Molly Martens Corbett and her father, former FBI agent Thomas Martens were released from prison after completing their sentences for voluntary manslaughter in the beating death of Corbett’s Irish husband in 2015.
Corbett was released from the state’s Correctional Institution for Women on June 6 while her father was released from Caldwell Correctional Center. Each served roughly seven more months behind bars following additional sentencing last November after the two entered plea agreements with prosecutors.
Corbett and Martens were initially scheduled to go back on trial in late 2023 after a 2021 North Carolina Supreme Court ruling reversed their 2017 convictions of second-degree murder and ordered a new trial.
Under the terms of the plea agreement, both father and daughter will be under a year of post-release supervision in Tennessee.
Jason Corbett was beaten to death in the Davidson County home he shared with his wife Molly.
Prosecutors said Molly and her father beat Corbett with an aluminum baseball bat and a paver brick, injuring his torso, arms, and legs, and fracturing his skull.
The defense argued that the pair was acting in self-defense and feared for their lives during a struggle in which Corbett was killed.
The two were each sentenced to 20 to 25 years for second-degree murder in 2017 but were released on bond in 2021 following the North Carolina Supreme Court decision vacating the convictions.
In late October before the retrial was scheduled to start, Corbett pleaded no contest to voluntary manslaughter while her father pleaded guilty to the same charge. The judge sentenced them to 51-74 months in prison with time served.
Molly Corbett met her late husband in 2008 when she was working as an au pair for Corbett in Ireland. Corbett’s first wife passed away in 2006 following an asthma attack.
In vacating the convictions, the state Supreme Court noted that prosecutors omitted statements made by Corbett’s two children that their father had been abusive. Prosecutors had argued at the initial trial that the statements were unreliable since both children recanted, prompting the trial judge to omit them.