Jason and Molly: It was always doomed
INTERVIEW WITH JASON AND MAGS CORBETT’S BEST FRIEND - PART TWO
ON SATURDAY, we brought you part one of our exclusive interview with Lynn Shanahan, the best friend of Mags and Jason Corbett. She told us of Jason’s incredible love for his first wife and how happy they were as they started their family. After Mags’s sudden death, however, Jason admitted he needed help with the children and decided to hire a nanny. Enter Molly Martens...
MOLLY Martens was living in her hometown of Knoxville, Tennessee, when she responded to Jason Corbett’s advert for someone to look after his children, Jack and Sarah, following the death of his wife Mags. After several phone calls and emails, she uprooted her life and made her way to Limerick to look after Sarah and Jack. Lynn Shanahan, a close friend who had introduced Jason and Mags to each other, recalls her first impressions of the blonde American.
‘If you got her to speak to you she was very intense,’ she says. ‘Other than that she tried not to converse. It was very hard to engage her.
‘Anything that had to do with the children I would go through Jason. Socially or in the house she wouldn’t involve herself in the conversation. We are talkers, you know, so it was hard. She didn’t involve herself, she made a point of staying out of conversation.’
Some time after her arrival in Ireland, a relationship developed between Molly and Jason. He eventually confided in Lynn that her role in his life had taken on a new meaning.
‘He was almost upset and embarrassed because it had been so soon, in his eyes, after Mags,’ she says. ‘He was definitely still grieving at that point. He said he was just so lonely and so sad and she offered comfort. He was upset about it as well, it was too overwhelming for him and he couldn’t straighten his feelings in his head.
‘We wanted it to succeed, we wanted him to be happy, but we were worried because we could see how upset he was as well. He wanted it to be good, but you could tell he was upset by how the relationship was progressing. He was nearly afraid of it because he didn’t want to be disrespectful to Mags and of course his whole heart wasn’t in it. He wasn’t emotionally ready at all.
‘He said that he wished he could have seen what their true feelings were separately before she met the kids, but it was muddled because she was in the wife role. She was sitting at the kitchen table when they got home, she was caring for the children, she was minding them when they were sick. He kind of felt like the pace was way too fast but he went with it.’
She adds: ‘We all just wanted Jason to be happy. We tried to welcome her in and wanted it to work and could see Jason was happy from time to time so we got behind him.’
Despite their reservations, Jason’s friends and family supported him in his new relationship. Lynn and her husband Tim socialised with Molly and Jason in a bid to get to know her better.
‘Molly was always that bit protected and stand-offish,’ says Lynn. ‘We never got to know about her friends, there was never any talk about that. In terms of her life and history, we learnt very little. I said to Jason, “She’s been here so long, almost four years, and not one friend has visited. Not one friend in four years. Not one.”
‘Her mum did come twice. I questioned him, I said, “You have been over there, does she have friends? Did you met any of her friends? You have your friends and family.” And he brushed it off. I was really concerned about that.’
During a night out with friends some time later, Jason announced that he and Molly were engaged.
‘We had arranged a big night out,’ says Lynn. ‘There was a whole gang of us and we were to meet Molly and Jason later. He told none of us what he was doing and they went for dinner. He came after that and said they were engaged. We were all shocked. I said to him, “God Jason I wasn’t expecting this,” and he said, “Don’t talk to me about it now.”
‘Later he said that he felt really guilty about it for Mags and her family. He said that Molly said she wanted validation. She wanted to be seen as his partner and not the nanny. She didn’t want people viewing her in that role and that she felt she was living in Mags’s shadow. It was awkward there that night. We were like, “Is this what you want?” We told him we wanted him to be happy. I said to him, “You are young, you have babies, we don’t expect you to be a widower for the rest of your life.”’
According to Lynn, soon after the engagement Molly told Jason that she was homesick and wanted to return to the US. She also said problems with her visa meant she could no longer stay in Ireland. ‘Jason’s decision to leave Ireland with the kids was a huge thing,’ she says. ‘He felt that the choice was to move to America with her or never see her again. His huge fear was that he would split the family again and he didn’t want to do that to the kids.
‘He was devastated leaving here. Up to the point where he was leaving he had changed his mind so many times. He struggled with it a lot and then he said, “Look I’ll give it a shot, I can always come back.”
When he left Ireland that Sunday he brought my whole family and his own to Spanish Point. He hired a private room and we had lunch there. It was very poignant.’
On a sunny evening on June 4, 2011, in Knoxville on the banks of the river Tennessee, Jason married Molly Martens. The venue was Bleak House, a historical confederate memorial hall.
Martens was given away by her father Thomas, a retired FBI agent. In the ceremony in Bleak House’s extensive gardens, Jason’s two children played an integral part in proceedings. Jack, then aged six, was the ring bearer, while Sarah, then four, was a flower girl.
‘I didn’t go to the wedding,’ recalls Lynn. ‘I didn’t really want to go. Jason was Mags’s husband and I didn’t really feel like I should be there. I then felt guilty for not going but when it was over I was glad I didn’t. But I was supportive of him.
In 2012, I went over to see where they lived and where they worked to try to get a feel for them as a family over there. I can’t really talk about that trip [for legal reasons]. Everything had changed.’
The move saw Jason buy a luxury house in the sought-after Meadowlands area of Winston-Salem, North Carolina. The development boasts an 18-hole Hale Irwin designed golf course, cl ubhouse, pool, t ennis courts, playgrounds and parks, as well as more than 40 acres of natural area. The Corbetts’ 2,545-sq-ft house, set on 0.58 acres of land, was paid for in cash. Its estimated value is $350,000 (€312,000).
Jason’s employer Chesapeake had arranged to transfer him to its Lexington plant in North Carolina, where he took up a role as plant manager. Despite the trappings of his new Southern lifestyle, Jason longed for home.
‘He couldn’t settle,’ says Lynn. ‘He was home every three months for the first year. He had a work meeting arranged every three months, always a meeting in London so he could pop over here. He would also come back every July or August with the kids. Then he would be back at Christmas or Tracey would go over to him.
‘He had always intended coming home. He said the best time to move the kids would be before secondary school, or high school as they call it over there. That was the window, before they got too old. He had always said to me he would definitely be home. I know he missed home and was struggling with that.’
In August this year, Lynn was in Lahinch with her family when she received a phone call informing her that Jason was dead.
‘I didn’t get a straight story because of the way it got to here,’ she says. ‘It
‘Jason said he was just so lonely
and so sad’ ‘She felt she as living in Mags’s
shadow’
‘There were 48 hours of panic. It was frightening’
was a jumbled story so I just chose not to believe it. A friend rang my husband and told him and Tim called me into the bedroom, away from the kids and told me. I said, “No it couldn’t be.” Then there was this far-fetched story with it and I said, “That doesn’t sound right.” I stayed hidden down in Lahinch for three days. I just can’t talk about it.’
It later emerged that Jason, 39, had been beaten to death with a baseball bat in a bedroom of his luxury home. Detectives responded to a 911 call made by his father-in-law, Thomas Martens, who told a dispatcher that he had an argument with his son-inlaw and struck him with the bat. Both Mr Martens and his daughter Molly were interviewed by police and have been named in police report as the ‘persons involved’ in the death.
Released without charge, Molly Martens went about securing custody of Jack and Sarah. Her actions resulted in Jason’s sister Tracey flying to the US with a copy of his will, which stated that both children were to be placed in her custody in the event of his death. A protracted courtroom battle ensued, with Lynn Shanahan being called to give evidence on Tracey’s behalf. Eventually a judge ordered that the children return to Ireland with their aunt.
‘They [Jack and Sarah] had to come home,’ says Lynn. ‘ This is where Jason was going to bring them. This is where Jason and Mags’s family are. I had no doubt in my mind that those children had to come home, that they were the safest at home, the most loved at home, and everything here was waiting on them. Myself and another friend, Karen, went out [to North Carolina] together. She rang me and said Tracey had called and asked if we would go out. I said, “That’s what we are doing, book it.”
‘I just wanted to be able to do something. I was waiting so long to be useful. We were so far away and I just wanted to get my hands on Jack and Sarah and see they were okay.’
After Tracey was granted guardianship, a last-minute appeal by Molly almost prevented them returning home to Ireland for Jason’s burial. In a desperate bid to get out of the US, the group took a regional flight from Greensborough, North Carolina, to Washington. They then had to take a train journey, which lasted several hours, from Washington to Newark Airport in New Jersey, where they eventually boarded a flight to Shannon.
‘We all flew home with the kids on the Saturday,’ says Lynn. ‘I thought we would never take off. Even when we were in the air I was weary. When we landed I even looked out to see was it Shannon. I was in so much disbelief over how hard it was to get home. There were 48 hours of sheer panic. It was so frightening.
‘We literally didn’t know when we would get back. We had no bags when we landed but we had the kids.’
As the criminal investigation into Jason’s death continues, the focus is now on raising funds to meet the escalating legal costs facing the Corbett family. Jack and Sarah are settling into life in their native Limerick, surrounded by the love of family and friends.
‘Its fantastic to see them smiling,’ says Lynn. ‘To see them out playing, enjoying life. I feel such relief to see them here, to know that they are safe and happy and to see them with my kids again.
‘They can start to heal as well. They are close to Jason and Mags here. They are like my own nieces and nephews, they are part of the family. They are part of those who I grew up with and Mags and Jason would have been just as close to us if they were still here.
‘Jack and Sarah know,’ she adds. ‘They know my mummy and daddy loved you and you loved my mummy and daddy. You were part of their lives, you laughed together and had fun together and you are part of us. They know that and Jason and Mags would have wanted that.’