MOLLY MARTENS, who was jailed for a minimum of 20 years for the murder of Irishman Jason Corbett, could face another four years behind bars for breaching prison rules.
Martens and her father Thomas Michael Martens were found guilty in August of murdering the US-based Irishman and were sentenced to a minimum of 20 years in prison and a maximum of 25 years.
She is serving her sentence at the Southern Correctional Institute in North Carolina.
However the Irish Independent reports that the 34-year-old convicted killer could serve an extra three to four years for breaching strict prison rules.
They report that Martens received a citation for an infraction on November 21 at the high security facility for unauthorised leave.
It doesn’t mean she left the facility itself, rather that she either left a supervised area without the permission of prison guards or failed to report to a supervised area as required.
However US prisons treat any unauthorised movement by inmates as an extremely serious matter.
Martens was thought to have the same scheduled release date as her father – August 3, 2037.
It is believed this has now been revised in the wake of the infraction and records from the North Carolina Department of Public Safety now indicate her scheduled release date is July 28, 2041.
The pair are due to appeal their convictions before the North Carolina Court of Appeals in the coming months.
Killers claimed self-defence
Mr Corbett was murdered at his home on August 2, 2015.
His wife and father-in-law had denied the charges against them, citing self-defence, but the jury rejected their claims and they were convicted of second-degree murder.
Prosecutors called it a brutal murder, and pointed to the fact that Martens and her father didn’t appear to have any injuries – a common sign of self-defence.
Mr Corbett meanwhile had suffered series head injuries, having been struck on the head at least 10 times with a baseball bat and a landscaping stone.
Mr Corbett met Martens in Ireland in 2008 when she was working as an au pair for his two young children after their biological mother died.
They married three years later and moved to the US.
Martens’ aunt Mona Earnest launched a fundraising campaign in August to cover the family’s legal expenses and file an appeal.
It has so far received less than $22,500 of its $300,000 target.
