On the night of August 2, 2015, eight-year-old Sarah Corbett was woken at 3:15 am by a police officer, who told her he needed to carry her downstairs and that she had to keep her eyes closed while he did.
Terrified but compliant, Sarah had no idea he was taking her past the horrific scene of the slaughtering of her father Jason by her stepmother Molly Martens and Molly’s father Tom. Blood covered the walls and floors as Corporal Clayton Stewart Dagenhardt gently brought her to the basement.
Tom and his wife Sharon slept in that room whenever they stayed over, and when Sarah and her ten-year-old brother Jack were brought in, Sarah recalls that Sharon was "sitting in bed, reading her book, with our dog Rory and her dogs, Homer and Guthrie, around her.
"I took my cue from Sharon. She seemed calm and composed. She read her book under a clip-on light as the three dogs settled back to sleep. The room became quiet, save for the soft rustle of paper as Sharon turned the pages of her book."
Knowing her husband and daughter had just killed her son-in-law, Sharon coldly sat reading, not checking in with the children nor asking if there was anything they needed. It’s beyond belief.
Having closely followed this story since Jason’s death, I thought there was nothing more I could hear about the Martens family that could shock me. I was wrong.
Tempestuous relationship
Jason and his first wife Mags had lived in Limerick when their son Jack was joined by his sister Sarah in 2007. Just 12 weeks after her daughter’s birth, Mags died of a severe asthma attack.
A few years after her death, Jason hired Molly Martens from North Carolina as a nanny. After she arrived in Ireland and moved in to look after the children, the two fell in love and Jason got a transfer in his job to a post in the US and they all moved back to Molly’s home state, where they got married.
Their relationship was a tempestuous one, and it is believed Jason had made up his mind to move home to Ireland with Jack and Sarah not long before he died. It is thought that Molly, through covert recording devices, may have discovered this and tried to make out that Jason was a danger to her in the weeks and months before she and her dad beat him to death.
Having been found guilty of second-degree murder and sentenced to 20-25 years in 2017, a verdict which they appealed after years of legal wrangling, Molly and Tom Martens walked free last year after agreeing a plea deal. They had served just over four years each.
Although it’s believed Molly’s main motive for killing her husband was to get sole custody of the children, from the moment Jason died, it seems she and her family had little empathy or love for them.
Sarah recalls how they were brought to Molly’s brother Bobby’s house in the immediate aftermath of her dad’s death.
Jason Corbett.
Coached on what lies to tell
Over the next few days, Sarah almost drowned at the beach – something Molly said was Sarah’s own fault – while Jack would disappear to a cornfield for hours on end, with nobody checking in to see if he was ok. It is worth remembering, they were eight and ten at the time, and had just lost their father in shocking circumstances.
It was also during these days that the children were coached on what lies to tell social workers so that not only would Molly and Tom get away with beating Jason to death, but Molly would also get custody of the kids.
Thankfully, before his death, Jason had had the foresight to make his sister Tracey and her husband Dave their legal guardians should anything happen to him – something which says all you need to know about how he really felt about Molly.
Tracey and Dave took them back to Limerick and raised them alongside their own sons, Adam and Dean. In the years since, Sarah has had to watch on while her father’s name was sullied in court case after court case, until the final hearing last year, during which she was told she and Jack could deliver victim impact statements.
It wasn’t until the case had started, however, that they were told the statements would have no bearing whatsoever on the outcome, but they were still welcome to make them.
Almost deterred, a couple of days into the hearing, having heard witness after witness speak in glowing terms about Molly and Tom, a former FBI agent – as well as utterly unfounded allegations that Jason had actually killed his first wife Mags – Sarah knew she had to take the chance to speak up for her dad.
All-American sweetheart
That statement forms the basis of "A Time For Truth," with each chapter kicking off with an excerpt from it. She writes in great detail about the proceedings, interspersing court stories with those from her childhood.
Far from being an all-American sweetheart, Sarah portrays Molly as a dangerous, manipulative, insidious character who not only coercively controlled her husband and stepchildren but physically abused her stepson, Jack.
She constantly pitted the children against each other, driving a wedge between them that took years to overcome.
Sarah could barely read or write when she moved back to Ireland as Molly had kept her out of school so often so they could go shopping or socialising together. She told teachers Sarah was coeliac and dairy intolerant, which is why she was ill so often, neither of which was true.
She entered the children into swim meets and would often withhold food if they didn’t do well.
She would tell Jason the wrong times for their events, then tell Jack and Sarah that he just couldn’t be bothered coming to watch them.
Sarah Corbett Lynch with her new book "A Time for Truth." (Sarah Corbett Lynch, Facebook)
Survival and hope
As was evidenced by many witnesses during her trials, Molly had a very tenuous relationship with the truth.
As Sarah recounts incident after incident, this could very easily have descended into a story of bitterness and anger – and it truly is a damning indictment of the US justice system – but instead, as Sarah’s statement unfurls, it becomes one of survival and hope.
There is no underestimating the part Tracey and Dave played in ensuring Jack and Sarah survived their traumatic and abusive childhood, and Sarah rightly praises them both – and their sons Adam and Dean – every chance she gets.
She also reveals the success of the regular therapy she’s been attending since she arrived back home to Ireland, and credits diving, horse-riding, singing, and writing with helping her release some of the demons.
As you read, it’s sometimes hard to remember that Sarah is just 18. She’s been through so much in her life already and writes with a maturity and honesty way beyond her years.
There are no pictures of Molly in the book, a deliberate decision, as this is now Jason’s story. One which he can’t tell himself but Sarah has vowed she will.
*This article was originally published on Extra.ie.
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