MOLLY AND TOM Martens walked free from prison today after being sentenced last year for the death of Limerick man Jason Corbett.
Jason Corbett was found dead in the home he shared with Molly Martens on 2 August, 2015.
In a plea deal last November, the North Carolina father and daughter were each sentenced to seven to 30 months of remaining prison time with credit for 44 months served from sentences after their 2017 convictions.
Molly Martens was released from the North Carolina Correctional Institution for Women, while Tom Martens was released from the Caldwell Correctional Center.
A spokesperson for the North Carolina Department of Corrections told The Journal that both are subject to one year of post-release supervision by a probation/parole officer.
During a previous trial in 2017, prosecutors maintained that the Martens had concocted a story of self-defence to cover a crime that sprung from motives of malice toward Jason Corbett.
A Davidson County jury convicted them in a high-profile trial in August 2017 of second-degree murder, annd a judge sentenced each of them to 20 to 25 years in prison.
However, the North Carolina Court of Appeals later overturned the conviction, finding that the trial judge made prejudicial decisions that prevented the two from mounting a defence.
During last year’s second trial, Thomas Martens, accused of beating Jason Corbett with a baseball bat, pleaded guilty to voluntary manslaughter.
Molly Martens, accused of striking her husband with a paver stone used in landscaping, pleaded no contest to voluntary manslaughter, although Superior Court Judge David Hall said that a no contest plea is treated as a form of a guilty plea.
Jason Corbett’s family and supporters were not happy with the sentence and considered it to be too short.
“I am at a loss for words,” one family member said on X, formerly known as Twitter. “No justice for Jason.”
Jason Corbett was killed in his Davidson County home on 2 August, 2015.
The defence contended that they were acting in self-defence and that Martens had intervened only after seeing Jason Corbett choking his daughter.
However, prosecutor Alan Martin told the trial that Molly Martens provoked an argument the night her husband died in hopes of setting the stage to get a domestic violence order that would give her custody of the children, whom she feared her husband was about to take to his native Ireland.
Contains reporting by Eimer McAuley.
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