Knox News 25th July 2017
Murder trial begins for Knox man, daughter in N.C. case
Opening statements began Tuesday in the Lexington, N.C., murder trial of a former Oak Ridge National Laboratory counterintelligence officer and his daughter in the 2015 beating death of her husband. Prosecution and defense spent the past week choosing a jury to hear the case. Father and daughter claim self-defense, saying Jason Corbett was choking Molly Corbett when Martens, who was visiting, came to her aid .Dr Nelson said he carried out the postmortem which found blunt force trauma was the cause of death. He said he identified 10 different areas of impact to Mr Corbett’s head, two of which sustained “multiple blows.” “The degree of skull fractures in this case are kinds we would see in falls from great heights or car crashes,” he said. As Dr Nelson described the wounds on Mr Corbett’s head, one juror became physically ill and had to temporarily leave the room.
US News July 25th 2017
Opening Statements Made in North Carolina Murder Trial
Attorneys have presented their opening statements in the North Carolina trial of a wife and father-in-law accused in the beating death of a businessman. An Irish businessman was beaten so badly that pieces of his skull fell onto a medical examiner's table during his autopsy, a North Carolina prosecutor said Tuesday during opening statements in the trial of two people charged in the man's death.
"There was blood on this wall and there was blood on this wall," Martin said, pointing to various parts of the courtroom as if it were the master bedroom where Jason Corbett was found. Martin said Martens struck Jason Corbett with the baseball bat and Molly Corbett hit her husband with a brick paver. David Freedman, one of Martens' attorneys, told the jury of a struggle in which Thomas Martens and Molly Corbett feared for their lives. According to Freedman, Martens struck Jason until he let Molly go, and Jason was down in the bedroom.
The Irish Daily Mail July 25th 2015
MOLLY AND HER DAD DIDN’T DO CPR ON JASON, TRIAL TOLD
THE opening day of the Molly Martens murder trial has heard that a 911 operator didn’t believe either Molly or her co-accused father Tom were attempting CPR on Jason Corbett.
Prosecutors said the female dispatcher took an emergency call from a ‘surprisingly calm’ Mr Martens in the early hours of August 2, 2015, the date Molly’s husband Jason was bludgeoned to death. She said she did not believe Ms Martens or her father were actually trying to revive the Limerick father of two, the trial heard yesterday.
The Irish Times July 26th 2017
Jason Corbett head injuries like those seen after ‘car crashes’
The head injuries suffered by Irish man Jason Corbett before his death in North Carolina were similar to those seen after “falls from great heights or car crashes,” a medical examiner has said.
Winston Salem Journal July 27th 2017
Investigator: Molly Corbett kept rubbing her neck hours after her husband died
LEXINGTON — A couple of hours after her husband had been found bludgeoned to death, Molly Corbett seemingly couldn't stop rubbing her neck, a crime scene investigator with the Davidson County Sheriff's Office testified Thursday in the murder trial in the death of Irish businessman Jason Corbett
Lexington Dispatch July 27th 2017
Witnesses: No injuries visible to Molly Corbett
Several witnesses, including law enforcement and a neighbor, testified Thursday they saw no injuries on Molly Martens Corbett the night her husband Jason Corbett was killed in 2015. A paramedic said Jason Corbett had no detectable heartbeat when he arrived at the home. Another said Jason Corbett’s body “felt cool” when he was taken to an ambulance, leading her to ask how long Molly Corbett and her father Thomas Martens had waited to call 911.Amanda Hackworth, a Davidson County paramedic, testified Thursday that as paramedics tried to revive Jason Corbett in an ambulance at the Corbetts’ home, she reached her arm over Jason Corbett’s body, and it felt cool. On Wednesday, paramedic Sgt. Barry Alphin testified that his hand slipped into Jason Corbett’s scalp as he tried to insert a breathing tube. Hackworth testified that she told Alphin about the cool torso and asked him how long Molly Corbett and Martens waited to call 911. Hackworth testified that Alphin responded by saying Martens and Molly Corbett called 911 as soon as Jason Corbett “went down.” Hackworth later stated that she saw dry blood on Jason Corbett’s chest and near his eye. David Bent, another paramedic who worked on Jason Corbett, said that when he arrived on scene, white pads were placed on Jason Corbett’s body in the master bedroom. Bent said the pads detected no heart activity. When Jason Corbett was transported to the ambulance, Bent assisted with treatment.
Irish Examiner July 27th 2017
Court hears how Jason Corbett socialised with neighbour on day before the killing
A neighbour testified yesterday that things were normal the day before Irish businessman Jason Corbett was bludgeoned to death. That balmy Saturday afternoon, both men were mowing their lawns. David Fritzsche said he finished first and went over and helped Jason Corbett complete his lawn. Then they put up some chairs in their driveways and drank beer while their children played. That day would be the last one in which Mr Fritzsche would see his next-door neighbour alive. On August 1, 2015, the two men consumed seven to eight beers and then split a 32-ounce beer, one of two that Ms Martens had brought out. They never got to the second can. Ms Marten’s parents, Sharon and Thomas Martens, arrived at the home around 8.30 that night and Jason helped his father-in-law take his luggage out of the car, Mr Fritzsche said. About 5.30am, Ms Martens came to his house. She used the half-bath twice, he said. She was there for 90 minutes. He didn’t notice any injury.
The Irish Times July 27th 2017
Corbett murder trial: ‘You don’t expect to see that much blood’
Emergency responders called to the North Carolina house where Irish man Jason Corbett received fatal head injuries have described how they averted his children’s eyes from the bloody scene as they carried them from the house. Upon entering, he said he saw lots of blood inside the dimly-lit master bedroom, at which point he realised an assault had occurred. “You don’t expect to see that much blood,” Sgt Alphin said, who also indicated Mr Corbett exhibited no evidence of life at any time at the scene. The prosecution admitted photographs into evidence that were shown on an overhead projector which depicted the area of Mr Corbett’s head where Sgt Alphin’s left hand slid into the skull. It was at that time he said he realised there was heavy trauma. “I put my hand under the scalp,” he said. “My left hand went all into the skull.”
The Independent.ie July 27th 2017
Damage to Jason Corbett's skull so severe pathologist could not say how many times he was hit
A North Carolina District Attorney revealed during the opening of the Jason Corbett (39) murder trial that the Limerick father-of-two was struck at least 10 times over the head with the damage to his skull so severe that a post mortem couldn't even determine precisely how many times he was hit with the two implements. The trial of Molly Martens-Corbett (33) and her father, retired FBI agent Thomas Michael Martens (67), who both deny the second degree murder of Mr Corbett, also heard that a post mortem examination revealed traces in the Irish businessman's blood system of a powerful sleep drug prescribed for his wife, Ms Martens-Corbett, just days earlier. At least one blow was sustained when Mr Corbett was already dead. Multiple blows had been sustained to two specific areas of the back of his head
The Irish Examiner July 27th 2017
Juror vomited at sight of Jason Corbett’s injuries
A US police officer has described how he told the daughter of Irishman Jason Corbett to close her eyes as he carried her downstairs so she would not see all the blood at the scene of her father’s death, writes Michael L Hewlett. Cpl Clayton Dagenhardt of the Davidson Sheriff’s Office told the court that Molly Martens and her father, Thomas Martens, who are on trial for the Limerick man’s second-degree murder, had no visible signs of injury the morning that he was bludgeoned to death. “Nothing remarkable except that she [Ms Martens] had blood on the top of her head,” Cpl Dagenhardt said. He testified that he saw an emergency paramedic who he knew when he arrived at the scene. The paramedic, who was coming out of the house, told him: “It’s bad. It’s really bad. It’s a horrible scene.” Cpl Dagenhardt testified that he and another officer went to collect Mr Corbett’s children, Jack and Sarah, who were asleep upstairs in bed. He said he awoke Sarah and led her backwards down the stairs and told her to keep her eyes closed. When he showed the jury a photograph showing the top of Mr Corbett’s head with his scalp peeled off, one of the jurors started gagging, and a bailiff came running with a trash can into which she appeared to vomit. She had to leave the courtroom but was later able to return.
The Irish Examiner July 28th 2017
Corbett murder trial told of blood spatters on walls
The jury in the trial of Molly Martens and her father, who are accused of the murder of her Irish husband Jason Corbett, has been shown blood spatters reaching 5ft up the walls of the bedroom and of a paving brick on which hairs were found. Prosecutors say she used that concrete brick and Thomas Martens used a baseball bat to kill Mr Corbett. Yesterday, the jury heard Ms Martens stood outside the house, where her husband had just been found beaten to death, and kept rubbing her neck. Lt Frank Young of Davidson County Sheriff’s Office was taking photographs of her for investigative purposes. “Molly continually pulled on her neck several times,” he told Davidson Superior Court. He saw dry blood on her forehead and the side of her face but did not notice any other injury. “She was making crying noises but I didn’t see any visible tears,” he said.
The Irish Times july 28th 2017
Inside the Corbett trial: Martenses do not speak as photos of bloody body displayed
‘Have you ever been strangled?’ The question that hangs over Limerick man’s murder trial
During his opening statement in the Jason Corbett murder trial, Davidson County assistant district attorney Alan Martin made reference to a grim reality: “It wasn’t all sunshine, roses and unicorns.”Pictures of Mr Corbett’s bloody, lifeless body have been displayed ad nauseam in the courtroom at Davidson County Courthouse in Lexington, North Carolina. One juror became ill at the sight of the eighth exhibit introduced by the prosecution. There have been more than 100 exhibits since, with each seemingly more bone-chilling than the other. The culmination of an horrific scene has created a predicament for everyone in the courtroom, starting from the outset, when jury selection was complicated by accounts of Mr Corbett’s sociable nature. Two potential jurors were excused due to their employment at Multi Packaging Solutions, where Mr Corbett worked as a plant manager. One employee said Mr Corbett was “well liked” and expressed a decidedly positive opinion of him.
In an opening statement on Tuesday, David Freedman, lawyer for Mr Martens, said his client claimed to have seen Mr Corbett apparently attempting to strangle his daughter and then hit his son-in-law with a baseball bat multiple times. The defence attorneys – who have offered countless objections to efforts by the prosecution to call into question various aspects of the defendants’ actions and observable behaviours the morning after Mr Corbett’s death – seemed to take particular offence to this statement.
“Have you ever been strangled?” Cheryl Andrews, for the defence, asked Mr Dillard. That question has been a point of contention between the two sides, and perhaps even at the heart of the case. As the assistant district attorneys question each witness about whether there was any noticeable injury to Ms Marten’s neck, they seem to be hinting at a different question, a more pertinent question, to Ms Martens.
The Irish Daily Mail 30th July 2017
Scene of Jason killing ‘staged’
Jury hears that blood-spattered vacuum left in victim’s room ‘was moved’ to tie in with defendants’ claims of a violent brawl. PROSECUTORS in the Jason Corbett murder case claim that the crime scene where his body was found was ‘staged’ by his killers.
Ms Martens, 34, and her father Tom Martens, 66, are charged with second-degree murder of the Limerick father of two in August 2015.Both deny the charge and are claiming self-defence.
In evidence on Thursday, the State focused on blood spatter that was found on a vacuum cleaner behind the door in the master bedroom where Mr Corbett’s naked and battered body was found.
Crime scene investigator Lieutenant Frankie Young told jurors that, in his expert opinion, the vacuum cleaner had been moved. Lt Young said that he noted that blood spatter on the canister of the vacuum cleaner was ‘moving from left to right horizontally, as if it was lying down’ when it was hit by the victim’s blood. However, pictures from the scene showed the vacuum cleaner in an upright position.
‘It has now been stood up,’ the witness told the court.