Killer Molly may face punishment for going AWOL
MURDERER Molly Martens is facing disciplinary action in prison for going on ‘unauthorised leave’.
Martens, 33, was convicted of second-degree murder for beating her husband, Limerick man Jason Corbett, to death with a baseball bat and a paving stone at their North Carolina home in 2015.
Her ex-FBI agent father Thomas Martens, 67, was convicted alongside her.
Molly, offender number 1551729, began serving her prison sentence of 20 to 25 years at the Southern Correctional Institution following her conviction in August.
Last night, a spokesman for the North Carolina Department of Public Safety confirmed that an ‘unauthorised leave infraction’ had been recorded against the former model last month.
‘The incident took place on November 21,’ he said.
‘The offender may have been somewhere she was not supposed to be, and this was detected and recorded.’
The spokesman declined to reveal further details about the incident but indicated that it was unlikely to be an escape attempt. ‘There will be an investigation into what happened and the offender will be afforded a chance to explain.’
After the verdict, Tom and Molly Martens launched twintrack challenges to their convictions. The primary challenge is to the North Carolina Court of Appeals.
This appeal is focused on legal aspects of the four-week trial and the reasons they argue the convictions should now be quashed. A second strand saw the pair trying to have their guilty verdicts thrown out for jury misconduct
However, yesterday Davidson County District Attorney Garry Frank told to the Mail that Judge David Lee, who tried Molly and Tom Martens, had denied their motion to have their verdicts set aside on those grounds.
Mr Frank said: ‘The judge ruled that under the law there was no support for it. I must stress that this shows that there was no evidence of jury misconduct and this ruling has a very strong legal grounding.’
‘Unlikely to be escape attempt’