On August 2, 2015, 39-year-old Irish father Jason Corbett was found dead in his bedroom in Lexington, Davidson County, North Carolina. His wife, Molly Martins, and her father, retired FBI agent Tom Martins, said they acted in self-defense.

The case that followed traced custody disputes, forensic evidence, changing witness statements, and years of appeals and plea deals.

Jason’s Life Before Molly

Jason William Corbett was born 12 February 1976 in Limerick and worked at Multi-Packaging Solutions (MPS) in the area. He married Margaret “Mags” Fitzpatrick around 2003. Mags ran a local creche and the couple had two children Jack (born September 2004) and Sarah (born September 2006).

On 1 November 2006, Mags collapsed at home from a severe asthma attack and died despite Jason’s attempts at CPR. Jason became sole caregiver for the two young children. Relatives in Limerick helped with school runs and babysitting while he continued full shifts at MPS and kept the family routines intact.

Jason stayed active in the local community after Mags’s death and later helped fundraise for asthma charity work in her memory. In early 2008, facing the strain of solo parenting with factory hours, he hired 24-year-old Molly Martins from Knoxville as a live-in nanny.

She settled into daily duties, and over the following years their relationship turned personal they married in June 2011 and relocated the family to Lexington, North Carolina, later that year. Under Irish law, Jason retained legal custody of Jack and Sarah, which became a central point in later disputes.

Molly Enters the Family

Molly Martins arrived in Limerick in early 2008 after Jason hired her through an international nanny agency. She handled school drop-offs, meals, and evening routines while Jason worked long shifts at MPS. Friends later noted that the house ran more smoothly with a full-time caregiver in place, and the children adjusted quickly to the new schedule.

Over the next two years, Jason and Molly grew closer. She returned to the United States periodically to renew visa paperwork, but most of her time was spent in the Corbett home.

By late 2010, their relationship had shifted from employer-employee to romantic partner. Jason’s family was aware of the change but remained focused on the children’s stability after years of upheaval.

In June 2011, Jason and Molly married in Tennessee with a small group present. Soon after, they moved to Lexington, North Carolina, where Jason transferred within MPS to a managerial post. The move placed the children thousands of miles from their extended family, and all legal rights still rested with Jason under Irish guardianship orders.

This relocation set the stage for later conflicts inside the marriage and between families on both sides.

Cracks Behind Closed Doors

Life in North Carolina settled into a routine at first. Jason worked long hours at the MPS plant in Winston-Salem, and Molly stayed home with the children. Neighbors later said the family kept to themselves. School staff in Davidson County noticed Jason handled most enrollment paperwork and medical forms, consistent with his sole legal custody.

By 2013, tension inside the home had increased. Jason’s relatives in Ireland reported receiving late-night calls from him about arguments and concerns over Molly’s temper. Texts later recovered in the investigation showed disputes about discipline, household decisions, and Molly’s frustration with Jason’s control over the children’s guardianship.

Jason also expressed worry about returning the children to Ireland for regular visits, fearing conflict if Molly objected.

Molly kept close contact with her father, Tom Martins, a retired FBI agent living in Knoxville. He visited often and became increasingly involved in disagreements between the couple.

In the months leading up to August 2015, there were documented incidents where Jason told family members he planned to return to Ireland with the children permanently. Molly disputed this, and both sets of families described growing strain as communication between the couple deteriorated.

By mid-2015, the marriage had reached a breaking point. Friends noticed Jason withdrawing socially and working longer hours. Molly, meanwhile, told her parents she felt unsafe and isolated.

These parallel accounts formed the backdrop for the events that unfolded on the night of August 2, creating two sharply different narratives that investigators later examined in detail.

The Night Jason Died

Just after 3 a.m. on August 2, 2015, a 911 call came from the Corbett home on Panther Creek Court in Lexington. The caller was Tom Martins. He told the dispatcher there had been a fight and that his son-in-law was “bleeding all over.” Deputies arrived minutes later and found Jason Corbett on the bedroom floor with severe head injuries.

Molly and Tom said the confrontation started when Molly screamed and Tom entered the room with a baseball bat he kept in the house during his visit. They told deputies Jason had attacked Molly and that Tom struck him to stop the assault. This account became the foundation of their self-defense claim.

Investigators documented a different set of details inside the room. Jason had multiple blunt-force wounds to the head and face, consistent with repeated strikes. A concrete paving brick and the bat were found with blood and tissue on them. The scene did not show signs of a struggle moving through the house; most of the blood was concentrated near the bed and doorway.

Deputies also noted that Jason’s children were asleep in nearby rooms. They were woken and taken out of the home by social services while the crime scene was processed.

Autopsy findings later confirmed Jason died from multiple blunt-force trauma injuries, and the pattern and number of strikes became central issues in the charging decision and later trials.

When the first on-scene interviews were completed, both Molly and Tom were taken to the sheriff’s office for statements. Their accounts aligned on key points but differed on the sequence of blows and how long the confrontation lasted. Those discrepancies, combined with physical evidence, shaped the direction of the investigation in the weeks that followed.

Investigation and Trials

Detectives began interviews the morning Jason Corbett was killed. Molly and her father, Tom Martens, repeated their account that Jason had choked Molly and that Tom stepped in. Investigators compared those statements with the layout of the bedroom, the blood-stain patterns, and the volume of injuries Jason sustained.

Reports later concluded the wounds were far more extensive than what is typically seen in a short, defensive struggle.

The brick recovered from the room was confirmed as a landscaping block kept inside the bedroom, and the baseball bat belonged to Tom. Detectives also collected phone logs, text threads, and Jason’s communications with relatives to understand the state of the marriage in the months leading up to the killing.

During this period, a major development resurfaced regarding Jason’s first wife, Margaret “Mags” Fitzpatrick Corbett, who died in 2006 in Ireland. For years her death was recorded as an asthma attack.

But a U.S. medical expert, brought in during the Corbett–Martens litigation, reviewed her autopsy findings and stated that her injuries were not consistent with death from an asthma event.

This raised new scrutiny over Jason’s past and became a point of legal debate in pre-trial hearings whether the jury should hear this information and how much weight it carried.

By December 2015, a grand jury returned second-degree murder charges against Molly and Tom. What followed was a long stretch of hearings through 2016 and early 2017, focused on what evidence could be admitted, which experts could testify, and whether details about past disputes including the reevaluation of the first wife’s death were permissible.

Jason’s two children remained in Ireland, where the High Court recognized Jason as their sole guardian and refused to return them to the U.S. during the proceedings because of concerns about his death.

The trial opened in July 2017. Prosecutors argued the scene showed an intentional beating, pointing to the multiple strikes, the use of both the bat and the brick, and inconsistencies in Molly and Tom’s timeline. The defense countered that Jason was violent and that Tom acted to save his daughter.

After weeks of testimony, both were convicted of second-degree murder and sentenced to 20–25 years.

Appeals began immediately. In 2020, the North Carolina Court of Appeals overturned the convictions, ruling that key testimony particularly regarding prior conduct had been improperly handled. The case was sent back for retrial.

The retrial process continued until November 2023, when Molly and Tom entered Alford pleas to voluntary manslaughter. They maintained their self-defense claim but accepted that the state had enough evidence to convict.

Aftermath

They received sentences of 51 to 82 months, credited with time already served, and were released shortly after.

After the plea, custody of Jason’s children remained unchanged in Ireland. Statements from the Corbett and Fitzpatrick families emphasized maintaining stability for the children and closing years of litigation.

After sentencing, the Martins family reiterated that they believed the confrontation was defensive. Public interest in the case stayed high in Ireland and the United States because of the conflicting narratives and the years of legal back-and-forth that followed the night Jason died.