A North Carolina model and her former FBI agent father have entered pleas in the beating death of her Irish businessman husband after claiming self-defense in the killing.
On Monday, Molly Corbett pleaded no contest, and her father Thomas Martens pleaded guilty to the August 2015 killing of Jason Corbett, whose body was found in the couple's golf course community home in Davidson County.
Their attorneys claim the two were acting in self-defense and feared for their lives in a struggle with the Ireland native, The Associated Press reported. Molly Corbett alleges that her husband was choking her when her father walked into the room and the deadly confrontation began, per local outlet WXII.
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A post-mortem examination revealed that the slain man was left with injuries to his arms, legs and torso and a fractured skull. The medical examiner said the man died of blunt force trauma and sustained at least 10 hits to the head.
The father and daughter were convicted in 2017 of second-degree murder and sentenced to 20 to 25 years in prison, per WXII.
"After going over some of the evidence and discussing it, the clothing and proximity to the attack, we felt that [Corbett] could have gotten out of that situation but chose to stay," jury foreman Tom Ammland said in court after a nearly four-hour deliberation, Fox News Digital previously reported. "There are no winners in this case. Everybody loses to some degree and we all agreed on that."
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However, the North Carolina Supreme Court reversed those convictions, despite an appeal filed by prosecutors, and ordered a new trial in 2021, per the outlet.
In that decision, the court highlighted statements made by the Corbett's two children in a medical evaluation claiming that their father was abusive in the home.
Prosecutors argued that the children's statements, which were both later recanted, were unreliable; the trial judge excluded the statements from being entered into the record at the time.
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A sentencing trial for Corbett and Martens began on Monday. The maximum sentence for both the woman and her father would be 204 months in prison, per the outlet.
Evidence that will be presented by the state includes witnesses from local law enforcement from Meadowlands and the state's crime lab. A 911 call placed by Martens the morning of Aug. 2, 2015 was also played for jurors.
"He was choking my daughter, he said, 'I'm going to kill her,'" Martens is heard telling 911 that night. "He's bleeding all over and I may have killed him."
Doug Kingsbury, Molly Corbett's defense attorney, has shared that there was a history of domestic violence between the couple and said that Jason Corbett had admitted "anger issues."
Jay Van Noy, Martens' attorney, told jurors that "you can't explain what it's like to see your daughter being strangled" when explaining his client's alleged emotional motivation for the killing, per WXII.
Neither attorney could be reached for comment on the new convictions at press time.
Jason Corbett met Molly Corbett in 2008 – she was an au pair for his two children from a previous marriage. The man's first wife died of an asthma attack in 2006.
