Daughter of Irish man beaten to death by American wife, her ex-FBI agent father rejects self-defense claims
Jason Corbett's American wife, Molly Martens, and her father, former FBI agent Thomas Martens, confessed to beating Corbett to death on Aug. 2, 2015, but they have maintained that they were acting in self-defense after Corbett apparently tried to choke his wife.
"There were times when I thought, 'I'm gonna die,'" Molly Martens says in the documentary.
The Martens were convicted in Corbett's death in 2017, but their convictions were overturned on appeal. In 2023, Thomas Martens pleaded guilty to beating Corbett to death with a bat and Molly Martens pleaded no contest, prompting their respective releases from prison in 2024.
A Netflix documentary titled "A Deadly American Marriage," which premiered on May 9, follows the case and its many lingering questions, featuring interviews with both sides of the family, including Molly and Thomas Martens, as well as Corbett's two children, Jack and Sarah.
The filmmakers also spoke with Corbett's sister, who lives in Ireland and was eventually granted custody of her brother's two children with his first wife because she was listed as their legal guardian if anything ever happened to him.
Sarah told Fox News Digital she does not think her father got justice.
"I definitely don't think justice has been served. I don't think it could ever be served, but definitely not what the Martens were given," she said.
Now the author of a memoir titled, "A Time for Truth," Sarah says she felt the documentary accurately portrayed both her family and the Martens.
While the film leaves viewers with lingering questions, Sarah remains firm in her belief about what happened to her father.
"Everyone knows that I believe that Molly and Tom murdered my dad. That's my belief," she said. "But that's not what they were convicted of. There's a lot of evidence [in 'A Time for Truth'] that points to that that doesn't get shown anywhere else. So, I think the book has a lot more detail in it."
She added that her book is "not just sad" and has happy anecdotes about her father, as well.
Fox News Digital reached out to Molly and Thomas Martens' respective attorneys.
Molly Martens alleged that her husband was choking her when her father walked into the room and the deadly confrontation began, per local outlet WXII.
A medical examiner determined that Corbett had injuries to his arms, legs and torso, as well as a fractured skull. The medical examiner said the man died of blunt force trauma and sustained at least 10 hits to the head.
Corbett and Molly Martens met in 2008 following the death of Corbett's late wife, who suffered an asthma attack. Corbett then advertised for an au pair to help him care for his two children with his late wife and gave Molly the job. They were engaged in 2010 and married in 2011.
A former North Carolina FBI agent and prosecutor who knew of Thomas Martens said he was a talented agent who supervised a team of employees in Greensboro.
"He had a good reputation – a very good reputation," Chris Swecker, now an attorney, told Fox News Digital. "He was in the Greensboro office of the FBI for a good while. I believe he was the supervisory resident agent up in Greensboro, which meant he was in charge of maybe 15 or 20 agents in a pretty active office in the Bureau."
Swecker added that Thomas Martens would have had plenty of experience conducting interrogations, and that would have helped him as police interrogated him in Corbett's killing.
"Without a doubt," Swecker said when asked if Thomas Martens' professional experience would help him in an interrogation. "He knows where the interrogator is going when he asks a question and… the piece of evidence or point he's trying to extract from him. It's a chess game, if you're trying to protect yourself and your daughter, for example."
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The former FBI agent described Corbett's killing as "one of those cases where you wonder if you ever really get the answers, and there's only two people that will ever know, and it's Tom and his daughter."
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