FIVE WOMEN, INCLUDING a family law attorney, testified today that Jason and Molly Corbett had a troubled relationship and that Jason Corbett physically, emotionally and verbally abused his wife.
Shannon Grubb of Winston-Salem, who knew the Corbett family, said that on 1 August 2015, a day before Jason Corbett was killed, Grubbs saw Molly Corbett bleeding from an ear injury, and Molly Corbett told her that she and Jason Corbett had been in a fight.
“I said that this cannot continue,” Grubbs said. “She’s going to get hurt or worse than that if this abuse goes on. She said she would not leave the kids.”
Grubb and the other women testified at the sentencing hearing for Thomas Martens and Molly Corbett in Davidson Superior Court. Molly Corbett and her father entered arranged pleas Monday in Jason Corbett’s death.
Grubb said she received a phone call from Molly Corbett’s phone on 12 October 2014. Grubb said she heard Jason Corbett’s and Molly Corbett’s voices amid screaming and yelling.
A worried Grubb hung up her phone four minutes later. The next day, Grubb called Molly Corbett, who said she was embarrassed by the incident.
Grubb encouraged Molly Corbett to get help in dealing with her husband. Molly Corbett replied that she was coping with many factors, and that she would never leave Jason Corbett’s son and daughter.
“It was a lot to process,” Grubbs said about the couple’s relationship.
Molly Corbett was the second wife of Jason Corbett, who had Jack and Sarah with his first wife who died in 2006.
Billie June Jacobs of Wallburg said that Jason Corbett always wanted to know where his wife was and to whom she was speaking at social gatherings.
Jacobs said Molly Corbett told her that Jason Corbett would yell at her, pull her hair, pinch her and step on her foot, Jacobs said.
“I knew that someone would get hurt sooner or later,” Jacobs said. “It was going to come to a boiling point.”
Melissa Sams, a family law attorney who lives Wallburg, said she recalled that Molly Corbett had dressed up for a social event. Sams told her friend that she looked nice, and Molly Corbett replied that her husband told her that she looked like a whore.
“Jason screamed at her a lot and called her names,” Sams said.
Molly Corbett asked Sams for legal advice as she was considering divorcing Jason Corbett, Sams said.
Sams encouraged Corbett to meet with a family law attorney in Winston-Salem who specialized in cases involving stepparents, Sams said.
Jason Corbett, 39, was found dead in his Davidson County home in North Carolina in the early hours of 2 August, 2015.
Thomas Martens, 73, a retired FBI agent, pleaded guilty to voluntary manslaughter. He is accused of beating Jason Corbett with a baseball bat
Molly Corbett, 40, pleaded no contest to voluntary manslaughter. She is accused of striking her husband with a concrete paver.
Judge David Hall in Davidson Superior Court indicated that no contest plea is treated as a guilty plea.
Hall will determine the sentences for Molly Corbett and Martens.
Hall has said that he has the option of giving a much more lenient sentence of probation without active time in prison.
Molly Corbett and Martens were initially charged with second-degree murder in Jason Corbett’s death.
Molly Corbett and Martens claimed self-defense, saying Jason Corbett attacked them and threatened their lives.
They said Corbett choked his wife and that Martens came to her rescue with a baseball bat he intended to give to Jack.
A Davidson County jury convicted Molly Corbett and Martens in a high-profile trial in August 2017 of second-degree murder. 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 defense.
The North Carolina Supreme Court affirmed the lower appellate court’s ruling, sending the case back to Davidson County for a retrial.
They served about four years of that sentence.
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