The father of the woman who was beaten to death by an Irish businessman in 2015 and his wife were both freed from North Carolina prisons on Thursday. They had finished the last part of their sentences for admitting to voluntary manslaughter.
The state Department of Adult Correction said in an email that Molly Martens Corbett was released from the North Carolina Correctional Institution for Women in Raleigh on Thursday morning. Her father, Thomas Martens, was also freed from the Caldwell Correctional Center in Lenoir.
After getting more time in prison in November, soon after entering plea deals, they each spent about seven more months in jail. Before, the two were set to go back on trial at the end of last year. This was because the North Carolina Supreme Court overturned their 2017 second-degree murder charges and ordered a new trial.
The two will now have to be supervised for a year after they get out of jail. This will happen in Tennessee, according to Keith Acree, a spokesman for the corrections department.
For Corbett, her husband Jason Corbett died at the house he shared with her in Davidson County, which is about 110 miles (175 kilometers) west of Raleigh.
Investigators say that Molly Corbett and Martens, a former FBI agent, killed Jason Corbett by hitting him in the head with an aluminum baseball bat and a brick paver. Corbett’s arm, legs, and body were also hurt. Lawyers for the two have said that they were acting in self-defense and that they were afraid for their lives during a fight. His death and the court case that followed got a lot of attention in Ireland, and there was even an episode of a true-crime show in the US.
For the murders, each had already been given a sentence of 20 to 25 years in jail. A few weeks after the Supreme Court’s ruling, they were freed on bond.
Forcible murder was a charge against Corbett on October 30, and her father pleaded guilty. A judge in Davidson County gave them a jail sentence of 51 to 74 months, but they served a lot less because they got credit for time they had already spent in prison.
In 2008, Molly Corbett met Jason Corbett when she worked as an au pair for his first marriage and took care of his two kids. In 2006, his first wife died of an asthma attack.
The state Supreme Court ordered a new trial because the two children had said things during a medical exam soon after the death that were left out but showed their father had been abusive at home. Prosecutors said the comments were not true and that both kids later changed their minds. The comments were not allowed to be used in the trial by the judge.
The children of Jason Corbett spoke at his punishment hearing last year,
