An eight-year legal saga over the brutal death of Irish native Jason Corbett ended last week inside a spacious, pale-blue-painted courtroom in the small city of Lexington, North Carolina. 

In the early morning hours of August 2, 2015, paramedics found his bludgeoned body inside the Davidson County home he shared with his wife, Molly, and his two young children from a previous marriage, Jack and Sarah. Six months later, Molly Corbett and her father, former FBI agent Thomas Martens, were charged with second-degree murder—a shocking turn of events that helped catapult the case to national and international headlines, including 20/20, 48 Hours and incessant coverage back in Ireland.  […]

Michael Hewlett is a courts and law reporter for The Assembly. He was previously a legal affairs reporter at the Winston-Salem Journal and has won two Henry Lee Weathers Freedom of Information Awards.

Jeffrey Billman is a politics and law reporter for The Assembly. The former editor-in-chief of INDY in Durham, he holds a master's degree in public policy analysis from the University of Central Florida.