Barton Corbin News Today

Fourteen-year-old Christopher Routh was mowing his aunt’s grass when the police came knocking at his parents’ door, arrest warrant in hand for the Law

For one family, the story began on december 4th, 2004. >> typical saturday morning. and the phone rang. and i was immediately hysterical. and i asked where she was, was she okay. and he said, "no, heather, im sorry, shes gone." >> she was 33-year-old jennifer corbin, the wife of dr. barton corbin, a tall, handsome dentist who was 40. they had been married seven years and had two adorable sons, ages 7 and 5. on the surface, they led a storybook life. a big, beautiful home filled with photos of a ...

>> jennifer called me. it had just happened. she called me, and she was crying hysterically. >> three days later, jennifer was dead. her family was overwhelmed by grief and outraged by barton corbins reaction, or lack of one. >> i dont know if theres a guideline of how a person should react when your wife has been found dead, but i would think that the initial reaction would be something along the lines of, oh, my god, where are my children? oh, my god, wheres jennifer? oh, my god, what happened...

>> the d.a. thought his case was now a slam dunk, a conviction all but certain. so he approached barton corbins attorneys. >> and i said at that point, now is the time. the best deal youre going to get is a plea to murder and life in prison. you either take it today or we start moving towards it today or were going to continue with the trial. >> then the d.a. conferred with the hearn family and the prosecutor in dollys case. if convicted, bart corbin faced the possibility of the death penalty in...

He washes his hands and puts on latex gloves 30 times a day. >> was there any gunpowder residue on jennifers hands? >> no. >> would it be possible for jennifer to kill herself and not have gun powder on her hands? >> with that particular gun, it would be very difficult. >> according to authorities, the medical examiner found even more evidence that jennifer could not have killed herself. >> probably the most key fact the medical examiner found was that the nature of the wound immediately cut off...

Theyre making them out to be. theres been much made about the fact that barton and dolly were having difficulties at the time of her death, and thats not true. >> according to barts attorney, the harassment dolly blamed on bart occurred months before she died and they had actually reconciled their relationship. >> after that, they had, in fact, gotten back together, and dolly hearn had asked several people not to let her family know that she was dating him again. >> but what about barts relation...

>> his defense team had a reputation for finding inconsistencies and attacking weak evidence. >> they are meticulous. they are always well prepared. they are lawyers who will fight you at every turn. those are two of the best lawyers i know. >> gwinnett county district attorney danny porter had the complete confidence of jennifers family, but he knew he had at least one weakness in his case. he hadnt tied the gun to bart corbin. >> i knew that the gun was going to be a critical piece of evidence...

Country. now back to "death and the dentist." barton corbin had been indicted for murdering his girlfriend back in 1990 and his wife in 2004. to mount his defense, he hired top legal talent who argued both deaths were, in fact, suicide and that barts connection was pure coincidence. >> weve contacted some of the finest forensic people in the country, and all of them say that the evidence is consistent with suicide. >> high-profile attorneys david wolf and bruce harvey were confident they could...

Daughters case. now they were convinced hed struck again, and they felt a duty to support jennifers family, to attend her funeral, to console her parents, who should never have suffered the same way they had. >> we hugged for a long time, and when she pulled away from us, she held my hands and she just looked at me and she says, there hasnt been a day in 14 years that bill doesnt talk about dolly. and i shook dr. hearns hand and i just remember saying to him, "im sorry that we have to meet under...

>> thats the first critical piece of information that blows his alibi out of the water. it puts him at the residence at about quarter of 2:00 in the morning until about 5 after 2:00 in the morning, and thats the time of the murder. >> and investigators found the angle of the bullet wound and the trail of blood on jennifers face were not consistent with a suicide. >> so if this, indeed, was a suicide, how would jennifer have held the gun? >> im not sure she could have. >> she would have had to ho...