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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Are the Martens guilty of killing Jason Corbett?

55 replies

EmeraldIsle100 · 08/08/2017 22:11

Apologies if there is already a thread on this issue. I can't tell if they are guilty or not. What do MNs think?

OP posts:
ludog · 13/08/2017 17:43

She wouldn't allow US police contact his family to inform them of his death. Thet found out via a 20 second call to his twin from her mother who told him they had had a row, he had fallen and hit his head and had died. She then hung up. Molly Martens sent the bill for the ambulance to his elderly parents in Ireland.

hollyisalovelyname · 13/08/2017 17:46

A mystifying case.
My sympathy to the Corbett and Fitzpatrick families. How they have suffered
How did Molly expect to get custody of the children if their father was killed by their step grandfather ( and her) ?
We'll murder Jason and then keep the children. Hmm
Surely her father had enough intelligence to know they wouldn't get custody of the children even if they were found not guilty of murder.
She is a beautiful looking woman.
If she wasn't happy why not get a divorce?
She could start afresh with somebody new.
Was Jason Corbett violent towards her? They claimed he was.
Did anyone/ could anyone refute this?

HughLauriesStubble · 13/08/2017 18:22

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

CoolCarrie · 13/08/2017 18:28

Poor man and those poor children, at least the evil bitch and her father won't be able to see them at all now. How could they possibly think they would get away with it?

chinam · 13/08/2017 18:45

I also believe they are as guilty as sin. What the Martens have put the Corbett family through since the murder has been disgusting. Unfortunately for them (The Martens) they totally underestimated how the Corbetts would push for justice for their brother and his children.

MFR3 · 13/08/2017 18:46

It has been reported that she was bi-polar.

Elendon · 13/08/2017 18:51

The Daily Mail paints a very sympathetic picture of the Martens, as does the Irish Sun.

However, given the details here and elsewhere online, I'm inclined to believe the jury as they will have been exposed to much more details than is ever talked about in the mainstream media.

No way should it have been manslaughter (2nd degree) either. He was murdered.

ElspethFlashman · 13/08/2017 18:57

One if not more of the jurors have come out since. They said the defense never adequately explained how a paving stone from outside was on her nightstand. They also said the grotesquely excessive force was a big factor in the guilty verdict as it really undermined the whole "self defence" thing. Also that the blood was dry by the time the ambulance was called.

Elendon · 13/08/2017 19:20

This case has echoes of this storyville documentary (please be aware that once you start watching it you may not stop)

www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/group/p04gftq7

Elendon · 13/08/2017 19:20

It's called death on the staircase.

Fontella · 13/08/2017 19:48

Guilty as hell and I am so impressed with the police and prosecution and to that jury for getting it right. Have followed the case from the beginning and I honestly thought they would walk. The beautiful young American wife 'abused' by her rough Irish husband, and the hero former FBI agent protecting his daughter from certain death and the hands of her 'violent' husband. Only thing is the evidence didn't support their version of events. And Jason was loved. Not just by his family back in Ireland but by his colleagues, neighbours and friends in America and they came out and spoke on his behalf. Thomas Martens is an arrogant prick who thought he could get away with murder and the US justice system proved him wrong.

isadoradancing123 · 13/08/2017 20:52

Seems like she wanted the little girl and his life insurance. If it was self defence and he really had his hands around her throat surely her dad would have whacked him on the back, arms, legs not just his head

honeyrider · 13/08/2017 21:09

Who keeps a paving brick on their bedside locker? They claimed is was for a school project, bullshit, it was the school holidays. There were a flurry of phonecalls between Molly and her father in the hours before they murdered him. Her uncle is very high up in the FBI and he and his colleagues have been shown to have been extremely helpful to Thomas Martens after Jason was murdered.

steff13 · 13/08/2017 21:17

Why would you pretend to have done CPR and have no blood on your hands?

They claimed he was choking her, yet there were no marks on her neck. Personally, I think she attacked him, possibly in his sleep, dad overheard, came in, and decided to do damage control. Hence the claim of choking. But certainly an FBI agent knows the first thing they're going to look for is bruises on her neck.

Fontella · 14/08/2017 00:33

I think the whole thing was planned myself.

The father coming over with the family heirloom baseball bat purportedly as a gift for the little boy. What a coincidence. His story of hearing bumping upstairs and grabbing the baseball bat to go up there is just complete bollocks. Why would you do that? If you heard what you thought was an altercation between husband and wife, you'd bang on the door, shout instictively 'leave my daughter alone' or whatever, get your wife to call the police, call the police yourself ... something other than go in there swinging a baseball bat you just happened to have brought with you ... and crushing someone's skull and scalping them at the same time. All this while your wife and two kids apparently slept through the whole thing - this violent struggle with this gigantic murderous Irishman.

Molly Martens had telephoned Jason's sister back in Ireland a few months prior to find out when Jason's father's 80th birthday celebrations would be taking place (in Ireland), as Jason planned to attend with the children. She thought it odd at the time - why wouldn't Molly just ask Jason?

The killed him a matter of weeks before he was due to travel to Ireland with the children. He had already confided to others he was homesick and unhappy in America. I think she was petrified he was going to go with the kids and not come back.

I think it was planned and premeditated. There were numerous calls that evening between Molly and her parents before they even arrived. I think Jason had a few beers with the neighbours and was out for the count. As he slept she lumped him with the brick. Then the father came in as they'd planned, and together they beat the crap out of him.
Then they sat there while his blood concealed and body went cold and got their stories straight before calling the police.

Apart from blood spatter there was no sign of the struggle they claimed. Neither one of them had a mark on them and he was beaten so badly when the paramedic attempted first aid, his hand went straight through his skull. Molly apparently kept rubbing her neck so obviously and persistently (to reinforce the claim she'd been choked even though there was so sign, no mark, no bruising) that it started to get on one of the investigating detectives nerves and he told her to stop.

123MothergotafleA · 14/08/2017 01:14

It's been such a tragic case really, first that Jason's first wife should die from an asthma attack, and the poor children who have lost both parents. Mercifully they have the love of their own close relatives to sustain them. I just can't get my head around how the Martens thought they could ever get away with this horrible crime, or how a father could collude with his own daughter.

rosielee1 · 14/08/2017 01:20

They have the audacity to set up a go fund me page to pay for an appeal, sad thing is people are contributing. I know the Corbett family, lived beside them years ago and a nicer genuine bunch of people you would never meet.

Bardo · 14/08/2017 02:35

I wonder what on earth the grounds of their appeal will be?

I can't believe people will donate to it. It seems obvious that they did it.

steff13 · 14/08/2017 03:47

Usually people will appeal on the grounds of ineffective assistance of counsel.

OkPedro · 14/08/2017 03:58

The details of what the paramedic said about Jason corbetts skull? How is that public knowledge 😥

ludog · 14/08/2017 06:57

It was part of the evidence presented by the prosecution, the injuries were so extensive it showed it went way beyond self defense as claimed by the Martens. One jury member actually vomited when the photographs were shown.

Fontella · 14/08/2017 08:43

They have the audacity to set up a go fund me page to pay for an appeal, sad thing is people are contributing.

She's the beautiful all-American girl and he's the all-American hero. You'll be amazed how many fall for that schmaltz. 20/20 have a documentary (aired in the US on Friday) up on youtube, and there are comments on there of the 'how did these two heroes get convicted?' variety.. It's worth a watch by the way - I'll put a link at the end he cops would have easily written it off as 'self-defence'. But they knew something was off and they put together a painstaking investigation and built a strong prosecution case. Likewise the jury, who looked at the evidence and weren't swayed by other factors.

Even the title of this thread - 'Are the Martens guilty of killing Jason Corbett?' - of course they are guilty of killing him. The fact that they killed him is indisputable. It's how and why they killed him is the issue and their claim that they did so in 'self-defence' is what the court case was about. Justified homicide as opposed to murder.

Fontella · 14/08/2017 08:44

Apologies for the typos in that last post - rushing out the door and typed in haste ...!

worridmum · 14/08/2017 12:33

Well that documentory is soooo bais its bloody insane they are dragging his name threw the dirt? DV strangling no marks at all on the neck? bullshit

Fontella · 14/08/2017 12:47

Well that documentory is soooo bais its bloody insane they are dragging his name threw the dirt? DV strangling no marks at all on the neck? bullshit

Yes, it is very poor - filmed before the trial with some quick post trial interviews then rushed out to broadcast. It is clear from the tone of it that the producers most likely thought the Martens were going to get off. What I thought particularly bad was that they allowed Thomas Martens to again claim that in a conversation with Mags Fitzpatricks father, he supposedly said that he thought Jason had murdered his daughter. This is absolute baloney and proven to be, yet still they not only allowed him to repeat it, they also broadcast it!! The fact that they also broadcast those (inadmissible in court) interviews with the children is also very poor.

There is no doubt a lot of people are shocked at the verdict. Although I believe them both to be as guilty as sin, I also believed they would get away with it, so it's not surprising there are still those who 'support' them.

However, the police and prosecution built such a solid and compelling case that the defence did little to dent, so all credit to them.

I'm sure there will be other documentaries that aren't as biased as this one,