Thomas Martens and Molly Martens Corbett, who admitted to the 2015 manslaughter of Irish man Jason Corbett, received their sentences in Davidson County Court in North Carolina today, November 8, after taking guilty plea deals last week.
The father and daughter have each been sentenced to a minimum of four years and three months and a maximum of six years and two months behind bars.
However, they have received credit for time already served - three years and eight months - leaving them with a minimum sentence of seven months and maximum of two years and six months remaining.
The two were ordered to have no contact with the family of Jason Corbett, the Co Limerick man they killed in North Carolina in 2015.
According to RTE, Molly, who was married to Jason, has been ordered to undergo a psychiatric assessment and has been placed on suicide watch.
Molly Martens was Co Limerick native Jason Corbett's second wife; his first wife, with whom he has two children, Jack and Sarah, died after an asthma attack in 2006. Afterward, Jason hired Molly, a native of Tennessee, as an au pair in Ireland. The two began a relationship and got married in the US in 2011.
Molly and her father Tom claim they were acting in self-defense when they killed Jason Corbett in North Carolina on August 2, 2015. Tom said that he discovered Jason choking Molly and that he acted to save her life. However, their original trial heard testimony from police and paramedics who said that there was no evidence of strangulation on her body.
In August 2017, Molly and Tom were convicted of second-degree murder and sentenced to 20 - 25 years in prison.
Molly and Tom appealed the original convictions on the basis that they did not get a fair trial because the judge had excluded evidence that would have supported their claims that they acted in self-defense. They said that evidence given by Corbett's children to social workers should have been included as evidence.
In February 2020, the North Carolina Court of Appeal ruled that both Molly and Tom were entitled to a retrial. The North Carolina Supreme Court upheld the Court of Appeal's decision in January 2021.
In April 2021, Molly and Tom were granted a bond of $200k on the condition that they surrender their passports and do not contact the Corbett family.
The retrial had been scheduled to begin earlier this year but was delayed until November. On October 31, however, it was announced that a plea deal arrangement had been agreed upon and that a retrial would not go ahead.
For the plea deal, Thomas pleaded guilty to the voluntary manslaughter of his son-in-law while his daughter Molly pleaded no contest to the voluntary manslaughter of her husband.
Judge David Hall told Thomas and Molly that in accepting the plea deal, both of them would be regarded as felons.
The more serious charge of second-degree murder against Molly and Thomas was dropped as part of the plea deal.
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