Hi all,
I'm from Limerick, Jason's home town, so been following the case with interest. Just from following it's clear to me that Molly Martens had an infatuation with these kids, but had nowhere near the same infatuation with her husband. Also, if the affidavits regarding Molly's personality are true, she appears to be a Jekyll & Hyde character and very capable of rage and vindictive actions. To me she appears to be the classic 'butter wouldn't melt' public persona, but a nightmare behind closed doors. She may also be delusional and a pathological liar. It's clear to me too that her Dad Tom Martens is covering for her, simply because nothing in his story makes any sense.
In my opinion, this is what happened:
Jason & Molly have a heated argument some time in the evening which results in Jason revealing to Molly that he does not intend to return to the US with the children after their upcoming trip to Ireland. He probably also mentions transferring his wealth to Ireland.
Molly is not able to deal with this revelation, and in hysterics, calls her parents in Tennessee. Knowing their daughter and fearing for her well being, the Martens drop everything and make the 4+ hr journey to Davidson County.
The Martens arrive at the Corbett house late in the night. There, along with Molly, they either have another heated confrontation with Jason before Jason has enough and goes to bed, or, knowing what lies ahead Jason has already retired to bed by the time they arrive.
In the meantime the Martens spend their time trying to comfort and calm down their daughter. They eventually retire to bed. At this point Molly Martens is the only one remaining up in the house.
Molly Martens continues to stew and eventually her anger and mental fragility gets the better of her. It's possible she's been drinking too. In a fit of rage she does a tour of the house foraging for weapons, which results in her bringing in a paving brick from outside and taking the young boys baseball bat from his gear bag in the garage.
Molly Martens enters the master bedroom upstairs and attacks Jason Corbett with the baseball bat while he is asleep in bed. One of two things happens. Either Jason wakes and in a groggy semi-conscious state, stumbles around, but is eventually felled to the ground by repeated blunt force. Or, Jason is simply beaten to death in his sleep on the bed by repeated blunt force trauma. I think the former is more likely, as the injuries described in the autopsy are varied and more consistent with the theory that he moved around and was attacked from various angles.
The possible thud of a big man like Jason Corbett hitting the ground, and the possible deranged noises coming from Molly Martens, awakens the Martens downstairs. Tom Martens comes upstairs to check what's going on. He arrives in the Martens bedroom to find a motionless Jason Corbett in a pool of blood still being attacked by Molly. Possibly with the paving brick at this stage.
Tom Martens pulls his daughter off Jason Corbett and attempts to calm her down. This may have taken some time. Eventually he calls 911. He has already decided to protect his daughter and take the rap for her. Mainly because she stood to lose everything (kids, house, life) if he did not. He concocts a quick story of self defense, possibly in conjunction with Molly and his wife, but fails to think his story through before making the call.
The 911 call is made and the entire thing is essentially a charade.
The holes in Tom Martens Story
1. He makes an impromptu 4+ hrs journey on a Sunday night to his daughters house. He also brings his wife on the trip. Being an experienced law federal agent, if his daughter was in any immediate danger the first thing he would have done would have been to call the local police and use his status to get some protection to her.
Key questions here are: What was in the initial conversation between Tom and Molly, and also were there further calls between the parents and Molly during the 4+ hr journey time?
2. He claims he bought the baseball bat as a new gift to the young boy Jack. But it appears the baseball bat was not 'new' condition wise, and the boy himself claims it was at least a year old.
Key questions here: Are there any pics showing Jack swinging the bat? Where would he pick up a new bat on an impromptu late Sunday evening trip? Has he got a receipt/card payment record to prove it? Does the store have a record of the transaction/cctv footage?
3. In the 911 call, he claims a donnybrook fight broke out. But detectives say the crime scene is not consistent with that. This is probably because weapons that had no business being in the master bedroom were present (brick, bat), the victim was naked, all the evidence pointed to a one sided beating, other items/objects in the room were not disturbed, and there were no marks on either of the assailants (and thus no evidence of a fight back or that the victim had an opportunity to defend himself).
Key questions here: The final position of the victims body in the bedroom? Is there any evidence that the victim even tried to defend himself (grabbing the bat, grabbing any object at all, bloody hand prints on either of the assailants clothing/skin, DNA under finger nails etc).
4. Also in the 911 call, Tom Martens is calm and collected. He does not sound like a man who has just battled a bigger man like Jason Corbett. He's 65, he would have been more flustered, hyper and a little out of breath. Instead he just sounds hopeless, and gives the impression that there's almost no point in doing the CPR. He sounds more like a man who is startled at the situation he finds himself in.
Key questions here: He never mentions the brick in the 911 call. He also does not reference his wife Sharon at all. If he was awoken all the way downstairs by the commotion of the 'Donnybrook', surely the kids were awoken by it too? Was Sharon attending to the kids in their rooms after the incident?
5. His story that he simply intervened to stop Jason Corbett choking his daughter does not check out. The autopsy report details multiple wounds, bruising and lacerations to the legs, torso, face and skull. There were no choking marks on Molly's neck. If he intervened, is he saying he lost complete control and beat Jason Corbett to death thereafter, all over his body? Or is he saying that he simply hit him over the head a few times, in which case his daughter must have inflicted all the other wounds with the paving brick beforehand? If so, why did she even have a paving brick in a supposed bedroom Donnybrook? How did she manage to attack a man of Jason Corbett's size, and especially inflict multiple injuries to his entire body including his face? Did Jason just stand there and let her attack him, but then all of a sudden decides he has had enough punishment and decides to choke her? None of that makes any sense.
6. Tom Martens is a highly trained and experienced federal agent. He would be well trained on how to maim or incapacitate an assailant without killing them. He would also surely be licensed to carry a weapon? Why would he carry a mini baseball bat upstairs when he probably had a gun? As such his actions on the night do not make any sense.
Other disturbing facts
- The withdrawal of huge cash amounts from the joint account after the murder
This to me looks like all Molly's work again. Unless they are complete idiots, I cannot for one second see Tom or Sharon Martens advising or encouraging Molly to do this. I can't see her uncle Mike Earnest advising this either. Crazy thing to do, and I can only imagine it was crazy and vindictive Molly that thought this was a good move. If she was advised to do it, I have no words...!
- The alleged attempt to obtain the kids passports by Mike Earnest
This is very sinister, but maybe Mike Earnest was fed the same spoof story that the police were fed. Maybe he believed the self defense story and was simply helping his niece Molly in securing the kids passports. If not, it's again another very strange and ill advised move.
- The refusal to release the belongings of Jason and the kids to the Irish families
Again vindictive. A complete lack of respect for Jason Corbett's relatives here, and more evidence that Molly Martens cared little for her husband and his family.
- Molly's previous legal advice regarding custody of the kids
According to media reports, Molly had sought legal advice on a few occasions on gaining custody of the kids following divorce from Jason. She also had confided this with a friend in Ireland (but it would have went straight back to Jason, so he would have been aware). So her mindset had been on divorce and retaining the kids for a number of years. She would have been advised that retaining custody of the kids would have been impossible without adoption. So it's not impossible to think that she may have thought about other ways of retaining the kids.
That's my two cents anyway, and all just my own opinion of course
