the d.a. thought his case was now a slam dunk, a conviction all but certain. so he approached barton corbin s attorneys. and i said at that point, now is the time. the best deal you re 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 we re going to continue with the trial. then the d.a. conferred with the hearn family and the prosecutor in dolly s case. if convicted, bart corbin faced the possibility of the death penalty in her case. if he pleaded guilty to both murders then and there, he would get life, not death. if we re going to have a package deal, we re going to wrap both cases up and you re going to stand up in court and admit that you killed dolly hearn. dr. barton corbin had a decision to make, and his next move would catch a courtroom by surprise. their deaths looked like suicides. can prosecutors prove this man murdered them? when death and the dentist continues. [ other merv ] welcome back to
on after jennifer s death. as gwinnett county authorities investigated jennifer s death, prosecutors down in augusta indicted bart corbin in the murder of dolly hearn. police arrested him in a very dramatic and public fashion. dolly s brother heard about it from his wife. she said bart corbin is on the ground on tv and he s being arrested. i m watching it live. that was one of the best moments of our lives since, you know, the day dolly died. two weeks after his arrest in dolly s case, he was also charged with murdering his wife, jennifer. when we return, the defense claims there was a reason jennifer corbin might have wanted to take her own life. a secret about to be revealed. when this information came out in a divorce proceeding, it seemed pretty likely that dr. corbin would win custody of the boys.
to the investigators in augusta, georgia, back in 1990, it looked like suicide. there were not crime scene technicians working the case as we do today. all the medical examiner had at the time was simply that it was a female with a gunshot wound to the head and the gun was found in front of her. is there any way your sister could have taken her own life? there s absolutely no thought in my mind or any of the family s mind that she would have done that. like jennifer s family, the hearns were adamant that dolly had not taken her life. because of the troubles bart and dolly had in their relationship, authorities investigated the possibility of foul play in 1990 and interviewed bart corbin, but they couldn t find conclusive evidence of either a homicide or suicide, and no one was charged. the hardest part has been having no official closure, having a case that was just casually ruled suicide and
dr. travis hampton was a friend and classmate of both bart s and dolly s. he says bart became incredibly possessive of dolly and when she broke up with him, strange things began to happen to her. dolly filed these police reports, complaining that someone had broken into her apartment, vandalized her car, and stolen a package from her mailbox. one day a school project disappeared, and then her cat. at first she felt that she was just unlucky. but after a while we realized that luck had nothing to do with it and she was being targeted. dolly was so convinced bart was the culprit, she tried to secretly record a conversation with him, hoping he d confess. but bart became suspicious. is there any way that you can give them back? i mean, are you sure? what do you want me to say, i mean, how do i know you haven t got a recorder on you or something. dr. hampton says dolly confided in him, telling him she feared what bart might do. she actually wanted to stay at our house one nigh
they re making them out to be. there s been much made about the fact that barton and dolly were having difficulties at the time of her death, and that s not true. according to bart s 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 bart s relationship with his wife, jennifer? the defense says it was never violent and the alleged punch during an argument on thanksgiving day was really just an unintentional slap. and she was trying to push his hand away, and her hand slipped off and it hit her in the face. and bart s lawyer also had an explanation for the fact that