Molly Martens, the US woman who murdered her husband Jason Corbett, sent his family the bill for the ambulance that came to his house the night she killed the father-of-two.
Jason’s brother Wayne Corbett said his family were relieved that the jury reached a guilty verdict and that Martens and her father Thomas Martens received a 20-year minimum sentence for the second-degree murder of the Limerick man.
Jason Corbett died when the Martens inflicted a number of blows to his head, using a baseball bat and brick, in the master bedroom of his home in Panther Creek, North Carolina.
Speaking after the verdict, Wayne Corbett said Ms Martens caused difficulty for his family after Jason’s death.
“[The ambulance that] took Jason from his residence in Panther Creek to the hospital, she sent the bill for that,” he told Cormac Ó hEadhra on RTÉ’s Today programme.
“When they went over originally, trying to see Jason, she got the body moved a couple of times as well, they couldn’t actually find the funeral home where Jason was for a few days until she eventually told them where he was,” Mr Corbett said.
Wayne Corbett also said that he believed the Martens attacked his brother as he slept, and said he believed Jason Corbett’s plans to return to Ireland with the children, without his wife, was Ms Martens motivation.
“It is very difficult to comprehend what they did to Jason. They didn’t just kill him. They slaughtered him,” Wayne Corbett said.
“No one will ever know exactly what happened that night but I believe Jason was asleep and they beat him to death. I believe the first blow was in the bed, I believe he was asleep when they hit him first in the head.
“There’s no doubt Jason was coming home with the kids, and she didn’t want the kids to go, I have no doubt that was a factor,” he said.
Mr Corbett’s children were from his first marriage to Margaret Fitzpatrick, who died after an asthma attack in 2006. Margaret’s sister Catherine Fitzpatrick also spoke to RTÉ.
Ms Fitzpatrick, who lived with Jason and her sister for a period, rejected the claims by the Martens that they were acting in self-defence.
“There wasn’t anyone who would say a bad word about him. Him and Mags were soulmates, he was a brilliant husband to Mags and an amazing father.
“It made me angry that they were going to tarnish his name, when all of us knew there was no possible way, he wouldn’t hurt anyone. He wasn’t like that, it was all lies,” she said.