Death & the Dentist

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Speaker 4 It's the worst news you could ever possibly have to deliver to somebody.

Speaker 1 On a Saturday morning in an upscale Atlanta suburb, a young son saw something no child should ever see.

Speaker 5 Oh, he's going to remember it forever.

Speaker 6 Where is he at now? Is he with you? Yes. Okay.
All right.

Speaker 4 How old is he? Seven.

Speaker 4 He's seven?

Speaker 1 And what he saw would soon open the eyes of investigators to something they had missed for years.

Speaker 2 The Deep Dark secret had been exposed.

Speaker 1 This is a tale of two tragedies, of two young women who lived and died at different times and in different cities, but left behind a mysterious trail of almost identical clues.

Speaker 1 Could solving one case lead to the truth in the other? For one family, the story began on December 4th, 2004.

Speaker 4 Typical Saturday morning and the phone rang and I was immediately hysterical and I asked where she was. Was she okay? And he said, no, Heather, I'm sorry she's gone.

Speaker 1 She was 33-year-old Jennifer Corbin, the wife of Dr. Barton Corbin, a tall, handsome dentist who was 40.
They'd been married seven years and had two adorable sons, ages seven and five.

Speaker 1 On the surface, they led a storybook life. A big, beautiful home filled with photos of a fun, loving family.
He, the picture of the adoring dad, she a devoted mom.

Speaker 1 Jennifer had been a free spirit when she was younger, but having children changed all that.

Speaker 4 She was born to be a mom, and when she became a mom, she did it 110%.

Speaker 4 She became Miss PTA, the SUV drive, baseball, totem supermom. mob.

Speaker 1 Her sister, Heather, marveled at Jennifer's ability to connect with people in ways that others could not.

Speaker 4 She was very easygoing, a great listener. She was an amazing listener.

Speaker 1 Jennifer connected so well with people of all ages, she was hired as a part-time preschool teacher at her church. Her family took Bart in as one of their own.

Speaker 5 We loved Bart Corbin.

Speaker 5 He came into the family very quickly. He did a lot of traveling with us, vacations.
He spent most of his weekends with us.

Speaker 1 Bart was very bright and could be a lot of fun.

Speaker 4 Bart is a very funny person. He's got a very quick wit, and people, I think, are drawn to that.
If you crack on him, he has a crack that's five times better than yours immediately.

Speaker 4 He thinks very fast and he's very funny.

Speaker 1 But now all that was a distant memory. Jennifer's family felt unimaginable grief.
because the way Jennifer died was almost as painful as the loss itself.

Speaker 1 Her older son was the one to find her body and run to a neighbor who called 911.

Speaker 6 My girlfriend's dead.

Speaker 6 Okay, what do you mean by that? She's been shot.

Speaker 4 Her son just ran over and got me.

Speaker 1 He lived across the street from me.

Speaker 6 Okay. Do you think that

Speaker 6 she can be helped? No.

Speaker 8 It's like somebody took

Speaker 4 the engine of a jet and put it on backwards and just sucked the air out of my lungs.

Speaker 8 Never in a million years did I ever think that I would have to live my life without my sister.

Speaker 1 Heather was the first relative to hear the news. Right away, she called her parents, Narda and Max Barber.

Speaker 5 I just hung up the phone and I drove straight to the house. I pulled up in the driveway behind a couple of Gwinnett County police cruisers.
They wouldn't let me see my daughter.

Speaker 1 So he went to the neighbors to get Jennifer's sons. The older one, Dalton, was crying very hard.
He'd been the one to find his mother first that morning.

Speaker 5 And he ran across the street in his underwear

Speaker 5 and he's going to remember constantly hitting the doorbell.

Speaker 1 Police found Jennifer's body in her bedroom. She was dressed in a nightgown, lying on her side.

Speaker 9 Then there is a blood trail coming down from her nose directly down to the bed.

Speaker 1 Then District Attorney Charles Ross helped investigate the case along with Danny Porter, then prosecutor of Gwinnett County, just outside Atlanta.

Speaker 9 There is a gun that is tucked under the sheet with her hands basically above it.

Speaker 1 There were divorce papers on the bed as well. Going through a troubled time in life.

Speaker 1 What's the initial impression of this scene?

Speaker 6 Suicide.

Speaker 1 There was reason to believe Jennifer Corbyn might have killed herself.

Speaker 1 Her marriage that once seemed so perfect had soured, and there was evidence she may have worried about losing her children in what was certain to be a nasty divorce and custody fight.

Speaker 1 Still, when Dayline first spoke with Jennifer's family shortly after she died in December 2004, they were adamant Jennifer would never have killed herself. Is it possible that Jenny took her own life?

Speaker 4 Positively, no way.

Speaker 4 And I'll tell you there are two reasons, Dalton and Dylan. She lived

Speaker 10 for those kids.

Speaker 4 She certainly would not have committed suicide and let her children find her that way with a gun next to her. Jennifer would never have abandoned those kids.

Speaker 4 No, you could not convince me of that in a million years. No way.

Speaker 5 I knew that she was dead and I knew that somebody did it and it wasn't Jennifer.

Speaker 1 Did you think you knew who did it?

Speaker 5 In my heart, absolutely.

Speaker 1 That second that you found? That second.

Speaker 1 Can you say who that person is?

Speaker 6 No.

Speaker 5 I don't want to. I'll let Gwinnett County do its job.

Speaker 1 It turns out the Gwinnett County prosecutor wasted no time doing his job. He was about to take a journey into a troubled marriage and a dark past.

Speaker 1 Jennifer Corbyn was found dead from a single gunshot to the head. Her family insisted this was not suicide.

Speaker 10 I think the biggest breakthrough came when I got a phone call.

Speaker 1 Just a few days after the death, her mother received a stunning call that would ignite the investigation.

Speaker 10 It is enormous. It is beyond belief.

Speaker 1 The caller said Bart Corbyn had been involved in another volatile relationship 14 years earlier with a fellow dental student named Dolly Hearn, a beautiful, vivacious woman Jennifer's family never knew about.

Speaker 2 She lit up every room that she entered with her smile.

Speaker 1 Dolly's brother Gil says his sister dated Bart during her third year of dental school, which was 150 miles from Atlanta in Augusta, Georgia. At first, they seemed to get along well.

Speaker 1 Then their relationship became strained.

Speaker 11 Near the end of their relationship, things started going wrong.

Speaker 1 Dr. Travis Hampton was a friend and classmate of both Bart's and Dolly's.
He says Bart became incredibly possessive of Dolly, and when she broke up with him, strange things began to happen to her.

Speaker 1 Dolly filed police reports complaining that someone had broken into her apartment, vandalized her car, and stolen a package from her mailbox. One day, a school project disappeared, and then her cat.

Speaker 11 At first, she thought that she was just unlucky, but after a while we realized that

Speaker 11 luck had nothing to do with it and she was being targeted.

Speaker 1 Dolly was so convinced Bart was the culprit, she tried to secretly record a conversation with him, hoping he'd confess. But Bart became suspicious.

Speaker 12 Is there any way

Speaker 12 that you could get him back? I mean, are you sure? What are you going to say? I mean, how do I know you haven't got a recorder on here or something?

Speaker 1 Dr. Hampton says Dolly confided in him, telling him she feared what Bart might do.

Speaker 11 She actually wanted to stay at our house one night because she didn't want to sleep at her house alone.

Speaker 1 But by the time summer break arrived, the harassment seemed to have stopped. Dolly looked happy as she attended her brother's high school graduation.

Speaker 1 He was valedictorian and she beamed as he gave his speech.

Speaker 2 I glanced at Dolly and she just had the biggest smile that she was directing right at me.

Speaker 1 Then, just a few days later, a terrible shock.

Speaker 2 My mom said,

Speaker 2 We lost our Dolly. My first response was natural in that, no,

Speaker 2 this can't have happened. And that

Speaker 2 really is the worst thing that she could have told me.

Speaker 1 Dolly's roommate discovered her body in their apartment on the afternoon of June 6th, 1990, just as Bart was about to graduate from dental school. She died of a single gunshot to the head.

Speaker 9 The gun had been placed in front of her in her lap. She was sitting with her legs crossed, sitting up, and there is a gunshot wound off to the right side of the hip.

Speaker 1 To the investigators in Augusta, Georgia back in 1990, it looked like suicide.

Speaker 9 There were not crime scene technicians working the case as we do today.

Speaker 9 All the medical examiner had at the time was simply that it was a female with a gunshot wound to the head and the gun was found in front of her.

Speaker 1 Is there any way your sister could have taken her own life?

Speaker 2 There's absolutely no

Speaker 2 thought in my mind or any of the family's mind that she would have done that.

Speaker 1 Like Jennifer's family, the Hearns were adamant that Dolly had not taken her life.

Speaker 1 Because of the troubles Bart and Dolly had in their relationship, authorities investigated the possibility of foul play in 1990 and interviewed Bart Corbyn.

Speaker 1 But they couldn't find conclusive evidence of either a homicide or suicide, and no one was charged.

Speaker 2 The hardest part has been having no official closure, having a case that was just casually ruled suicide, and having to see my parents make their best efforts to get law enforcement to cooperate to see it through to the end.

Speaker 1 Over the years, the Hearn family fought to prove Dolly didn't take her life, even hiring a private investigator, but that didn't help them.

Speaker 1 Your family's own independent expert is saying, this looks like it probably was a suicide.

Speaker 2 Right.

Speaker 2 So that obviously made things more difficult because

Speaker 2 it did nothing to convince us that it was suicide.

Speaker 1 Gil said his family was well aware that Dolly had been living in fear in the months before her death. You're saying your sister was afraid?

Speaker 2 Yes, definitely. I would describe him as Jekyll and Hyde.
He was obviously

Speaker 2 bright. He could perform well academically.
He could relate well to people. He could fool a lot of people.

Speaker 1 Dolly's classmate says he wasn't fooled. He even told Dolly to take precautions.

Speaker 11 I suggested to her she might want to get a gun to protect herself, and her dad loaned her a gun. I know that her father had told her, you need to get away from him.

Speaker 11 You're going to wind up in a dumpster one day.

Speaker 1 In fact, from the day Dolly died, her family was convinced she was murdered.

Speaker 2 I knew that Bart had killed her. There was never any doubt in my mind.
There was never any doubt in my parents' mind.

Speaker 1 But Dolly's death remained a cold case for 14 years until Jennifer Corbyn was found dead and investigators began to look at Dolly's case in a whole new light.

Speaker 1 What are the chances that two women who were both involved in volatile relationships with Barton Corbyn would both kill themselves in the exact same way?

Speaker 9 It certainly seemed very, very unlikely. And as the investigation unfolded, similarities were just staggering.
It couldn't have been a coincidence.

Speaker 1 The Dolly Hearn case was reopened in Augusta. The lead investigator there re-examined her death with a new perspective and new crime scene technology.

Speaker 6 He takes the crime scene photographs and blows them up and turns them over to his expert.

Speaker 6 The expert begins to look at the blood spatter patterns and finds three significant findings that tell him the body was manipulated after the wound was inflicted.

Speaker 1 As evidence against Dr. Corbyn mounted, prosecutors tapped his phone.

Speaker 6 One of the people calls and says, I heard they were reopening the Augusta case. And he said, yeah, I don't know why they want to learn about that bitch in Augusta.
I don't have any idea about it.

Speaker 1 That's the way he referred to Dolly Hearn?

Speaker 6 That's the way he has always referred to her. And

Speaker 6 not only is it offensive, but

Speaker 6 you start seeing another side of his personality through these unguarded conversations.

Speaker 1 A side Dolly's parents had seen 14 years earlier. They always believed Bart Corbyn had staged a suicide in their daughter's case.
Now they were convinced he'd struck again.

Speaker 1 And they felt a duty to support Jennifer's family, to attend her funeral, to console her parents who should never have suffered the same way they had.

Speaker 5 We hugged for a long time and when she pulled away from me she held my hands and she just looked at me and she says, There hasn't been a day in 14 years that Bill doesn't talk about Dolly.

Speaker 5 And I shook Dr. Hearn's hand and I

Speaker 5 just remember saying to him, I'm sorry that we have to meet under these circumstances.

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Speaker 1 Jennifer Corbyn's family knew nothing about her husband Bart's girlfriend, who died from a single gunshot back in 1990.

Speaker 1 But like the girlfriend's family, Jennifer's relatives immediately told police that no matter how her death looked on December 4th, 2004, this wasn't suicide, it was murder.

Speaker 5 I said, have you arrested Bart Corbyn? And his reply to me was, why?

Speaker 1 Since we first spoke with Jennifer's family, they've become much more outspoken about what they think really happened that terrible day.

Speaker 17 I knew that there was no one else that could have done it but Bart. I just could not understand how they could possibly not

Speaker 10 realize what we knew.

Speaker 1 It's what even Jennifer's seven-year-old son Dalton assumed right from the moment he found his mother's body and ran to the neighbor who called 911.

Speaker 6 Was there anybody home last night? Was dad home?

Speaker 2 He's the one who killed my mom.

Speaker 1 In reality, Dalton didn't see or hear the fatal shot, but he clearly remembered how his parents fought and how at times his dad's temper would just explode.

Speaker 6 And like yesterday and the day after that.

Speaker 6 So they've been fighting a lot lately?

Speaker 19 Yeah.

Speaker 1 Jennifer's family became well aware of the hair-trigger temper Dolly Hearn's family had known years ago.

Speaker 4 One minute he is happy-go-lucky. The next minute it is just like he goes into a rage.

Speaker 1 According to Jennifer's family, Bart often lost his temper with the boys, calling them names like idiot and crybaby. And after years of frustration, Jennifer finally had had enough.

Speaker 10 And she said, Mom,

Speaker 17 Mom,

Speaker 10 I do not love Bart. I have loved him because he is the father of our children.

Speaker 6 But

Speaker 10 I am ready to leave and I'm ready to get on with my life.

Speaker 1 The turning point came on Thanksgiving Day 2004 after a family dinner at Heather's house. They say Bart didn't seem himself and suddenly wanted Jennifer and the boys to leave.

Speaker 1 Bart was ready to go and her sister Regelle remembers that day well.

Speaker 11 She said, okay, Bart wants to go, it's time to go.

Speaker 7 And she left. And it wasn't much longer that dad got the phone call

Speaker 7 that

Speaker 7 Bart had slapped her, punched her, hurt her in the car.

Speaker 7 And Dad told her to immediately come back.

Speaker 1 And where were the kids?

Speaker 7 The kids were in the vehicle with Jennifer and Bart.

Speaker 1 The following Monday, Bart filed for divorce, asking for the house custody of the children and child support.

Speaker 1 Two days later, Jennifer called 911 saying she caught Bart going through her purse and taking a journal she kept and her cell phone and that he took a shotgun from the house and drove off wearing only a towel.

Speaker 4 Jennifer called me. It had just happened.
She called me and she was crying hysterically.

Speaker 1 Three days later, Jennifer was dead. Her family was overwhelmed by grief and outraged by Barton Corbin's reaction or lack of one.

Speaker 4 I don't know if there's a guideline of how a person should react when your wife has been found dead, but I would think that the initial reaction would be something along the lines of, oh my God, where are my children?

Speaker 4 Oh my God, where's Jennifer? Oh my God, what happened?

Speaker 4 There was not a peep.

Speaker 4 There was not a word.

Speaker 6 That's really what I focused on. But why didn't he come and get his kids? He left them at the home that night before, and he never comes.
He never shows up.

Speaker 1 All that amounted to circumstantial evidence. But what Danny Porter really wanted was hard proof tying Bart to the gun found on Jennifer's bed.
That would be critical to the case.

Speaker 1 But a weapons check could only trace it to a gun dealer in Alabama way back in 1957, years before Bart was born. The DA did know Bart had a friend in Troy, Alabama named Richard Wilson.

Speaker 6 So I dispatched investigators to Alabama for the first time on December the 15th of 2004 to talk to Richard Wilson in Troy, Alabama.

Speaker 6 He initially says that the only thing he knows is that he had talked to Bart and learned that Jennifer had died, and he tells us he doesn't know anything about a gun.

Speaker 1 Investigators also use Bart's cell phone records to map his movements on that fatal night. Bart said he was at his brother's house around 2 a.m., Jennifer's estimated time of death.

Speaker 1 But cell phone records put him right near the house where Jennifer died.

Speaker 6 That's the first critical piece of information that blows his alibi out of the water.

Speaker 6 It puts him at the residence at about quarter of two in the morning till about five after two in the morning, and that's the time of the murder.

Speaker 1 And investigators found the angle of the bullet wound and the trail of blood on Jennifer's face were not consistent with a suicide.

Speaker 1 So if this indeed was a suicide, how would Jennifer have held the the gun?

Speaker 6 I'm not sure she could have.

Speaker 6 Because you take the bullet,

Speaker 6 the gunshot wound, later confirmed through autopsy, was within an inch of the skin. Then you add four inches for the barrel.
You add another three inches for the grip.

Speaker 6 And my arms aren't long enough to get to where the gun has to be.

Speaker 1 Are her fingerprints on the gun? No.

Speaker 6 There are no fingerprints on the gun.

Speaker 1 How do you explain that?

Speaker 6 Barton Corbyn either wiped it down or has access to latex gloves. I mean, he's a dentist.
He washes his hands and puts on latex gloves 30 times a day.

Speaker 1 Was there any gunpowder residue on Jennifer's hands? No. Would it be possible for Jennifer to kill herself and not have gunpowder on her hands?

Speaker 9 With that particular gun, it would be very difficult.

Speaker 1 According to authorities, the medical examiner found even more evidence that Jennifer could not have killed herself.

Speaker 9 Probably the most key fact the medical examiner found was that the nature of the wound immediately cut off any electrical or muscular activity in the body.

Speaker 9 The hand would have immediately dropped from the position had she committed suicide.

Speaker 9 It is absolutely unlikely, actually impossible that her hand could have come back to a resting point tucked under the sheets with the weapon as she was found.

Speaker 1 And there was one more thing that didn't look good for Barton Corbyn.

Speaker 6 We determined that Barton Corbyn was involved in a long-term sexual relationship that started before his marriage, began, continued throughout his marriage, and in fact,

Speaker 6 continued on after Jennifer's death.

Speaker 1 As Gwinnett County authorities investigated Jennifer's death, prosecutors down in Augusta indicted Bart Corbin in the murder of Dolly Hearn.

Speaker 1 Police arrested him in a very dramatic and public fashion. Dolly's brother heard about it from his wife.

Speaker 2 She said, Bart Corbyn is on the ground on TV and he's being arrested. I'm watching it live.
That was one of the best moments of our lives since, you know, the day Dolly died.

Speaker 1 Two weeks after his arrest in Dolly's case, he was also charged with murdering his wife, Jennifer.

Speaker 1 Barton Corbin had been indicted for murdering his girlfriend back in 1990 and his wife in 2004.

Speaker 1 To mount his defense, he hired top legal talent who argue both deaths were in fact suicide and that Bart's connection was pure coincidence.

Speaker 18 We've contacted some of the finest forensic people in the country and all of them say that the evidence is consistent with suicide.

Speaker 1 High-profile attorneys David Wolfe and Bruce Harvey were confident they could successfully defend Dr. Corbyn.

Speaker 18 We're going into the courtroom in an attempt to demonstrate that nothing that the state can offer can overcome the presumption that Dr.

Speaker 18 Corbyn didn't commit either of these offenses and as a result, he should be found not guilty.

Speaker 1 The defense team planned to tell the jury that in Dolly Hearn's case, the family's own independent expert didn't think she was murdered.

Speaker 18 The family hired one of the premier

Speaker 18 medical examiners, forensic pathologists in the country, and said

Speaker 18 that there is nothing inconsistent with suicide. He said if you showed this information to a hundred pathologists, they'd tell you the same thing.

Speaker 1 In fact, the defense pointed out that if it were not for Jennifer's case, there would never have been an indictment in Dali's.

Speaker 18 They couldn't prove a homicide.

Speaker 1 Still, the obvious connection between the two women, Bark Corbin, could not be ignored.

Speaker 1 What are the chances of two women having volatile relationships with the same man and then taking their own lives in the exact same way?

Speaker 18 We were talking about coincidences and the circumstances surrounding the two cases aren't as similar as they're making them out to be. There's been much made about the fact that Bart and Dolly were

Speaker 18 having difficulties at the time of her death and that's not true.

Speaker 1 According to Bart's attorney, the harassment Dolly blamed on Bart occurred months before she died, and they'd actually reconciled their relationship.

Speaker 18 After that, they had in fact gotten back together, and Dolly Hearn had asked several people not to let her family know that she was dating him again.

Speaker 1 But what about Bart's relationship with his wife, Jennifer? The defense says it was never violent, and the alleged punch during an argument on Thanksgiving Day was really just an unintentional slap.

Speaker 18 And she was trying to push his hand away, and her hand slipped off, and it hit her in the face.

Speaker 1 And Bart's lawyer also had an explanation for the fact Jennifer's fingerprints were not found on the gun.

Speaker 18 Whenever I try a criminal case and we ask the officers on the stand, did you fingerprint the gun?

Speaker 18 The inevitable response is how difficult it is to raise fingerprints from a firearm.

Speaker 1 Why no gunpowder on Jennifer's hands?

Speaker 18 With regard to gunshot residue, it is

Speaker 18 incredibly unreliable, particularly where there is a thick tuft of hair.

Speaker 1 As for the bullet angle, the prosecution argued would be nearly impossible in a suicide, the defense said it was possible and in fact found another case involving a self-inflicted wound that was nearly identical.

Speaker 1 And while the prosecution argued cell phone records placed Bart near his home around 2 a.m.

Speaker 1 when Jennifer died, the defense said those records don't prove anything because no one really knows the exact time of death.

Speaker 18 They don't know when Jennifer Corbyn died and that was an interesting aspect of our case.

Speaker 1 In fact the defense says the temperature of Jennifer's body when the medical examiner arrived indicated she may have died later than 2 a.m.

Speaker 1 Perhaps as late as 6 or 7 in the morning, when both sides agree Bart clearly was not near his home.

Speaker 18 And as a result of that, it couldn't have been him.

Speaker 1 And the defense argued the strongest strongest indicator of suicide was the turmoil in Jennifer's life at the time she died.

Speaker 18 Ask anybody, what does a divorce do to people emotionally? It's heart-wrenching. It's gut-wrenching.
It's one of the things that drive people to take their lives or attempt to take their lives.

Speaker 1 Under the defense theory, Jennifer feared losing her boys in a custody battle, and with good reason.

Speaker 1 Her divorce proceedings would have exposed a secret online relationship revealed by a trail of hundreds of emails, some of them explicit.

Speaker 18 The relationship turned graphic and

Speaker 18 romantically graphic.

Speaker 1 And there was something else.

Speaker 18 She learned that the gentleman she thought she was communicating with was in fact a woman. And upon learning that information, elected to continue the relationship.

Speaker 18 Suffice it to say that it seemed pretty likely that

Speaker 18 Dr. Corbyn would win custody of the boys.

Speaker 1 The defense said a call Jennifer made herself backed their theory. Jennifer expressed her concern when she told a 911 operator Bart had stolen her cell phone and personal journal.

Speaker 18 A second call was made right back to the 911 person

Speaker 18 where

Speaker 18 Ms. Corbyn emphasized the importance of finding him and getting her stuff back because she was concerned and specifically said he's going to use it against me.

Speaker 20 Yeah, hi, I'm sorry.

Speaker 20 I think we were in the process of going through a divorce.

Speaker 1 What's more, the prosecutor had not directly tied Bark Corbyn to the gun used in his wife's death.

Speaker 1 A major weakness in the case against him. All of this, the defense contended, added up to reasonable doubt for a jury.

Speaker 1 As the trial approached, Jennifer's family braced for the possibility her reputation will be tarnished in the courtroom. But they said they weren't concerned about the emails.

Speaker 4 She was exceptionally lonely. She just wanted

Speaker 4 somebody.

Speaker 4 And she had had a marriage that was void for years. He was having an affair.
She just was was dying for some companionship and she found someone that listened to her and somehow it gave her comfort.

Speaker 14 A mochi moment from Tara who writes, for years, all my doctor said was eat less and move more, which never worked. But you know what does? The simple eating tips from my nutritionist at Mochi.

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Speaker 14 To find your Mochi moment, visit joinmochi.com.

Speaker 15 Mochi members have access to licensed physicians and nutritionists and are compensated for their stories. Results may vary.

Speaker 1 A BetterHelp ad.

Speaker 16 This November, BetterHelp is encouraging people to reach out, grab lunch with an old friend, call your parents, or even find support in therapy.

Speaker 16 BetterHelp makes it easy with its therapist match commitment and over 12 years of online therapy experience, matching members with qualified professionals.

Speaker 16 And just like that lunch with an old friend, once you do reach out, you'll wonder, why didn't I do this sooner?

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Speaker 1 I turned off news altogether.

Speaker 1 I hate to say it, but I don't trust much of anything.

Speaker 2 It's the rage bait.

Speaker 15 It feels like it's trying to divide people.

Speaker 1 We got clear facts. Maybe we can calm down a little.

Speaker 6 NBC News brings you clear reporting. Let's meet at the facts.
Let's move forward from there. NBC News, reporting for America.

Speaker 1 Nearly two years after Jennifer's death, her husband, Dr. Barton Corbyn, was finally going to triumph.
His high-profile attorneys at his side.

Speaker 18 We're very confident that there can

Speaker 18 be a reasonable doubt.

Speaker 1 His defense team had a reputation for finding inconsistencies and attacking weak evidence.

Speaker 6 They are meticulous. They are always well prepared.
They are lawyers who will fight you at every turn. Those are two of the best lawyers I know.

Speaker 1 Then Gwinnett County District Attorney Danny Porter had the complete confidence of Jennifer's family. But he knew he had at least one weakness in his case.
He hadn't tied the gun to Bart Corbyn.

Speaker 6 I knew that the gun was going to be a critical piece of evidence.

Speaker 1 Remember, the gun had been traced to a gun dealer in Alabama. The prosecution knew Bart had a friend in Troy, Alabama named Richard Wilson, and suspected Wilson gave Bart the gun.

Speaker 1 But Wilson wouldn't talk.

Speaker 6 So we kept going back, we kept poking at him, and then re-reviewed the cell phone records and were able to determine that Barton Corbyn was in Troy, Alabama on November the 30th of 2004 and had spoken to Richard Wilson.

Speaker 1 November 30th was just one day after Bart filed for divorce and five days before Jennifer was shot. Strong circumstantial evidence, but not enough to put the gun in Bart's hand.

Speaker 1 So a few weeks before trial, investigators ran an advanced computer search of the gun's serial number, and finally, a break.

Speaker 6 The search showed that in 2002, the gun was run by the Troy, Alabama Police Department.

Speaker 1 Troy, Alabama, the town where Wilson lived and Bart had visited. The prosecution was close, but still no smoking gun in Bart Corbyn's hand.

Speaker 1 And by now, it was September 11th, the day jury selection began.

Speaker 1 Then, on day two, as the prosecutor questioned potential jurors, he noticed his investigator was trying to grab his attention.

Speaker 6 My chief investigator comes up and hands me a note that says, you have to come out of the courtroom right now, underlined, exclamation point.

Speaker 6 And I looked at him and he went, it's the gun. He mouthed, it's the gun.
And I stood up and said, Judge, there's been a development in the court. Can I be excused? And I walked out.

Speaker 1 His investigator told him the police chief in Troy, Alabama, had just questioned Richard Wilson about the gun.

Speaker 6 He says, you're going to have to tell the truth. You're going to have to go to Georgia and do the right thing.
And Richard Wilson hung his head and he said, I gave him the gun.

Speaker 6 He said that he thought his wife was fooling around on him.

Speaker 2 He thought he needed a gun to protect himself

Speaker 2 and asked me if I had one. And I had gotten one a while back, traded it for a huge lawnmower.

Speaker 6 So he came down here and got it.

Speaker 1 You've now tied that gun to Barcourt.

Speaker 6 We put it directly in his hands on November the 30th, 2004.

Speaker 1 How big is that?

Speaker 6 It's a bombshell in the case. And I went up and told the defense attorneys and at that point I don't think I could have told them anything worse.
I think stunned amazement was the reaction that I got.

Speaker 18 It was pretty devastating coming as late as it did. It sort of dispels all of the scientific consistent with suicide and homicide.

Speaker 1 stuff. Jennifer's mother was in the courtroom and could tell something happened, but prosecutor Danny Porter wouldn't say a word.

Speaker 10 Danny's standing in the hall and I said,

Speaker 10 what's going on? And he said, I can't talk about it. I can't tell you anything.
I said, is it good news? And he said, yes.

Speaker 1 The DA thought his case was now a slam dunk, a conviction all but certain. So he approached Barton Corbyn's attorneys.

Speaker 6 And I said at that point, now is the time. The best deal you're going to get.
is a plea to murder and life in prison.

Speaker 6 You either take it today or we start moving towards it today or we're going to continue with the trial.

Speaker 1 Then the DA conferred with the Hearn family and the prosecutor in Dolly's case. If convicted, Bart Corbyn faced the possibility of the death penalty in her case.

Speaker 1 If he pleaded guilty to both murders, then and there, he would get life, not death.

Speaker 6 If we're going to have a package deal, we're going to wrap both cases up and you're going to stand up in court and admit that you killed Dolly Hearn.

Speaker 1 Dr. Barton Corbyn had a decision to make, and his next move would catch a courtroom courtroom by surprise.

Speaker 1 On Friday, September 15, 2006, Dr. Barton Corbin faced a judge and two families.
Jennifer Corbyn's relatives had waited almost two years for this moment. Dolly Hearn's had waited 16.

Speaker 1 Prosecutors had just linked the gun and Jennifer's death directly to Dr. Corbyn.

Speaker 1 And now he had to choose between pleading guilty to two murders or taking his chances with a jury and possibly facing the death penalty.

Speaker 5 I kept saying to myself,

Speaker 5 what an SOB.

Speaker 5 He knows that he is

Speaker 5 guilty. He knows that we have the proof.
And my first thoughts were, you know, he's not going to admit it. He's going to drag this thing through the entire trial.

Speaker 1 And then the moment arrived.

Speaker 6 Do you fully understand all of the charges pending against you today? Yes. Has anyone used any force or threats against you to cause you to plead guilty against your will? No.

Speaker 6 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.

Speaker 1 Whose decision was it to plead guilty?

Speaker 18 Dr. Corbin's.

Speaker 1 The right decision?

Speaker 18 He made the decision for many reasons. The most important one being

Speaker 18 not to have to have his children relive

Speaker 18 all of these things.

Speaker 9 Anything else from the state?

Speaker 1 And with that admission of guilt in both murders, the cases were closed. For Dolly's brother Gil, it was words he thought he'd never hear.

Speaker 2 It just brought an amazing sense of relief and closure for me, and I'm sure for my the rest of my family and my parents especially.

Speaker 1 For Jennifer's family who had taken Bart into their family as a beloved member that guilty plea meant much more than a guilty verdict would have.

Speaker 5 I didn't want to hear a jury telling me he's guilty. I wanted to hear him say that he killed Jenny.

Speaker 1 Why is that so important?

Speaker 5 I didn't want somebody else telling me that Bart Corbyn killed my daughter. It had to come from him.
And it did When he said, yes,

Speaker 5 that I did kill Janny Corbin,

Speaker 5 I actually breathed a sigh of relief.

Speaker 1 Then Jennifer's father delivered a message to his son-in-law. He stood up and made a statement in court.

Speaker 5 The broken hearts

Speaker 5 of the Barber family, the Hurdin family, and the Corbin family

Speaker 5 can't be measured.

Speaker 5 The hearts are going to mend.

Speaker 5 I can't speak about your heart.

Speaker 6 What's going to happen to you?

Speaker 5 God might forgive you. I never will.

Speaker 5 I speak for my family when I say

Speaker 5 I just virtually hope you're burning hell. I wanted to make sure he understood that I hated him.

Speaker 5 I wanted to make sure he understood. that I would never forgive him for that.

Speaker 1 Dolly's brother, Carlton Jr., also spoke.

Speaker 6 Bark Corbyn has disgraced his profession

Speaker 6 and he has stolen from mankind.

Speaker 6 He deserves no place in society.

Speaker 6 16 years of silence.

Speaker 6 16 years of pain.

Speaker 1 Did you see any remorse?

Speaker 6 If there's any remorse in Bark Corbyn right now, it's that we pinned him to the wall and made him admit what he did. He's probably more sorry that he got caught than for what he did.

Speaker 9 Not only were their lives snuffed out, but they were humiliated, for I lack of a better term. They were labeled as suicides, and that's just not the way a person should be remembered.

Speaker 2 I want Dolly to be remembered as

Speaker 2 a fun-loving, compassionate, encouraging person. Her smile would make you forget about your troubles.

Speaker 1 As for Jennifer's family, they say her children are are daily reminders of who she was and what she left behind.

Speaker 10 I see their faces, and I see Jen.

Speaker 17 And I know that Jen is with me.

Speaker 17 I feel that Jen is with me every day.

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