Courts

Family of Mags Fitzpatrick, Jason Corbett’s first wife, told court ‘what the Martens claimed is totally inaccurate’

In statement read out in court, family says ‘last eight years since Jason was brutally murdered have been unimaginable’

The late Jason Corbett. Photograph: Brendan Gleeson

Brian Carroll in Lexington, North Carolina
Wed Nov 8 2023 - 22:05

The family of Mags Fitzpatrick, Jason’s first wife, sent a powerful statement to the court defending Jason and denouncing the Martens for their attempts to tarnish the love of Jason and Mags and their two children, Jack and Sarah.

Since the opening of this eight-day hearing before Davidson County Superior Court, the Martens’ lawyers have attempted to present Jason as a murderer, someone who choked his first wife to death.

Mags Fitzpatrick was found by an Irish pathologist to have died of an asthma attack, but experts for both the prosecution and the defence in this case found that she did not die of an asthma attack because the physical signs of that were not shown up in the autopsy.

Her cause of death was undetermined, but the Martens lawyers extrapolated from that that it was a possibility she had died from manual strangulation. Experts for the prosecution said there were any number of possibilities but it was far from probable and lacking in any physical or scientific evidence that her death was “probably” caused by manual strangulation. Because the death was undetermined, said district attorney Alan Martin, we would never know.

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He suggested a much more probable cause of death was cardiac arrest. Mags had visited her GP weeks before her death complaining of chest pains and pains down her left arm. She had used her asthma inhaler on the night she died – and this has the effect of increasing the heart rate.

Mags’s family issued a statement to the court that was read out by assistant district attorney Marissa Parker. “The last eight years since Jason was brutally murdered have been unimaginable. This week has been extremely hard for all of our family, especially Mags’s mother, Marian. What the Martens claimed is totally inaccurate and untrue. Mags suffered with asthma all her life. She had a nebuliser in her home. Mags’s sister Catherine was living with Jason and Mags and was present on the night she died. Jason woke Catherine and he called an ambulance and ran out to take her to the hospital. He revived her in the car. He did everything he could to save this person he adored.

“Mags was a great daughter, the rock in our family, a loving wife and mother. We miss Jason dearly. He was a part of our family and continued to be after Mags died. He was Mags’s soul mate. All we want is peace and closure for Jack and Sarah. We want the world to know the depth of Mags’s and Jason’s love. Nothing can tarnish the love between Mags and Jason,” the family said.

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