A Deadly American Marriage is a new true crime documentary from Netflix centering on Jason Corbett, an Irish man who was killed by his American wife Molly Martens and her ex-FBI father, Thomas “Tom” Martens, in 2015.
Alongside American Monsters filmmaker Jessica Burgess, the documentary is directed by Jenny Popplewell, best known for helming Netflix’s Chris Watts film American Murder: The Family Next Door and Jennifer Pan doc What Jennifer Did.
What makes the case at the center of A Deadly American Marriage even more complex is the controversial legal battle that followed, meaning not only are Molly and Tom now free, but they appear in the Netflix documentary.
Jason’s relatives, including his children – Jack and Sarah Corbett-Lynch – also take the opportunity to share their side of the story, making A Deadly American Marriage a poignant yet disturbing watch. Warning: some may find this content distressing.
The details of Jason Corbett’s death
When Molly and Tom were called in for questioning, they admitted to killing Jason, but claimed it was self-defense. However, detectives raised a number of “red flags,” including the fact that the death itself was horrific, while Molly and Tom had no injuries.
“It’s one of the bloodiest crime scenes I’ve seen in a long time,” says Wanda Thompson of Davidson County Sheriff’s Department. Images are shown of the aftermath, with blood all over the walls and the floor of Molly and Jason’s home.
While discussing the autopsy results in the Netflix documentary, Alan Martin, Assistant District Attorney, is moved to tears, describing them as “horrific.”
“Jason has abrasions on his forehead, under his eye, his shoulder blades, and then we get to his head. And in 30 years of prosecuting, I’ve never seen photographs like these,” he says.
“He had so many blows to his head that the pathologist couldn’t count them because they overlapped and a chunk of Jason’s skull fell out onto the table. It takes an incredible amount of force to cause that kind of injury.”
NetflixMolly and Tom both told interrogators the same story: they claimed Jason was choking Molly, so Tom ran in with a baseball bat. Jason threatened to kill Molly so Tom hit him. Then, Jason got hold of the bat and tried to hit Tom, at which point Molly grabbed a brick from her nightstand and hit Jason over the head.
This was their turn of events, but as highlighted by Wanda Thompson, “These two people are telling us that they just were in a fight for their life. Her husband has horrific injuries, and they don’t appear to have any.” Images are shown of Molly and Tom just after the killing, with no wounds or marks on them.
Other details raised red flags for investigators, including Tom’s extensive experience working as an FBI agent. “He has been schooled in and has schooled others on the art of interrogation,” says Alan Martin, before adding, “I see Tom attempting to control the narrative and present things the way he wants to present them.”
Additionally, the night of the incident, not only were Sarah and Jack in the house, but detectives found out Molly’s mother, Sharon Martens, was also present.
NetflixIn her statement to the police, she claimed she was awoken in the night by sounds of thumping and her daughter’s screaming, but that she fell back to sleep after her husband went to deal with it.
“I’m dumbfounded,” says Wanda. “Like, what grandmother does that? What mother does that?”
Alan then states, “We are also looking at the 911 call.” Molly and Tom can be heard counting in unison on the audio recording, as if they are giving CPR to Jason. “EMS workers are listening to this recording and saying, ‘I don’t think those people are doing CPR,’” says Alan.
“It’s too hard. You can’t count out loud like that with that precision, that rhythm. EMS personnel also describe that Jason’s body was cool to the touch,” he adds, pointing out that while there are variables to how quickly a body’s temperature decreases, it was significant information for them.
Jack and Sarah Corbett’s ordeal
NetflixFor Jason Corbett’s children, Jack and Sarah, the nightmare didn’t end with their father’s death – in many ways, it had only just begun. Having already lost their biological mother, Margaret “Mags” Fitzpatrick, to a sudden asthma attack in 2006, they faced yet another profound trauma in 2015.
At the time of their father’s killing, Jack was 10 years old and Sarah was eight. They were in the house the night Jason was beaten to death. Molly Martens had entered their lives in the late 2000s, first as their live-in au pair in Ireland, before she married their father and moved the family to North Carolina in 2011.
After Jason’s death, they initially told police investigators that Molly had been the victim, suggesting that their father had been abusive towards her. But in A Deadly American Marriage, both Jack and Sarah say they were manipulated and coached into defending her.
The documentary points to a custody dispute between Jason and Molly as a possible motive. Molly wanted to legally adopt the children, but Jason was apprehensive, as an attorney told him that this meant she could gain sole custody of Jack and Sarah if she were to leave him.
As tensions between the couple ramped up, Jason expressed to loved ones that he wanted to leave with the kids and go home to Ireland, which prosecutors suggested may have prompted Molly to act before that could happen.
NetflixAfter the incident, Jack and Sarah were placed with their legal guardians: Jason’s sister Tracey Lynch and her husband David. But even then, the ordeal wasn’t over. Molly continued to fight for custody, launching a social media campaign that included posting about the children on social media and hiring a plane with a banner to fly over their school in Ireland.
Initially, having lost both of their biological parents, they both missed Molly. But, as Jack says in the true crime documentary, he started to look up the truth about what happened after Molly leaked a private phone message he left her to the press.
During the initial trial preparation, Jack testified in a video phone call to Davidson County, where he said Molly coached him to lie about his father in order to stay with her.
“Molly made me lie to the people who were interviewing me,” he said in the video call. “She made up a lot of stories about my dad. She said that he was very abusive and she wasn’t lying. Then she started crying and said, ‘I’d never see you again.’”
In A Deadly American Marriage, Jack describes the weight of the guilt he felt about his initial statement, although he understands now that he was young and manipulated into saying what he did.
“Molly told me, ‘You need to say that your dad hit me or they’re gonna take you away, and you’re never gonna see me again,’” he explains.
NetflixJack and Sarah both state that the atmosphere of the house changed when they moved to America. Providing an example, Jack says, “I remember when my father was on a work trip, and I said, ‘Goodbye. I love you.’ She chased me up to my room, she destroyed my whole room, pulled all my clothes up, flipped my bed, turned over my dresser.”
Sarah adds, “I was in the car with Molly and I asked her, ‘Could I start tee-ball? Dad’s the coach, so he can bring me.’ And Molly turned around and said, ‘Do you not love me? Do you not care about me? You don’t want to spend time with me.’ I felt awful, because I thought I really hurt her.”
Even after coming to terms with what happened to them, Jack and Sarah were dragged through the court process again when Molly and Tom appealed their second-degree murder convictions.
Eventually, the Martens entered a plea deal for voluntary manslaughter, and have both now been released from prison. The siblings were invited to give victim impact statements, where they not only described the alleged abuse they faced from Molly but also spoke of the amazing person their father was.
Sarah has also written a book about the case and her experiences, titled A Time For Truth, which can be bought on sites like Amazon or via Sarah’s website.
Margaret “Mags” Fitzpatrick’s death used by defense
NetflixAmong the most shocking moments explored in A Deadly American Marriage is the claim the Martens made in relation to Sarah and Jack’s biological mother, Margaret “Mags” Fitzpatrick, suggesting Jason may have been responsible for her death.
This goes against what the autopsy report showed and what the families on both sides stated about her death: it was a tragic accident resulting from a severe asthma attack in a known asthmatic.
In an interview that took place 20 days after Jason’s death, Tom alleged, “We had the maternal grandparents over. I have occasion to have a conversation with the father of the deceased’s first wife. His name is Mikey Fitzpatrick.
“He’s not a well-educated man. He’s very hard to understand. Got a heavy Irish accent. I asked him what he thought of Jason. He said, ‘I think he killed my daughter.’”
The defense then made a theory: Mags actually died from manual strangulation. It must be noted that there was no indication of this on the autopsy report, and no injuries or physical marks on her neck or anywhere else on her body.
As said by Alan, their team’s experts analysed the evidence and found there was no information to support this idea. “This is a reckless conclusion and is not supported by the evidence,” he says.
Speaking about the defense’s argument, Jack states, “I’m angry, because I know my dad didn’t kill my mom.” The camera then cuts to Catherine and Marian, Mags’ sister and mother.
Catherine, who was in the house the night of her sister’s death, explains, “I do wish that I had been asked to come over and testify, because I’m the only one who was there the night Mags passed.”
She describes what happened, saying Jason knocked on her door around 2am and was frantic about Mags’ asthma attack. Catherine ran in to find Mags struggling with an inhaler in her hand. “I watched Jason frantically do everything to save her,” she continues.
Catherine says that when their family found out what Tom Martens had said about Mikey, “My whole family was enraged, my father especially.” Marian adds, “He said, ‘No such thing happened. Until the day I die, how would I ever believe Jason had killed my daughter?’”
Netflix“They had a beautiful relationship,” says Catherine. They were so infuriated by what was said that they decided to write a statement shared by their solicitor on behalf of Mikey Fitzpatrick, as he had passed away by the time of the hearing.
In it, the claims that Mikey told Tom that he thought Jason had killed his daughter are described as “totally and utterly untrue and mischievous.”
Alongside this incident, Molly is accused of trying to erase Mags when the Corbett family moved to America. “Myself and Sarah used to have pictures of our biological mother in our rooms, and she took the picture off me and hid it,” says Jack. “I feel that Molly wanted to be the only mother that existed, that there was no one else before her.”
Jack uncovered secret recording device
NetflixWhen Jason wouldn’t allow Molly to adopt Jack and Sarah, she went to a friend in the neighborhood who was a family attorney, and they suggested she set up recording devices around the house.
“They were little recording devices that were voice activated, and I put them around the house,” Molly says in A Deadly American Marriage. “Underneath the coffee table. Underneath the counter. One on the nightstand.”
A number of the audio recordings are played in the documentary, showing Molly and Jason having verbal arguments with each other, with no indication of any physical abuse.
As said by Alan, “Molly was the only person who knew the recording was being made, which creates a scenario where she can control the narrative. Molly was preparing for divorce and custody proceedings.
“Anyone who’s making secret recordings in a personal relationship can manipulate the context and make Jason look bad.”
Eventually, Jack found one of the recording devices in his father’s car, which he showed to him. Jason was shocked, and asked both him and Sarah how they felt about moving back to Ireland with him. A few months later, Jason was dead.
Molly and Tom Martens’ convictions were overturned
NetflixIn 2017, Molly and Tom were found guilty of second-degree murder over Jason’s death by a North Carolina jury, and sentenced to 20-25 years in prison each. However, in 2020, their convictions were overturned by the North Carolina Supreme Court.
The court ruled that the initial statements given by Jack and Sarah in the aftermath of their father’s death were wrongly excluded from being used by defense lawyers during the original trial.
Despite the evidence, as well as Jack and Sarah’s belief that their testimony would be enough to convince the jury, prosecutors made the difficult decision to allow the Martens to enter a plea deal.
Even though they knew the autopsy results showed otherwise, “the claims that Jason must have strangled her [Mags] is not the kind of testimony we want to get in front of a jury,” Alan explains. “We’re concerned that if a jury hears that, they may stop listening.”
Molly and Tom pleaded guilty to voluntary manslaughter and, in 2023, they were sentenced to 51-74 months each. Due to the time already served, they were released in June 2024.
A Deadly American Marriage is streaming on Netflix now. For more true crime news, find out whether Natalia Grace’s age was restored, how to watch Louis Theroux’s The Settlers, and what happened to the Oklahoma City bomber.
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