New NC trial ordered in slaying of Irish businessman that made headlines worldwide Josh Shaffer, The News & Observer (Raleigh, N.C.) Mar. 16—RALEIGH — In 2015, a retired FBI agent beat his son-in-law to death with an aluminum baseball bat while his daughter added blows to the head with a brick, starting a six-year murder drama that continues to captivate the globe. The death of Jason Corbett, an Irish businessman who had relocated to North Carolina, sparked headlines in his native country and turned Irish eyes to Davidson County, south of Winston-Salem, where he lived with his American wife, Molly. The trial of Molly Corbett and her father Thomas Martens, the former agent, hinged on the pair's plea of self-defense. During a five-week trial, Martens testified that he woke to find Jason Corbett choking his daughter and threatening to kill her, and that he bludgeoned his son-in-law in a bedroom melee he feared would take his life. Jurors, unconvinced, convicted both of second-degree murder.