A Netflix documentary about the killing of Jason Corbett by his wife Molly Martens and her father Tom Martens, co-produced by journalist and author Brian Carroll, has been nominated for an Emmy Award.
The Emmys recognise artistic and technical merit in the television industry and are widely considered the TV equivalent of the Oscars. The winners are due to be announced at a ceremony in New York next month.
Corbett, originally from Limerick, was living and working in the US when he was killed at his home in North Carolina in August 2015.
Within days of Corbett’s death, Molly Martens was granted custody of his two children from a previous marriage, Jack and Sarah, who were then aged 10 and eight respectively.
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However, Corbett’s family, who had arrived from Ireland, filed a successful challenge and his sister Treacy Corbett-Lynch was granted custody of the children, who they promptly brought back to Limerick.
In August 2017, Molly and Tom Martens were convicted of second-degree murder and sentenced to 20–25 years in prison. Their convictions were overturned on appeal in 2021.
An expected retrial was sidestepped in 2023 when the Martens agreed a deal with prosecutors. Tom Martens pleaded guilty to voluntary manslaughter and Molly Martens pleaded ‘no contest’ to the same charge.
They were then sentenced to between four years and three months to six years and two months, with credit for almost four years already served. They were released from prison in June 2024.
Carroll, who previously worked on RTÉ’s The Many Lives of Kevin McGeever, among other investigations, was introduced to Treacy Corbett-Lynch in 2018. With the family’s co-operation, he approached Netflix about making a documentary in 2020 and it was agreed he would be the co-producer of A Deadly American Marriage. The documentary was broadcast in early 2025.
Carroll has also written a book about the case, A Deadly Marriage, based on additional research which was published in hardback by Penguin last August. It will be released in paperback in June.
