Love and Lies

Hey, Ryan Reynolds here for Mint Mobile. You know, one of the perks about having four kids that you know about is actually getting a direct line to the big man up north.

And this year he wants you to know the best gift that you can give someone is the gift of Mint Mobile's unlimited wireless for $15 a month. Now you don't even need to wrap it.

Give it a try at mintmobile.com/slash switch. Upfront payment of $45 for a three-month plan equivalent to $15 per month required.
New customer offer for first three months only.

Speed slow after 35 gigabytes if networks busy. Taxes and fees extra.
See Mintmobile.com. Hey, Ryan Reynolds here.

Wishing you a very happy half-off holiday because right now, Mint Mobile is offering you the gift of 50% off unlimited. To be clear, that's half price, not half the service.

Mint is still premium unlimited wireless for a great price. So that means a half day.
Yeah? Give it a try at mintmobile.com/slash switch.

Upfront payment of $45 for a three-month plan equivalent to $15 per month required. New customer offer for first three months only.
Speed slow after 35 gigabytes of networks busy.

Taxes and fees extra. Cmintmobile.com.
mobile.com.

This is a story that happened in Georgia.

And in many ways, it's a story of the South, straight out of a William Faulkner novel, where people are never as they seem, where people have mysteries and secrets to hide.

I'm a prosecutor in Georgia. I've been working murder cases for 25 years and I've never had a case like this.

Jennifer Corbin was a tall, blonde, 33-year-old who was the mother of two boys, Dalton and Dylan. Everybody describes her as a happy person, a bubbly person, an optimistic person.

She was very outgoing. She was active in her school.
She was active in her church. I don't think Jennifer really had any enemies because everybody liked her so much.

Jennifer was married to Barton Corbyn. He was 40 years old.
Really? He was a dentist.

They were a great couple.

Jennifer and Bart Corbyn lived in a suburb of Atlanta. It was an upper scale neighborhood.
They lived in a large home.

On the night of December the 3rd, Barton Corbin was gone for the night. Jennifer was left at the house by herself with the two boys.

Her seven-year-old son Dalton woke up about 7 or 7.30 in the morning and wanted to get some breakfast, so he went in to get his mom.

When he approached the bed to wake her up, he saw the blood running from her nose, and as he says it, realized that she was dead.

He ran across the street to his neighbors and began banging on the door to try and get somebody to help him.

Kelly Como, the neighbor, came to the door. So I just ran across the street and it was pretty bad that the boys had to see that.

And then she called 911.

When the officers got to the scene, it looked to them to be a suicide.

From minute one, the family never believed that Jennifer killed herself. Jennifer would never have committed suicide.

As the investigation continued, the more we learn, the odder it became.

There was a lot going on in her life that no one knew about.

During the summer of 2004, Jennifer began to play a game online. She met and developed a relationship with a person that very quickly developed into a romantic relationship.

A few few weeks before she died, Jennifer found out that the whole basis of the relationship was a lie.

We learned a lot about the relationship, but it became really important in the investigation as we learned that she was actually on the telephone with this other person

right up until minutes before she died.

Love and lies:

48 Hours Mystery,

Steve and Kelly Como met their neighbors, the Corbins, shortly after the family moved in across the street in 1999.

We were having Stephanie's second birthday party and we noticed they had balloons on their mailbox the same day.

So we went over there and said, whose birthday is it?

It turned out their new neighbors, Bart and Jennifer Corbin, were throwing a birthday party for their son Dalton on the same day the Comos were planning to celebrate their daughter's second birthday.

And I said, how old is he? And they said, two. The birthday boy in his new wagon.
From then on, Stephanie Como and Dalton Corbin

celebrated their birthdays together.

They lived in Buford, Georgia.

outside Atlanta, where Jennifer Corbin was a part-time preschool teacher. Jennifer was just full of life, very spontaneous person.
And her husband Bart

had his own dental practice.

Bart was very loving toward Jennifer. He'd give her back rubs, rub her feet.

The Corbins had a second child, Dylan, and the two families were inseparable. We did basically everything together.

By 2004, after sharing the past five years with the Corbin family, we would do anything for them and they would us.

The last thing the Comos could have imagined was living a life apart.

It was about 7.30 in the morning, December 4th, when Kelly Como heard that banging on her front door. And there stood Dalton Corbin in his pajamas.
He was very scared, the fear in his face.

Through tears, Dalton told Kelly that his mother was dead.

I just ran. I just ran across the street.
I went in and could not believe what I had seen. The boys found her first.
That was heartbreaking.

So I brought the boys across the street here to my house and called 911 from here.

My girlfriend's dead. Okay, what do you mean by that? She's been shot.

I got called at home. It was a Saturday morning, about 8 o'clock.
When Detective Marcus Head arrived at the Corbin's house, the officers told him it looked like a suicide.

33-year-old Jennifer Corbin had killed herself. No signs of a struggle.
There's some papers by her head. Who knows, that could be a suicide note.
And there's a gun present. That's right.

Sounds like a suicide. All that can be typical.
You're exactly right. Bart Corbin was tracked down at his brother Bob's house, where he'd spent the night.

How did your brother Bart learn that Jennifer was dead? I told him. He basically broke down, went up my stairs in my house, and proceeded to throw up in the bathroom.
Complete shock.

I was sitting with the boys waiting for the family to come and Dylan was very distraught and said to me at the time,

well when the ambulance gets here, They'll make my mommy all better, right?

And I had to tell him, no, that your mom is in your heart now and she's with Jesus

it was heartbreaking for Jennifer's mother Narda and her sister Heather

do you think those boys are ever gonna forget what it is to look at their mother

after she's been bloodshot in the head

later that day seven-year-old Dalton Corbyn was interviewed by the police do you have any idea why you think you're here today can my mom got killed this morning

Dalton told detectives that his parents had been arguing a lot that week. Did you think that your mom and dad were gonna divorce and separate?

Had your mom or dad sat you down and talked to you about that? My dad has. What did he tell you? He said that I love you.
I always will love you.

By early evening, Detective Head had shifted his focus to the Corbyn's troubled marriage. From here, we wanted to learn more about Mrs.
Corbyn and Dr. Corbyn.
Did Bart Corbyn have an alibi?

Turns out he did. Bart Corbin had left the house around 10 p.m.
that night to meet two of his friends for a late dinner and drinks at a local pub.

And then he went from there and got coffee and went to his brother's house about 20 minutes away from here.

What are the kinds of things you're looking for about when you look into Jennifer's past? We're trying to find out if she made any remarks to co-workers or or friends about recent troubles with Dr.

Corbyn.

That summer, Jennifer had told her family she wanted to leave Bart. She just had no emotion for him anymore.

She said, you know, I love him because he's the father of my children, but I'm no longer in love with him.

But by the fall, Jennifer Corbyn had already fallen in love with a man she'd met on the internet.

And although the two had yet to meet in person, they were planning a life together. All right, so Jennifer, who is this person? Tell me, I want to know who they are.

You don't have any idea who you're talking to. Bart Corbyn didn't learn of his wife's relationship until just before she died, when he stumbled across some of her emails.

He filed for divorce. Five days later, Jennifer was dead.
Those papers that were behind her head, what were they?

As it turns out, those papers were actually a divorce filing in Gwinnett County Superior Court, and that was under her shoulder.

But what Bart Corbin didn't know was the true identity of Jennifer's online lover. Jennifer herself had only learned the truth shortly before she died, and she'd never told anyone.

Do you think Jennifer essentially led a double life?

Apparently, recently. For Detective Head, Jennifer's internet affair was certainly unusual, but it took on new meaning when he learned this person was one of the last to speak to Jennifer alive.

What do you know about the last hours of Jennifer Corbin's life? We know through phone records and witness accounts that she was on the phone until about 12.30 a.m.

The night she died while her two sons were sleeping, Jennifer Corbyn and her friend spent almost four hours talking, first on the phone and then exchanging emails.

Records show that they communicated until about 1.40 in the morning and minutes later

a bullet killed her.

Finding the perfect gift for a creative artist is tough. Buying online feels impersonal and you often have to guess at the right fit.
This year visit a brother authorized sewing center instead.

Shop the exclusive Brother gift guide for their high-end sewing and embroidery products, instant rebates, and gifts with purchase. Give a gift that inspires, backed by local experts.

Find your nearest Brother Sewing Center or dealer today using the dealer locator button at brother-usa.com.

This episode is brought to you by Progressive Commercial Insurance. Business owners meet Progressive Insurance.

They make it easy to get discounts on commercial auto insurance and find coverages to grow with your business. Quote in as little as eight minutes at progressivecommercial.com.

Progressive Casualty Insurance Company, coverage provided and serviced by affiliated and third-party insurers. Discounts and covered selections not available in all states or situations.

We were putting out to the public for the first few days that it was a suicide, but we were conducting it as a homicide investigation.

After just one day into his investigation, Detective Marcus Head was pretty sure Jennifer Corbin didn't kill herself.

There was obviously some tough times going on in the marriage and tough times here at the Corbin home. And I'm thinking there's definitely more to it at this point.

And a few days later, he received a shocking phone call that convinced him to follow his hunch. Out of the blue, a woman called him with a tip.
She told me that she had heard about Mrs.

Corbin's possible suicide. The caller thought there might be a connection between Jennifer Corbin's death and the suicide of another woman 14 years earlier named Dolly Hearn.

Detective Head immediately called the Sheriff's Department in Augusta, Georgia, 150 miles away, to find out more about the death of Dolly Hearn.

I just happened to answer the phone when the Gwinnett Police Department called

asking about Dolly's case.

In a remarkable coincidence, Scott Peebles knew just where to find the lead detective on that 1990 investigation who was now retired. It was his father, Ron Peebles.
He remembered it right away.

I think that he was very uneasy about this case being a suicide, but at the same time was not able to prove otherwise.

Scott Peebles dusted off the old case files and got to work.

He learned that on June 6th, 1990, his father had responded to a 911 call. Someone had been shot.

He saw Dolly on a couch as soon as he walked in the front door and she was leaned over and she had a gunshot wound to the right side of her head.

At first glance, anybody would walk into that scene and initially think this is a suicide. When the autopsy report came back a few days later, the medical examiner agreed.

Dolly Hearn, a 27-year-old dental student, had killed herself.

The thought that it could have been suicide was just ludicrous in my mind. But for Dolly's family, it all had to be a mistake.

They'd seen Dolly just three days before she died at her brother Gil's graduation. I remember how happy she was, how beautiful she looked.

And she was so excited to see friends and teachers. She loved being with the family.
She was so proud of Gil. The Hearns hired their own pathologist to give them a second opinion.

And he too concluded that Dolly Hearn had committed suicide.

Sounds like, you know, the door has slammed shut at that moment.

It had on the investigation, but not on our belief. We still were confident

that Dolly had been murdered.

After all these years, the Hearns had found an unlikely ally in Scott Peebles. He was looking for a connection between Dolly's death and Jennifer Corbyn's.

And when he he read through his father's old case files, one name jumped off the pages.

He called me back and he said, I found the file. And there is an interview with Bart Corbin at the time.

Bart Corbin, also a dental student in 1990, had been Dolly Hearn's on-again, off-again boyfriend. At the time of her death, they were off-again.
for the very last time.

What was that moment like when he says to you, I've got the file and the name Bart Corbin is in here? It's overwhelming at that moment and I'm thinking that we're definitely on the right track here.

I know for sure that we're on the right track by thinking this is not a suicide.

What were the odds of two women committing suicide in one man's life? And both women had died shortly after ending their relationship with Bart Corbin.

Investigators now believe there was only one explanation, that Bart Corbyn staged his wife's suicide after apparently getting away with the same crime 14 years before.

No doubt whatsoever this was a murder. That's all it took for investigators on both cases to realize they were after the same man.
There was no doubt as to who committed it.

Not in my mind. But Lieutenant Scott Peebles, working Dolly's case, knew he had his work cut out for him because Corbyn had been cleared of her murder once before.

President is investigator Ron Peoples, Mr. Bart Corbin.
Back in 1990, investigators let Corbin go, even though he admitted he'd been at Dolly's apartment on the afternoon she died.

You stayed for about how long?

30 minutes.

So Scott Peoples knew he had to find something more if he ever was going to arrest Bart Corbin for Dolly's murder. He decided to take a second look at the death scene photographs.

I'm not an expert in blood spatter analysis, but I knew that this field was something that had grown quite significantly. So he asked Dwayne Piper, a blood spatter expert, to take a look.

There was no blood on her hand where you would expect to see it, and there was no blood on the weapon at all.

It was the lack of blood in areas it should have been that convinced Piper Dolly didn't die from a self-inflicted gunshot.

I told Lieutenant Peebles that this appeared to be a homicide and it appeared to be a staged event subsequent to the homicide.

This graphic shows the location of a blood smear on Dolly's thigh, a stain that convinced Piper someone had moved Dolly after she'd been shot. There's no way she made this stain.
There's no way.

So, you know, somebody else had to be there. Her body had been moved.
It wasn't much, but since Bart Corbin was at Dolly's apartment the day she died, Peebles hoped it was enough.

And the grand jury was quite passionate about seeing that Barton Corbyn be arrested immediately.

14 years after Dolly Hearn's death was ruled a suicide, Bart Corbyn is charged with her death. Two weeks later, he is also charged with the murder of his wife, Jennifer.

I was stunned.

I just, I guess my mouth dropped open.

And I said,

it's happened again.

And I felt so terrible for those people. Jennifer Corbin's trial was scheduled to begin first, but as it inched closer, investigators still hadn't found what they wanted most.

You haven't been able to link this gun to Bart Corbin, isn't that a problem? Yes.

It's like army quarters in here. Do you play sports too? Basketball,

baseball, karate. Karate.

Dalton and Dylan.

Jennifer and Bart Corbyn's sons are adjusting to life without them.

Is it very hard going to a new school?

Not too bad. You made some new friends?

Ew.

Ew.

Ew, simple.

Dylan is calling me Aunt Mom. Need help.
Jennifer's sister, Heather, and her husband, Doug, will raise the two boys along with two kids of their own.

Taking care of four kids is the easy part.

Missing Jennifer is the hard part.

Meanwhile, prosecutor Danny Porter is building his case against their father. The first thing he hopes to prove is that their mother did not kill herself.

I think our forensic evidence is conclusive that she did not shoot herself.

Porter says he'll show that Bart Corbyn tried to stage his wife's death to look like suicide, just as he had 14 years earlier with Dolly Hearn.

It's almost eerie in some ways, the similarity between the two crimes.

First was the fact that it was a close-range gunshot wound to the head and the weapon was there on the bed with the body.

The other thing was there was no sign of a struggle or forced entry into the house. But Porter still hasn't figured out how to link Corbin to that gun, which was last traced to Troy, Alabama.

Porter has learned that Corbin has a good friend, Richard Wilson, who lives in Troy, and he has evidence that Corbin went there just four days before Jennifer died.

We sort sort of talked about obstruction to justice and perjury and whether or not he could go to jail, and he didn't react very well to that.

We went down one other time, and that's when he got mad and wouldn't talk to us anymore. What Porter does think he has is a motive.

Both Jennifer and Dolly were leaving Bart, and that was something he says Bart Corbin

simply couldn't accept. He can't stand the woman in the relationship

ending the relationship. It has to be on his terms.
Danny Porter also says he can punch holes in Corbyn's alibi for the night of Jennifer's murder.

Porter doesn't dispute he left home around 10 that night to meet friends for drinks.

According to the bar receipt, he probably had six or seven beers in the time period. So he could have been a bit buzzed.
He probably had enough to loosen his inhibitions enough.

But around 1.35 in the morning, when he supposedly drove to his brother Bob's house to spend the night. That's not true.

I never believed that was true. Porter says Bart Corbyn made a deadly detour, and he has the witness to prove it.

I guess it was 1.30, quarter to 2. Steve Como, Bart's close friend and neighbor, had just pulled into his own garage when he noticed Bart arriving home across the street.

And noticed the truck pulling in the driveway.

I didn't pay much attention to it and I went in the house. According to phone records, that was right around the time Jennifer sent her last email to her online friend.

We know that she was on the phone and using the email system up until 1.40 that morning. So she was awake.
Steve Como says he heard Bart's truck again just before 2 in the morning.

I look out the window and he was leaving kind of fast. I thought to myself, you know, I hope he didn't do anything crazy.

And it was during that 15 or 20 minute period that he shot Jennifer Corbin with the revolver that was found in the bed.

He knows who is going to find her that next morning. Here we are.
It's Dylan's first day of school.

One of the two boys is going to find her. And he is going to second grade this year? I think that says more about Bart and Corbin than almost anything else in both of these cases.

And it's about as cold

as anything I've seen in all the years I've done this.

But it was all the more chilling the next morning. Because not only did Dalton and Dylan see their mother's dead body, they also said they knew who shot her.

And when Dalton ran across the street for help, He told Kelly Como straight out. He told me plain as day, my dad dad shot my mom.

So basically you think that your dad killed your mom, but you didn't see it. No.
You didn't hear it. No.

But if they hadn't witnessed a thing, why would two young boys jump to such a disturbing conclusion about their own father? That just goes to show you what went on when the doors were closed.

for two kids to pick up on something like that.

It was agonizing for the adults in Jennifer Corbyn's family to think they should have done more.

This has just crushed my mom and dad.

We all feel like we should have protected her somehow. And to think that we love somebody

like him as a brother. And how much I loved him.
I loved him.

You should have sympathy for Bart Corbyn because he's an innocent man sitting in prison, languishing in prison.

After his arrest, Bart Corbyn hired two of Georgia's most high-profile attorneys to represent him. Bruce Harvey and David Wolfe claim Corbin is innocent of both charges.

Are you telling me that this is just a coincidence? Two women involved in Bart Corbyn's life commit suicide? Why do you have to explain it in terms of coincidence?

Why isn't it just two independently explainable acts? Harvey says there's no more evidence today than there was 14 years ago tying Bart Corbyn to Dolly's death.

The only thing that has changed in the 14 years is the unfortunate but independent, unconnected event with Jennifer Corbyn. And Jennifer Corbyn, they say, had a compelling motive to end her own life.

And it involved her online lover, who we discovered after months of our own investigation. Hi, I'm Peter Van Sant with CBS News.

We're about to find out who it is that Jennifer Corbyn has been communicating with.

Deck your home with blinds.com.com. DIY or let us install.com.
Free design consultation. Free, free, free, free, free, free, free.
Plus, free samples and free shipping.

Head to blinds.com now for up to 45% off with minimum purchase plus a free professional measure.

Rules and restrictions may apply.

Welcome to Radio Rental.

The scariest stories you've ever heard in your life. All told by real

people.

And off we go.

This wasn't a human being that I saw. There's something here in this house.
Something not of this world. There was a woman moving through the hall.
I stepped back and I was completely alone.

Radio Rental is available now. Listen for free on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.

It's a game called EverQuest.

And you talk to people and you play a little game. And it's a fantasy thing.
In the summer of 2004, Jennifer Corbyn started playing EverQuest.

And you have groups of four people that go out on different missions or whatever and you slay dragons.

You know, you have lots of fun and it was an escape for Jen. But according to David Wolf, one of Bart Corbyn's lawyers, that escape opened a doorway into a dangerous new world for Jennifer.

It gives you the opportunity to assume another station in life, obviously because she wasn't happy with who she was.

It wasn't long before before Jennifer and a man on her EverQuest team named Christopher started communicating outside the game through personal emails. These emails begin as a friendship.

It becomes romantic. Yes.
And then what does it become? Then it becomes incredibly sexual,

driven by both of the parties.

To Chris, subject mmm again.

I want your mouth hot, wet, and hungry, eating up the soft skin of my neck, shoulders, and mouth.

After a month or two, Jennifer and Chris were apparently planning a future together, even though they'd never met face to face. And they'd never spoken on the phone.
I can't wait to be with you.

You know I love you. I've never loved anybody as much.

But after Bart Corbyn discovered some of his wife's emails in late November and filed for divorce, he threatened to use Jennifer's online affair against her to gain

of their two boys. All of this was going to come out in the wash.
All of this dirty laundry was going to be hung out for everybody to see.

Over the next several days, Bart downloaded the information on Jennifer's computer and stole her cell phone. She called police, hoping they could help her get them back.

I don't know if they stopped him, if they can retrieve those for me or not, or if I can tell them what I think he's going. Okay, where do you think?

Do you think he's going to go pawn them or something?

No, he's probably going to take them and use them as everything

in the process of going through a divorce, okay?

And Jennifer knew that Bart might soon discover her darkest secret, a bombshell so shocking, Bruce Harvey claims it would destroy her life.

Here's a clearly strong relationship developed over the internet with somebody you think is going to take you away to another life and is going to be your Prince Charming.

But in truth, Chris wasn't a prince at all. Shortly before she died, Jennifer learned that Chris wasn't even a man.
And all that dissolves, all that dissolves in an instant.

Chris revealed that he was actually a she, a woman named Anita. And Jennifer was clearly devastated when she responded.

I can't live this lie. It's killing me.
You have absolutely ripped my heart out.

Jennifer had never met Anita, not even seen a photograph. But we tracked her down at her home in Missouri.
Anita?

Hi, I'm Peter Van Sant with CBS News. She spoke publicly about Jennifer for the first time.

You used the name Christopher and you presented yourself as a man. Yes.
Why'd you do that? Because at first we were just pretending.

That's

what we were doing. We were playing.
We We were pretending. You were role-playing.
Right. Anita kept her secret for the first two months of their online love affair.
Things were getting intense.

Then she decided to tell Jennifer the truth.

I told her, my name isn't Chris. My name is Anita.
As simple as that.

What was her reply?

She logged off. Essentially hung up on you.

Did you break her heart when you told her that news? I do believe I did.

The next day, Jennifer sent Anita some angry emails.

And later that day, after the two spoke by phone for the very first time, Jennifer wrote back that she was still in love with this person, male or female.

Did you grow to love Jennifer? I grew, yes.

Even though you'd never met her face to face? Yes.

Defense attorneys claim that Jennifer knew that her online love affair and the graphic content of some of her emails to Anita could cost her everything. Her marriage,

her home, her children

will be able to clearly show that this whole scenario was a recipe for suicide.

Was Jennifer depressed?

No.

Stressed, maybe. Depressed, no.

She never talked about killing herself.

No. Jennifer wouldn't kill herself.
Anita claims that Jennifer was planning a future with her, having asked her to think about moving to Atlanta. How is that?

You ever met somebody that could finish a sentence for you that lived 800 miles away that you've never even met?

And that was Jennifer. That was Jennifer.

But Jennifer's family says that Anita lied. She lied about who she was and manipulated Jennifer at a time when she was lonely and vulnerable.

I think Jennifer was just desperate. She was just desperate to find somebody to love her and to feel loved.

Heather says she knows Jennifer better than anyone and doubts her sister was planning a new life with Anita.

I don't know if that's the path.

in my heart that Jen would have taken. I just don't think that it would, but it would have been okay if it had been.

No one knows what may have happened if Jennifer and Anita had actually met, whether their feelings were real or just a fantasy. They never had the chance to find out.

Tell me about the night that Jennifer died. You were the last person to communicate with her.

What were the two of you talking about? We talked about a lot of things.

She talked about getting an attorney to get Bart out of the house, and that tensions were really high. That things had become intolerable.
Yes.

That night, she told me she wanted me to know something

just in case we never met. And I said, what do you mean if we never meet?

She says,

if your plane crashes on the way out here or if my husband kills me. She said that to you.

If my husband kills me.

So Jennifer sensed something was about to happen.

Anita never heard from Jennifer again. And after two days of worry, she asked her sister to contact the family, posing as Jennifer's friend.
Anita was then told the terrible news.

What was that moment like for you? Heartstopping.

Were you alone?

I was out on my back

deck.

What did you do?

I was on my knees.

Anita says her future had been destroyed. And although Bart didn't know there was a new woman in Jennifer's life, prosecutor Danny Porter believes the online affair enraged him.

Could that have set him off? Could that have been a motive for this? Absolutely. Absolutely.
Given his makeup, I think it absolutely could have been a motive.

Porter is now prepared to try Bart Corbyn despite missing a key witness, Richard Wilson, the man he is sure gave Jennifer Corbyn's husband the gun that killed her.

He basically said, I don't want to get involved in this. I'm friends with both sides of the family.

But another dramatic disclosure was about to turn this case upside down.

What do you expect from the defense team in this trial? I expect that they're going to attack

my theory that it's murder.

If they can kick my legs out from under me on that one, then they're not going to have to do a lot more than that.

Bart Corbyn's attorney, Bruce Harvey, was confident he could show jurors that both Dolly Hearn and Jennifer Corbyn had motives for suicide.

We have experts and we have evidence that will match each and every one of their questions.

The stakes were high because if convicted for the murders of both women, Bart Corbyn could face the death penalty. We're geared up mentally, emotionally, physically.

We've got all our ducks in a row. We're ready to roll.
You really believe you can win this. I really do.

In September of 2006, with jury selection underway, prosecutor Danny Porter was hoping to convict Corbin, even though he couldn't tie him to the murder weapon.

He believed Corbin got the gun in Troy, Alabama, but the man who gave it to him wasn't talking. But at this point,

we don't have any evidence that puts the gun in his hand, so to speak. So this is a case that a jury is going to have to put together out of...
small pieces and reach conclusions from them.

Have you ever heard the story? But all that would change on day two of jury selection when an investigator came into the courtroom and handed Porter a note.

Come out of the courtroom now and now was underlined five or six times. He said Richard Wilson just copped to the gun.

After months of repeated questioning by investigators, Richard Wilson had finally broken. What was your reaction when you heard that news? I about fainted.

We had worked so hard on this. He'd confessed to giving his good friend Bart Corbin a gun just four days before Jennifer Corbin died.
He said that he thought his wife was fooling around on him.

He thought he needed a gun to protect himself. He knew I had guns.
He asked me if I had one. So he came down here and got it.

And the gun Wilson gave him was the same gun used to shoot and kill Jennifer Corbin.

That certainly looks like it. So you literally had a smoking gun.
We had the murder weapon in Barton Corbin's hands four days before the killing.

When Porter broke the news to Corbin's attorneys, they immediately realized their case was mortally wounded.

We go for, I'm ready for trial, we're going to kick your ass in both jurisdictions, let's rock and roll to can I save this guy's life.

To spare Jennifer and Dolly's families the agony of two trials, Porter approached the defense team with a plea deal. Corbyn would be spared death.

In exchange, he would have to confess to the murders of both women. We needed an acknowledgement that he did it in open court.
We weren't going to accept anything less.

The families waited for a response. I was very uptight.
I knew it was the most important moment in this whole 16 years.

That moment came on September 15th, 2006. Okay, you ready to proceed? Yes, Your Honor.
When the man who thought he could get away with two perfectly planned murders took the deal,

Bart Corbyn had to face the two families he had lied to and admit to killing Jennifer and Dolly. On the morning of December the 4th, Corbin's nine-year-old son Dalton found his mother dead in the bed.

The cause of death was a single gunshot wound. And he's looking right at me, and I'm looking right at him.

Did you, in fact, commit the offense of malice murder, to which you are now pleading guilty, as it is outlined in the indictment? Yes.

There was no reaction, there was no emotion, just sort of like looking into the eyes of a shark. There's nothing there.

Corbin gave his second confession to Danny Craig, the district attorney handling Dolly Hearn's case. Dolly Hearn was found found dead on her sofa.

The scene had been staged to make it appear that she had committed suicide. You further acknowledged that you committed the murder of Dorothy Carlisle Hearn on June 6th of 1990? Yes.

The victims' families finally got their chance to face Bart Corbyn in court. Jennifer's father, Max Barber, was first.

First of all, Bart, what you did today

is the right thing to do, admitting the murder of Jennifer and Dolly. God might forgive you.
I never will.

I speak for my family when I say

I just virtually hope you burn in hell.

Dolly's brother, Carlton Hearn Jr., spoke for the Hearn family. Mark Corbin stole from me.
He stole from my family. He stole from the world.

He deserves no place place in society. I know he heard me, but I also know that he's just a shell of a man and he's hollow.

There were no answers that day for the one question on everyone's mind.

There is that one big word, why?

Why? Did it have to be like this? Why couldn't you just walk away?

But there's no answer to that.

Bart Corbin's own brother didn't have any answers either. We chose to back the guy we believed in and we turned out to back the liar.

And had I known he had done it, they would have got him.

It's that simple. You took a mother from her kids, took somebody's daughter.

Get your juice down, you want a juice?

For Jennifer's sister Heather, raising Dalton and Dylan,

it is time to look ahead.

We are not going to let this destroy our family. We have way too strong a family to let this destroy us.
We'll move on, but we will never forget.

We will never, I don't think we'll ever be able to forgive.

Bart Corbin was given two life sentences to be served concurrently. Dolly Hearn was awarded a posthumous degree in dentistry from the Medical College of Georgia.

Gana por la mañana con el extra value meal, sausage, mc, muffin with egg, hash browns, yun cafe queño por solos se dolares. Bara ba ba ba.
Preses y participación pueden varía.

Los prees de la promosión pueden serminores que los de las comidas.

Know Your Rights, our new podcast series dedicated to empowering you with the knowledge to protect yourself before your rights are violated.

Each episode unpacks critical information and actionable steps that every American should know. Don't miss out on this essential civic resource.
Please support our movement by following us on Spotify.