Pair guilty of Jason Corbett murder file appeals

Corbett, 34, and Martens, 68, a former FBI agent, were found guilty on August 9, 2017, of second-degree murder and were each sentenced to 20-25 years in prison.

Davidson County prosecutors last year alleged that Corbett and Martens used a 28in Louisville Slugger baseball bat and a concrete paving brick to brutally beat Jason Corbett in his bedroom in the early hours of August 2, 2015.

Jason Corbett, a businessman, was found lying in the master bedroom of the house he shared with Corbett, his second wife, and Jason’s two children from his first marriage.

He lived at 160 Panther Creek Court in the Meadowlands, an upscale golf-course community in Davidson County.

A medical examiner said Jason was hit 12 times in the head, and prosecutors said his skull was crushed.

The case captured national and international attention, with Irish journalists arriving in Davidson County to cover the month-long trial. ABC News’ 20/20 aired a special after the trial featuring pre-trial interviews with Corbett and Martens and post-trial interviews with three of the jurors, including the jury foreman, Tom Aamland.

In the year since the trial, Jason’s sister, Tracey Lynch, released a book called My Brother Jason.

The house where Jason was killed has been sold. And Molly Corbett recently avoided possibly serving the maximum of her sentence after she was cited for several infractions, including allegations that she left a supervised area of the prison without permission.

Jason’s children live with his sister Tracey Lynch and her husband David in Ireland. Mr Lynch, the executor of Jason’s estate, has filed a wrongful death lawsuit against Corbett and Martens in Davidson Superior Court.

During the trial, Molly Corbett and Thomas Martens argued that they killed Jason Corbett out of self- defence.

Martens testified that Jason Corbett was choking Molly and that he struck Jason Corbett multiple times to protect Molly and himself.

Attorneys for Corbett and Martens are now preparing to file court papers with the North Carolina Court of Appeals by September 13.

They want the court to overturn their convictions over a number of issues, particularly allegations of jury misconduct.

“I still can’t begin to understand how we didn’t receive a new trial or an evidentiary hearing, based on the comments the foreman made immediately after the verdict about ignoring the judge’s instructions,” said David Freedman, one of the attorneys for Martens. “He admitted to having private conversations about the case.”

Freedman and his law firm will continue to represent Martens in his appeal, Mr Freedman said. Walter Holton and Cheryl Andrews represented Molly Corbett during the trial, but Douglas Kingsbery and Melissa Hill will represent her on the appeal.

Ms Kingsbery and Ms Hill could not be reached for comment. Assistant district attorney Alan Martin could not be immediately reached for comment.

According to a motion filed last year in Davidson Superior Court, Mr Aamland told reporters: “We felt which way we were going to go, I believe, individually before the closing arguments.

"We didn’t discuss the verdicts but in having private conversations everybody — we could read that everybody was going in the same direction, just the level of severity. Nobody voted ‘not guilty’.”

Attorneys for Corbett and Martens have argued that Mr Aamland had a private conversation with another juror in a car after deliberations ended for the day on August 9. They also included an affidavit from an alternate juror who said the jurors talked about the case outside of deliberations.

Judge David Lee of Davidson Superior Court denied the motion to vacate the conviction based on alleged jury misconduct last December.

The attorneys also plan to challenge Judge Lee’s decisions on excluding statements to social workers by Jason’s children, Jack and Sarah, made to social workers with the Union County Department of Social Services and at Dragonfly House Children’s Advocacy Center in Mocksville.

According to court papers, Jack and Sarah made statements that Jason physically and emotionally abused Corbett. Prosecutors filed papers saying that the children later recanted the statements and that the statements were not admissible due to hearsay.

Another issue will be a statement from Martens saying that Michael Fitzgerald, the late father of Jason’s first wife, told Martens that he believed Jason was responsible for his daughter’s death.

Margaret Fitzpatrick Corbett died in 2006 from a cardiac arrest resulting from an asthma attack, according to an autopsy included in court papers filed with the N.C. Court of Appeals on Tuesday Michael Fitzpatrick said in a February 2016 affidavit that he never talked about his daughter with Martens.

Attorneys also plan to challenge the testimony of Stuart James, a blood spatter expert, who testified, among other things, that red stains on the inside of Martens’ boxer shorts indicated that Martens was over and above Jason when he was struck.

Martens’ attorneys have argued that Mr James did not follow proper protocol in testing whether the red stains were actually blood.

It will take six months to a year before the court of appeals issues a decision.