince and princess. But in 2006, shortly after having their second child, Jason's storybook life came to an abrupt end when Mags, a longtime asthmatic, suddenly had an attack.
Mags woke Jason to say that she was feeling wheezy and he set her up. She started to take her nebulizer and she started to get progressively worse. We found out later they called him in and told him that she had died on the ambulance on the way to the hospital. And how old was he? He was 30. So 30 years old with a two-year-old son. He had a 12-week-old daughter. With two very small children still at home, Jason Corbett had no choice but to pick up the pieces and move on after Mags died. A year and a half later, 25-year-old Molly Martins answered an ad for an au pair.
She arrived in Limerick in March 2008. I met Molly the day she arrived in the airport in Shannon. Jason's longtime friend, Lynn Shanahan. And what was your impression of her when you met her? My first thoughts and the first sentence to my own husband were, this is not what Jason needs right now. Why? The minute I saw her with the big bouncing curls, she was in her 20s, she had a big bright-colored coat, fur collar, cowboy boots, was dressed and makeup done like a pageant queen, as we would have said. She just seemed not the nannian type.
But Molly's uncle, Mike Ernest, says she was great with kids. She grew up babysitting, always loved children. Molly Martins had grown up in Knoxville, Tennessee. She dropped out of Clemson University and was looking to begin a new chapter in her life. I think, you know, she maybe was looking for something different and that this might get her involved too in something that I think she was passionate about, which is children. In Limerick, Molly instantly connected with Jason's children, three-year-old Jack and one-year-old Sarah. He liked her. She seemed gentle with the kids. We started to see, you know, a little glimpse of the old Jason coming back that he was just, you know, not so sad all the time.
That's when Jason and Molly's relationship changed from professional to personal. We went on holidays together. The two of them looked very happy. The kids were happy. And they were soon making long-term plans.
It was here at Freddy's Bistro in Limerick on Valentine's Day 2010, nearly two years after Molly Martins arrived to be an au pair, that Jason asked her to be his wife. Molly was over the moon and immediately began planning for a wedding back in the States. They came and said that they got engaged and we opened a bottle of champagne and toasted it to their future. Was he happy? He was happy. Yeah, he was. He was in love. He loved Molly. But that happiness wouldn't last for long.
Molly Corbett and Tom Martins continue to give Davidson County investigators a blow-by-blow account of what they say happened that night in that bedroom. By now, they've washed off Jason's blood. Tom claims that when he arrived earlier that evening to visit Molly and the kids, Jason was drunk. They all went to bed without incident. But hours later, Jason's daughter Sarah woke up from a nightmare. In the middle of her interview, Molly tells investigators she's in pain from the chokehold Jason had her in. They photograph her, including a red mark on the center of her neck. It's hard to see in this photo. They also take pictures of Tom.
But as Molly and Tom tell tales about Jason's abuse, Jason's family had a different story. They say Molly was the one who caused problems in the relationship for years. The person in Ireland was very different to the one that we met in Tennessee. Jason's family supported the marriage, but when they arrived in the States for the wedding, they say they noticed Molly was behaving strangely. She was just very controlling. She was angry, I would say. And for someone who was about to get married, she just wasn't herself.
She stayed in bed, curled up in a ball, didn't come out and socialise with anybody. And that, she says, wasn't the worst of it. What really set alarm bells ringing for me was when one of the bridesmaids told us before the wedding that Molly had told them that she had been friends with Mags, Jack and Sarah's mother, before she died of cancer. Mags didn't die of cancer, she died of an asthma attack. And of course, Molly never knew Mags. Jason's family was beginning to wonder if he was making a mistake by marrying Molly. And I said, you're the most unhappiest married man I've ever seen on his wedding day. Jason's best friend and groomsman, Paul Dillon, thought he should walk away. And I asked him to just leave her and just get on the plane and go home. And he said he can't, he made the commitment. This man believes the Corbett's had a reason to be concerned. My name's Keith McGinn and Molly Martins is my former fiance.
Molly had been engaged to another man, who says they were still together when she left for Ireland to become Jason's au pair. She had a lot of things going on. She had migraines. She had insomnia. She basically spent a lot of time just soaking in the bathtub, sometimes just crying on the bathroom floor.
Keith claims both he and Molly struggled with mental health issues that he describes in a self-published book written before Jason died. He gave us no records to back that up, although Molly's medical records from years after her time with Keith show that she was diagnosed with depression. Her brother Connor is reluctant to talk about it. Much has been said about Molly's mental health. Are you comfortable addressing that? I don't want to come out on that.
At the time of the wedding, according to Molly's family, all was well, and she was happy to be walking down the aisle with Jason. She looked very happy, and she looked like she was very happy to be getting married. Jason was able to get a job transfer with a packaging company he'd worked for in Ireland. He and Molly settled into the suburbs of Winston-Salem, where Molly got a job as a part-time swim instructor, but spent most of her time with Jack and Sarah. I was concerned for Jason and his children. He had moved to lock, stock and barrel from Ireland, packed up his whole life, sold his house, gave up his job, and was on the cusp of a new life.
Well, my impression was that things seemed to be okay. I don't know if they seemed to be great. I did see occasions where there seemed like there were issues coming up. After four years, Molly was closer to the children than ever and considered them her own. But her relationship with Jason was in trouble. Jason started to talk about moving home. He wasn't happy. Did he say why he wasn't happy? A lot of it was down to the relationship with Molly. She was acting strange. There was things occurring that he wasn't comfortable with. And he missed Ireland, wanted to move back. But he knew and said that there would be huge difficulty in him coming back once Molly found out. And the kids at this point, they call her mom? Yes. She is their mother? Yes.
Molly had always wanted to officially become Jack and Sarah's mother, but Jason would not allow it. He didn't want to take the only mother they'd ever known away from them, but he wouldn't allow her to adopt them. Yes. Why? Because of what she had said about Megs and because of her erratic behavior. She waited until just before the wedding and then all these stories came out. So when we spoke, he said he just couldn't. How could he go ahead and allow Molly to adopt the children when he had all these issues of trust?
Now with Jason dead, police ask Molly about his family. Jason's decision not to allow her to adopt Jack and Sarah hits hard. The thought of losing the children is more than Molly can bear, but investigators offer Molly a light at the end of a dark tunnel. Tracy says when she got the horrible news of Jason's death, she knew it could not have been self-defense. Jason was a gentle person. As Molly and Tom claimed. I kept drinking Molly. She wouldn't return my calls. Her parents completely stonewalled us. I got 30 seconds on the phone with Jack to tell him that I loved him and I was coming over to be with him.
Tracy says she was desperate to get to Jason's children as soon as possible. I was terrified. What were you terrified about? I was terrified she would kill them. You thought that Molly might kill the children? Absolutely. Years before, Jason had named Tracy legal guardian if he were to die. And Tracy knew Molly would not give up the kids without a fight. She immediately flew to North Carolina and filed for custody. Sure enough, Molly filed a motion for custody as well. No one knew what scenario was playing in Molly's head, what she thought she needed to do, or was there a chance that they would be in danger if she knew they were taking them from her?
During the troubled marriage, Molly had asked an attorney what her rights to the children would be in the event of a divorce. She also secretly recorded arguments with Jason. This friend says Molly spoke with her about Jason. So prior to his death, you never talked to her about their relationship? No. And after his death, has she talked to you much about Jason and that relationship? Yes. We agreed not to use her name or show her face. She says she's been threatened by Jason's supporters. There were, you know, some signs that things weren't right. Like what? Controlling behavior, some of the bad language and calling her names. And then it just progressively got worse. Forced sex, stuff like that.
Molly never reported any abuse to police. Molly has said that Jason was verbally abusive, had started becoming physically abusive. Do you think that any of that is possible? I don't believe any of that is true. Four days after Jason died, both of his children were interviewed by a social worker. Jack and Sarah are asked about the night their father died.
Jack even explains the odd presence of the paving stone in the bedroom. When a social worker asks the kids about their parents' relationship, both seem to support Molly's claims of abuse. But Tracy says that is not the truth. You believe that Molly or someone in the Martins family coached the children? I'm certain of it. The children were removed from Molly's care and placed with Tracy, who was staying at a hotel in North Carolina, as the custody battle waged on. Tom and Molly were allowed a visit. It would prove to be one of their last. I love you so much. I love you.
16 days after Jason was beaten to death, Tracy prevails. Jack and Sarah would be heading back to Ireland with her and away from Molly, the only mother these children have ever really known. She was very, very devastated. She could barely function. I mean, she was absolutely distraught. In the months following their return to Ireland, Tracy says that Molly repeatedly tried to contact Jack and Sarah, posting numerous messages on social media, hoping that somebody here in Limerick would pass them on to the children. Did you feel that Molly had any rights to them at all?
No, Molly had murdered their father. And that's what I firmly believed at that point. Tracy had a new battle on her hands. Justice for Jason. After the autopsy, I recall the sheriff saying that it was blunt force trauma. She was told that Jason suffered at least a dozen blows to the head. I looked at my brother in the coffin and witnessed just the devastation that one human can inflict on another.
After those first interviews, Molly and Tom heard nothing more from authorities. Despite Molly being told that the attack on Jason looked like self-defense, I don't think there's going to be any issue with that. a murder investigation actually kicked into full gear. And in January 2016, five months after Jason died, father and daughter are shocked when they are charged with second-degree murder. I mean, of course they're devastated. Tom, the FBI veteran of 30 years, would now find out what it's like to sit at a criminal defense table. They were both aware of the possibility that they might not walk out of that courtroom. Correct.
The Unsolved Mysteries podcast is back. I'm Jordan Murphy, and each week I'll take you inside a new investigation. It could be an unsolved murder, an unexplained disappearance, the search for a wanted fugitive, any mystery that still needs answers. We'll follow every new lead, every break in the case, and the moments when a mystery is finally solved. Because after all these years, one thing hasn't changed. Someone, somewhere, knows the truth. Listen to and follow Unsolved Mysteries. Available now, wherever you get your podcasts.
We were under a lot of pressure as a family and, you know, we were concerned, were they going to be charged? So it was a relief that the charges were brought. Tracy felt sure from the beginning that Molly and Tom did not kill her brother Jason in self-defense. In fact, she believes she knows the real motive. There isn't a shadow of a doubt in my mind that Jason was beaten to death because he was going to leave with the kids. Tracy says Jason's plans to move back to Ireland with Jack and Sarah, but without Molly, had finally come together. She and Lynn believe Molly found out that night.
Jason became surplus to her requirements. She didn't need him anymore. She just wanted the children. After knowing her for years, Lynn thinks Molly had been plotting to get the kids away from Jason for some time. She was playing the long game that she was telling people that he had been abusive. She had her recordings. She would have a case to get the children from him. While awaiting the trial, Tracy settled Jack and Sarah into their new home back in Ireland. They had intensive therapy, she says, and adjusted well.
Nine months after returning to Limerick, Jack recanted what he told social workers after his father was killed. Jack says he only has one motive for telling the truth now. Jack was 14 years old and Sarah was 12 when we were in Ireland. They did not want to be interviewed, but the family did allow us to take video of them. Molly Corbett and Tom Martins went on trial together in July 2017. Family and friends of both the Corbett's and the Martins turned out in force. What was it like to be so close, sitting by and in the same room with Molly and Tom?
It was very, very difficult. You're sitting there and looking at, you know, two people that had done something that was so malicious and insidious and ferocious. We thought we had evidence stacked up behind us a mile high. Assistant District Attorney Alan Martin was confident the state would prove that Molly and Tom murdered Jason with malice. The viciousness and violence and excessiveness of the injuries that Jason suffered was really the cornerstone of our case. Not only had the autopsy stated Jason suffered at least a dozen blows to the head, the exact number could not be determined.
because he'd been struck repeatedly in the same spot. We looked at the damage to his scalp. His scalp was literally ripped. from his skull. His skull was crushed. For comparison, the jury was shown pictures of the defendants taken that same night. They didn't have a scratch, an abrasion. Molly had a delicate bracelet on her that night that she continued to wear throughout the trial. Martin says that makes Molly and Tom's claim of self-defense a tough sell. You cannot be engaged in a Donnybrook like they described, with a man who is bigger than you, stronger than you, taller than you, and not have a mark on you. It's just not possible.
A blood spatter expert bolstered that argument. You can tell by looking at the spatter on the wall that Jason's head was 12 to 18 inches off the floor when some of the blows were struck. Martin says that meant Tom was standing over Jason, still swinging after Jason could no longer have been a threat. I've known Tom Martin for 50 years. This is not someone who loses control.
This is not someone who is going to kill someone out of malice. I absolutely do not believe there's any way Tom would hit him while he's down. The defense pointed to photos that showed Molly did have that red mark on her neck. And a nurse practitioner testified that at a checkup just two weeks before he died, Jason said he'd been more stressed lately. He had complained of getting angry for no apparent reason. One strand of long blonde hair was found in Jason's hand. It was likely Molly's, but was never tested.
And the autopsy indicated there were defensive wounds to Jason's left arm, but not to his right, the one in which he supposedly held Molly. Still claiming he did what any father would do to protect his child, the defense's star witness, Tom Martins, takes the stand. No cameras were allowed, but there is audio. I certainly felt he would kill me. I felt both of our lives were in danger. I did the best I could.
Molly did not testify, and the defense was not allowed to offer evidence regarding Jason's alleged abuse. I did not like some of Jason's behavior, particularly with regard to my daughter. That does not mean that I demonized the man. Tom testifies he went only as far as he had to. Once I got control of the bat, I hit him until I considered the threat to be over. And when I considered the threat to be over, I quit hitting him. And I considered the threat to be over when he went down.
During closing arguments, Alan Martin used the bat and paving stone from the Corbett bedroom to hit home his point at the prosecution table. How much force does it take to split the flesh all the way to the skull? You know what malice feels like when it comes from the brick that Molly had? It feels like I hate it, and I want those bits. That's what malice feels like.
After nine days of testimony, arguments, and crime scene photos so graphic we can only show you isolated images, the jury deliberated for just three hours. If they're coming back this fast with two unanimous verdicts, that's a really good sign. Molly and Tom were found guilty of second-degree murder. It was just overwhelming relief, really. They beat him horribly and viciously, and no human being deserves to leave their marital bedroom.
with their skull destroyed like what happened to Jason. Had you been thinking that it was possible that a guilty verdict might come back? I did not think it was possible that both of them would be convicted of second-degree murder. Molly and Tom were immediately sentenced to 20 to 25 years in prison. That's when Molly turned around in court and said something to her mother. I'm so sorry. I should have just let him kill me. But as it turns out, this case may be far from over. Mistakes were made at trial.
You saw tears. There were tears. I even had a few tears there while the verdicts were being ran through. After the verdicts, as Tom Martins and Molly Corbett were let off to prison, the jury foreman described his struggle. It wasn't an easy decision. Somebody's life changes. And then he blurted out something that could potentially put those freshly minted verdicts in jeopardy. We didn't discuss the verdict, but in having private conversations, everybody, we could read that everybody was going in the same direction. Did the foreman just admit the jury discussed the case prior to deliberations?
If so, that would be a direct violation of the judge's daily instructions to wait. It's been pounced upon to say, aha, these people got together and started deliberating before they were supposed to. Prosecutor Alan Martin disagrees. What I hear is, we're a group of people who are sitting together, seeing all these events transpire in the courtroom together. Without talking about it, we can read each other's body language while we're in the courtroom. But within days, the defense filed a motion to have the verdict thrown out based on jury misconduct.
The trial judge denied that motion. But one year later, the defense went to the appellate court, this time arguing there were numerous errors at trial. There's part of me that maybe has some thankfulness that so many errors were made at trial that leaves room for a proper appellate decision in favor of Tom and Molly. For one thing, there were bloodstains on the hem of Tom's boxer shorts that the state said indicated he'd been standing over Jason as he swung the bat. Those stains were assumed to be Jason's blood.
But they were never tested. It's not practical, reasonable, or feasible to test every single blood spot in every location. Then there's the matter of the statements from Jack and Sarah. Molly's brother Connor is upset that the trial judge did not allow them in. The kids' statements say that Jason was an abuser.
And those interviews were conducted in professional environments on multiple occasions where Molly was not present. And to the allegation from the Jason side of the family that they were coached by Molly? I mean, the interviews were conducted by professionals. That's their job. Like, why would the prosecution try so hard to prevent that from coming from trial? It's only evidence for the jury. Let them make that decision. Jack's statement recanting what he'd said after he'd returned to Ireland was also never heard by the jury.
The Martins family has maintained all along, it is that statement that was coached. In January 2019, the state appeals court makes the rare move to allow oral arguments in Molly and Tom's case. Once again, both families flock to the courthouse, with Tracy flying in from Limerick. There is always another step or there is always something else to face. Neither Tom nor Molly are present in the courtroom. How does she feel her chances are with the appeal? I don't know. I think that she is cautiously optimistic, but I think that there's a lot of hopelessness too. It's hard to trust the system after what they've gone through.
Each side has just a half hour to make its most important points. The defense goes first. There are a number of statements from the children, including dad got mad for no reason. It was error to exclude them. But the prosecution pushes back. The fact that somebody makes a statement doesn't mean it's trustworthy. The children didn't want to go back to Ireland. They had friends. They had schools. They were used to the USA. They rode horses. They lived in a nice house. They were comfortable.
The defense... All we're asking for is a fair trial. ...makes an impassioned argument about jury misconduct. In having private conversations, everybody, we could read that everybody was going in the same direction. A juror is confessing on the courthouse steps, not even an hour after the verdict, that they engaged in private conversations. Are you concerned about this appeal? I'm not concerned about it. I think the case was really, really strong. Mike says it is strength of a different kind that keeps Tom going. Tom, I think...
even as he sits in this atrocious miscarriage of justice, knows that he saved his daughter's life. And, you know, I think he can sleep at night, knowing that even if she is in prison, she's not dead. Back in Ireland, Tracy waits for the appeals court's decision. She's written a book about this case and Jason. I wrote the book to give him back his character. The Martins, Molly Martins in particular, tried to destroy his character. I smiled briefly to myself as I realized that Jason eventually found himself back in the only place on earth he ever wanted to be, in the arms of his beloved Mags.
She finds comfort that her brother is buried in Limerick, next to his first wife and the mother of his children. Jack and Sarah picked out the picture to change on the headstone from mags to both of them. I hope they're together somewhere. The memories just float to the surface and, you know, they'll always be part of our lives. In March 2021, the North Carolina Supreme Court ordered a new trial for Molly Corbett and her father, Tom Martins. The two were released on bond the following month. In October 2023, Molly Corbett pleaded no contest to voluntary manslaughter. Tom Martins pleaded guilty to the same charge. The second-degree murder charge was dropped. They were each sentenced to another 7 to 30 months in prison. In June 2024, Molly Corbett and Tom Martins both completed their sentences and were released from prison. I've always planned on dark.
Now streaming, Sylvester Stallone returns. It's a dirty business and everyone gets a little staked. And the Paramount Plus hit series, Tulsa King. I want you to listen up. I'm not ready to fall. When everything's on the line, the King doesn't back down. You can't get rid of me. Tulsa King. New season, now streaming. Only Paramount Plus.