US police recall protecting Irish man's young kids from violent scene of his death

A US POLICE officer has described the moment he protected Sarah and Jack Corbett from the scene of their father’s killing.

Lt Clayton Dagenhardt was speaking at the sentencing hearing of Molly and Tom Martens in relation to the death of Limerick man Jason Corbett at his home in North Carolina in 2015.

Lt Dagenhardt said the two children, aged 10 and eight at the time, were upstairs in their bedroom when their father was beaten to death with a baseball bat and concrete paving slab downstairs in his home.

Both children, now aged 19 and 17, were in court to hear the testimony along with Mr Corbett’s sister Tracey Corbett-Lynch who they now live with in Limerick.

“She (Sarah) was asleep and undisturbed (in bed). She had not been affected in any way (by the fatal confrontation in her father's bedroom downstairs). She was still asleep.

“I woke her up. I said: ‘Do you want me to carry you (downstairs)?’ She nodded. I told her to put her head and her face down into my shoulder and to close her eyes,” Lt Dagernhardt said. 

“I did not want her exposed to what was downstairs.”

Ralph Riegel writing for the Irish Independent reported that Lt Dagenhardt told Sarah she had done a “great job” and he was “proud of her.”

On Monday, Molly and Tom Martens appeared before Judge David Hall at Davidson County Superior Court in North Carolina charged with second-degree murder.

Mr Martens pleaded guilty to voluntary manslaughter of Mr Corbett while Ms Martens entered a “no contest” plea to the same charge. 

Judge Hall noted that Ms Martens’ “no contest” plea was a form of guilty plea.

On the first day of the sentencing hearing, the court heard that Ms Martens had expressed her belief to friends that Mr Corbett had killed his first wife and she feared the same would happen to her. 

Just weeks after the birth of her second child, Sarah, Ms Corbett suffered an asthma attack in the presence of her husband and sister. 

Ms Marten's lawyers have said they will introduce “significant evidence” surrounding her death in 2006.