Jason Corbett's children said 'we don't like listening to fighting', according to secret recording
Molly Martens and her father, Thomas Martens, 67, a former FBI agent.
Molly Martens secretly recorded an argument between her and Jason Corbett 5½ months before her husband was killed at their Davidson County home.
The incident took place on February 17, 2015, in their home when the couple argued about Molly Martens giving dinner to Jason Corbett’s son and daughter before he arrived home.
Jason Corbett became angry because he wanted to eat dinner with his children, according to a video played on Thursday in Davidson Superior Court. Molly Martens told him in a phone call that she was preparing soup for the children, and she asked her husband if he also wanted soup. Jason Corbett told his wife that he didn’t.
When he arrived home, Jason Corbett argued with his wife, telling her that she was rude and ignorant when she asked his son to leave the room.
At one point, the couple was yelling at each other, prompting their 8-year-old daughter, Sarah Corbett, to urge their parents to stop yelling, according to the video.
“You are not talking, you are screaming,” Sarah said to her father.
During their argument, Molly Martens also asked 10-year-old Jack Corbett to go to his room.
“Don’t send him out of the room when I’m talking,” Jason Corbett told his wife.
She later offered to make pancakes for the family, but Jason Corbett raised his voice during the argument.
“We don’t like listening to fighting,” Jack Corbett told Jason and Molly Corbett.
The video was played during the sentencing hearing for Thomas and Molly Martens in Davidson Superior Court. The father and daughter entered arranged pleas on Monday in Jason Corbett’s death.
Jack, who is now 19, and Sarah, who is 17, were in the couple’s home when Jason Corbett died.
Molly Martens was the second wife of Jason Corbett, who had Jack and Sarah with his first wife who died in 2006.
Jason Corbett, 39, from Limerick, was found dead in his Davidson County home in the early hours of August 2, 2015.
Thomas Martens, 73, a retired FBI agent, who is accused of beating Jason Corbett with a baseball bat, pleaded guilty to voluntary manslaughter.
Molly Martens, 40, who is accused of striking her husband with a concrete brick, pleaded no contest to voluntary manslaughter. Judge David Hall indicated that a no-contest plea is treated as a form of a guilty plea.
Judge Hall will determine the sentences for the Martens.
Hall has said that he has the option of giving what would be the much more lenient sentence of probation without active time in prison.
Molly and Thomas Martens were charged with second-degree murder after they were accused of brutally beating Jason Corbett to death with a baseball bat and a concrete paving brick.
They claimed self-defence, saying Jason Corbett attacked them and threatened their lives.
They said Jason Corbett choked his wife and that Thomas Martens came to her rescue with a baseball bat he intended to give his grandson Jack.
On Thursday, Dr. Craig Nelson, an associate chief medical examiner in the N.C. Office of the Chief Medical Examiner, testified that Jason Corbett’s cause of death was blunt force trauma to his head.
Nelson conducted an autopsy on Corbett’s body on August 3, 2015. Corbett had multiple head injuries as well as bleeding inside his head, Nelson said.
A Davidson County jury convicted Molly and Thomas Martens in a high-profile trial in August 2017 of second-degree murder. A judge sentenced each of them to 20 to 25 years in prison.
However, the N.C. Court of Appeals later overturned the conviction, finding that the trial judge made prejudicial decisions that prevented the two from mounting a defence. The N.C. Supreme Court affirmed the lower appellate court’s ruling, sending the case back to Davidson County for a re-trial.
The second trial for was scheduled to begin on November 6 with jury selection in Forsyth Superior Court. Judge Hall set that trial date in late April, after granting a request from the attorneys of Corbett and Martens in mid-February to move their trial from Davidson County to Winston-Salem.
The sentencing hearing continues Friday.
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