A NEW podcast with Limerick author and campaigner Sarah Corbett Lynch gives an insight into the killing of her father, Jason Corbett, in North Carolina in 2015.
RIP.ie released the latest episode of Parting Words, where Sarah speaks about losing her father, surviving trauma, and growing up in the public eye.
Sarah speaks with striking clarity about the night her father died, the years of court battles that followed, and the lifelong impact of navigating grief as a child at the centre of a global news story.
Just eight years old when her dad was killed, Ms Corbett recalls the surreal calm in the house that night, and the confusion that followed, saying: “Everybody was so calm … They were having barbecues … It was really hard to believe that my dad was gone.”
She remembers waking disoriented, seeing hallucinations, and being carried past the scene by a police officer who shielded her from the violence, recalling in the podcast: “I woke up again to a police officer … He hid me in his collar so I didn’t have to see what had happened.”
Jason Corbett’s wife and father-in-law, Molly and Tom Martens, were convicted of second-degree murder and sentenced to 20-25 years in prison in 2017, but their convictions were overturned on appeal in 2021.
Plans for a retrial in 2023 did not take place after the father and daughter agreed a deal with prosecutors.
They were then sentenced to between four years and three months to six years and two months with credit for time served. They were released from prison in June 2024.
Sarah speaks openly about being coached by Molly Martens, telling the podcast that she “taught us that for four years … to say my dad was a bad man”.
The episode explores not just the crime, but the psychological aftermath, the confusion, the loyalty, the manipulation, and the long road back to understanding what really happened.