Corbett family express ‘relief’ at guilty verdict

Wayne Corbett has said the guilty verdict in the trial in the US of the killers of his twin brother, Jason, was a “bittersweet” moment for his family.

"It's been a long two years," he said, speaking at his parents' home in Janesboro, Limerick after his brother's wife, Molly Martens Corbett, and her father, Thomas Martens, were found guilty of second-degree murder.

“We’re just delighted as a family that the whole ordeal is over and done with, and that they have been found guilty.”

The moment was “bittersweet”, he added.

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“We’re delighted it’s finally at an end. It’s not a celebration – Jason is still gone – but finally people have been found guilty, and justly so, for murdering Jason,” he said. “It was a cold-blooded murder, in my eyes.”

He said his 76-year old mother, Rita, was too emotional to talk to the media.

“She’s delighted,” he said. “It’s been a great relief for my elderly parents – Rita and John – that this has finally come to an end; that we can all now grieve for Jason without having to worry about the court case.

“Hopefully we can start to try to put this behind us and start to concentrate and grieve for Jason,” he said.

“I was totally confident [the jury] would find them guilty. It is still overwhelming to hear it, but I was confident the jury would come to the decision they did.”

Mr Corbett revealed he received the initial contact from the Martens family about Jason’s death. However, he claimed the phone call made to him was 10 hours after his brother’s murder.

“It’s surreal. It’s like we were living a nightmare for the last two years, ever since I personally got that phone call on August 2nd, 2015,” he said. “I remember walking down the road here and getting a phone call that Jason was dead.”

He said Molly Martens and her father deserved to go to jail for the rest of their lives, but that “nothing will make up for the last two years that family put us through”.

Mr Corbett said he believed Thomas Martens, a former FBI agent who beat his son-in-law to death with a baseball bat, “thought he was above everyone”.

“He thought that we were a small family from Ireland, and that we wouldn’t fight, but we did. He has a long time now to think about that.”

He said his late brother’s children, Jack and Sarah, who lost their mother and Jason’s first wife, Mags Fitzpatrick, to a fatal asthma attack in 2006, were “doing fine” in Limerick.

“They’re going to school, they’re very good,” he said. “I’d say their parents, Margaret and Jason, are smiling down, glad the kids are here, and they know the kids will be safe.”

Wayne Corbett thanked the jury and prosecution team, as well as the police, for helping to deliver “justice” for his brother.

“ I’d also like to thank the jury. It was a long process and they had to sit through a lot of evidence, and I’m glad they came to the decision they came to,” he said.

“They determined what was the truth and what wasn’t. They were able to differentiate who was telling the truth, and pictures don’t lie.”

Jason’s older brother, Stephen Corbett, thanked everyone who had helped his family carry on through their loss. He thanked the 600 people who attended a candle-lit vigil in Limerick shortly after the murder.

“There was more than a city behind us – we had support from all over the world – but, I’ll never forget the day Limerick city got behind us,” he said. “It’s been two years of a nightmare. My brother is still gone. It won’t bring my brother back.”