Episode 482: The Murders of Jennifer Corbin and Dolly Hearn- Part 2
2023-08-03 00:49:36
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I'm Dan Taberski. In 2011, something strange began to happen at a high school in upstate New York. A mystery illness, bizarre symptoms and spreading fast. What's the answer, and what do you do if they tell you it's all in your head?
Hysterical, a new podcast from Wondery and Pineapple Street Studios, binge all episodes of Hysterical early and ad-free on Wondery Plus.
Hey weirdos, I'm ash.
And I'm Elena.
And this is morbid.
This is morbid.
This is morbid.
And this case is very morbid.
It truly is, and it's only about to get a whole lot morbider.
It's very upsetting.
Deeply upsetting.
I don't like it.
Yeah, I'm going to put the same trigger warning at the top of this episode that I did in the last episode. Both of the cases that we're going to talk about today that we talked about in part one are really, really sad domestic violence cases that involve a whole family. If that's not something that you want to listen to right now, by all means just wait for the next episode. I will not hold it against you.
There you go, yeah.
So in part two, we went over the main people involved in the case, in part one, Yep.
I was like, wait, wait.
So in part one, we went over the main people involved in the case, Jennifer and Bart Corbin and their very, very tumultuous marriage. But there's a lot more, so definitely make sure that you go listen to part one before you start this episode. Now, when we left off, investigators were not getting the best impression from Bart regarding what they were starting to suspect was the murder of his wife. And since he had lawyered up and refused to speak with them, all they could really do at that point was dig into his past. Now, they knew from talking to Jennifer's friends and family that there was a history of violence. But they were stunned when they kept digging and found out. Jennifer wasn't the first person close to Bart Corbin to die under suspicious circumstances.
Oh shit yeah.
Didn't see that coming.
Oh, I did not see that coming.
Well, that leads us to Dorothy Dolly Hearn. She was a 27-year-old dental student at the Medical College of Georgia when she met fellow student Bart Corbin in early 1989. They'd gone to dental school together and this was like, right before he met Jennifer.
Scary, so, according to Dolly's family and friends, she was immediately drawn to Bart. They had a lot of similar interests, and she found him to be very, very handsome. Like they were, they just really liked each other.
They were in dental school together. Yeah, it feels like, you know.
Like a kismet, you know? Yeah, it probably felt like that way, so they fell in love pretty quickly. Another one of their classmates said she was crazy about him for a while.
And I think he really liked her a lot as well. Oh, which that statement tells you something?
Yeah.
So once they started dating, Dolly was really excited to introduce her friends to Bart. She was like, You know, I love this guy, he's a great catch, and she figured that they would all really like him. Just as much as she did. That was not the case when she did introduce her friends to Bart.
Her friend Dennis remembered hanging out with Dolly and Bart together a lot and said I didn't feel comfortable around him. He was one of those people that did not make eye contact with you. He was kind of standoffish to me and that just didn't leave them with a good feeling. And most of Dolly's friends weren't exactly sure what they didn't like about Bart.
They just got the feeling like something was off with them, yeah.
Trust your gut.
Yeah, and the other thing was he seemed to be very, very possessive over Dolly.
That's not shocking.
No, and a lot of them were concerned about that, yeah, now they were even more concerned. When, just a few months after they started dating, Bart actually proposed to Dolly.
He seems to move very fast.
He does, I think it's like the love bomb, like, Oh my God, I love you, let's get married now.
You're fucking stuck, I hate you and I'm going to hit you.
Yeah, and that's the thing. It's like he, he wants the control right away, and so he makes sure he locks that down to get the control.
Exactly so he caught Dolly entirely off guard with this proposal, and he just kept insisting that they get married. As soon as he was done with dental school, which like, Hi, she was also in dental school, yeah, so what about her?
Like, I love it, like, we just won't consider her in this equation.
No, of course not.
Now, Dolly, again, like I said, she was really caught off guard by this and she wasn't ready to commit to somebody like that. And now she was a little bit concerned that she wasn't as invested in this relationship as Bart was.
Because now she's like, what the fuck, yeah?
So she declined the proposal, but she didn't want to end things all together. Like she still liked Bart, she just, and you know, maybe, was beginning to love him, but not enough to marry him.
Yeah, she wanted to wait, yeah.
So they kept dating for a few more months, because, again, they had only been together months. So after a while, though, there was just too much weirdness, too much tension between them. I always wonder how to get past that.
Yeah, I always wonder, like, it's nobody's fault, It's just like, if somebody says no to a proposal, I always wonder. When they continue, I'm like, Oh, how do you get past that?
I don't think I could, personally, I don't think I could.
That would be tough.
Yeah, that would be really tough.
It just puts a lot of pressure, a lot on it.
And it really sucks.
A lot of tension.
That she that she like, got that amount of pressure put onto her at such an early stage.
She didn't have to be in that condition.
He kind of, he kind of made their relationship crumble before it could even take off.
Yeah, he moved too fast.
Yeah, so because there was like the weird tension between them. It made Bart irritated and it made Dolly pull away. Which, of course, if we know Bart Corbin at this point, made him become even more jealous and even more possessive.
I hate this guy so much.
He's the worst. Have you looked up a picture of him?
Yes, I have.
He's just a little fucking fart, yeah.
He is a fart, he's a fart. I looked at his face and I was like, Fuck you fart.
Yeah, he's an asshole, he's like-.
It even rhymes with his name, yeah.
Oh my God, I didn't even mean to do that.
So fuck you fart.
Yeah, fart Bart. So after about a year of dealing with this, Dolly was just like, You know what, I can't do this like?
Clearly, we are not meant to be together. Thumbs up. She couldn't take the possessiveness anymore or the tension. And at that point, he had become, like, very obsessive and everything was just getting super toxic and she needed out, yeah.
So she did the right thing and she ended things with him good for her, she was ready to get out of there. So Bart's friend Eric Rader said he was really taking it hard. And Eric also said in the weeks after the breakup, Bart was just consumed with what he referred to as the dolly situation.
Oh, I don't like that.
Like Situ, I never want to be referred to as a situation.
Situation Oh, weird.
And he wouldn't talk about anything else, he was fixated on this dolly situation.
That would scare me.
And Eric felt like what seemed to upset Fart Bart the most was that quote. She did not appear to be taking the breakup as badly as he was, and that pissed him off now. A lot of terrible things happened, like back to back in Dolly's life, not too long after she ended things with Bart.
It was like a series of strange and very unfortunate events. First, somebody tore the sliding door to her apartment off of its track and left her screen door open. Then her car was vandalized. Someone had slashed her tires and poured paint into her gas tank and broke all of the lights on her car. And then, worst of all, and this, like, ruined me. Her cat, Tabitha, who she really, really loved, just simply disappeared.
Went missing.
I have a hunch.
Me too.
That's awful.
Yeah, it really is.
All of it.
So at first, and this, a friend said. Quote At first she thought that she was just unlucky, but after a while she realized luck had nothing to do with it. She was being targeted, of course, and when she thought about who in the world would ever want to target her, only one name came to mind.
Yep, Bart Corbin. And now she was convinced that he was retaliating as a result of the breakup. So she was smart with how she started, kind of talking to him at this point. Anytime they would talk. She tried to record the conversation to get a confession out of him about what he'd been doing.
But ever aware of his reputation and his career goals? Bart was suspicious that Dolly was doing exactly what she was, so he actually backed off and left her alone for a little bit. Oh wow, so it worked out for a little bit.
Yeah.
But still, Dolly had already been scared of Bart from their relationship, and now that she suspected he was the one terrorizing her after their breakup. She just wanted to stay on his good side. She was really freaked out by this whole entire thing.
I don't blame her.
So just hoping that, you know, eventually they would both move on, he would graduate, and they would just do their best to forget each other. She was like, I'm just going to stay focused on staying on his good side until I can get rid of him now. Because of that, she declined to press charges or tell the police that she suspected him because she was afraid he would retaliate further.
Oh, that's awful.
And really, at that time, there wouldn't be a lot that they could do.
Yeah.
Like that, unfortunately, back then, there wasn't a lot of laws about this. So for a time, things seemed calm, but they were about to escalate to a point that nobody could have imagined. Dolly's roommate, Angela, came home on the night of June 6, 1990, and found Dolly dead. She was sitting cross-legged on the couch and her face was covered in blood, and there was a .38 caliber revolver sitting in her lap.
My god, it was a brutal scene to come home to. So, Angela ran to the apartment of their neighbor, who happened to be a doctor, Dr. Steinhaus, and he went running back with her to her apartment to see if he could help. But as soon as he got there, it was very clear that he wasn't going to be able to do anything to save Dolly. She was dead, and he immediately called the police.
So, as far as the police could tell, Dolly's death had all the hallmarks of a suicide. The doors and windows to the apartment were all locked. There was no sign of a struggle whatsoever, and Dolly's body was sitting in a relaxed position on the couch. With a bullet hole in the right side of her head, just above the temple. But it wasn't that simple.
Something about the position of Dolly's body struck Dr. Steinhaus at least as wrong. He wasn't involved in the case, though, like as an investigator, or like somebody they really like, talk to about it too much. But in his experience, people who do commit suicide don't usually sit cross-legged in such a relaxed manner.
It just seemed off to him, so he gave his opinion about this to investigators. But they initially treated the death as a suicide, which meant the scene was never processed as a crime scene, really.
Because it seems like more of a taken-by-surprise kind of thing that you weren't. You were sitting like that because you were in a comfortable position and you weren't thinking something like that was going to happen, maybe.
Or think about what had happened to Jennifer.
Staged.
Staged, but the medical examiner easily signed off on the death as a suicide. Now. Later that day, though, after they spoke with Angela, the roommate there, they wondered if that was really the case. The police, so Angela filled them in on everything that Dolly had gone through in the months earlier and explained that Dolly had suspected her ex-boyfriend Bart Corbin, but was too afraid to take things to the police, she told them all about everything that had gone on.
Now, as they started talking to more of Dolly's friends and started chatting with her family, too, police were worried that Bart actually did have something to do with Dolly's death. They had a bad feeling about him and they were also starting to think back to the scene and realize that certain things about the scene were off. Just like Jennifer, there was no signs of gunpowder on Dolly's hands, which should have been there if she really shot herself.
Absolutely.
And they found it bizarre that she had started preparing food but never finished making meal that it seemed she was making for herself.
That's weird.
Like, it wasn't even like the bowl or the plate was prepared, yet she was in prepping stages, almost like with Teresita Basa.
Yeah, like, why did no one take this into account the first time?
I don't know.
It's a strange crime scene situation it is.
So, after months and months of investigations, in August. Detectives did label Bart a person of interest in Dolly's death, and they put together a picture of what they believed had happened on the afternoon that she died. From talking to Bart's friends and acquaintances, they learned that his bitterness and anger towards Dolly had gotten to a very alarming level. One friend admitted to detectives that Bart had quote boasted how he was planning the perfect murder. Oh.
And you didn't go tell anyone, fuckface.
I am I. That will never be something that doesn't shock me.
We say it every time, but I can't not say it, I don't understand. Like anyone who tells me that they're going to murder somebody like Legit is like, I have the I know how to get away with the perfect murder. 9-1-1. What's my emergency?
That, that's the thing, that's my emergency.
I don't get it, I don't get it. I've never had anyone in my life tell me that they are planning a murder and-.
Never.
And if it just doesn't, it would shock me if someone said that, I'd be like, what? Like, that's not even a joke.
I'd be like, don't say that to me.
I've never even heard somebody joke about that, like, it's just not a thing. And these people are hearing these people be like, No, seriously. I have all the plans, I will get away with it, I'm going to do it.
And they're like, I don't know. I thought he was joking and it's like, Who are you hanging around with? Like this is just like, not shocking to me.
And not only that, he said, like, I know how to get away with the perfect murder. But the fact that he was so obsessed with talking about his ex-girlfriend, you weren't scared about what was going to happen to her?
It doesn't make sense.
I'm Dan Taberski. In 2011, something strange began to happen at the high school in Leroy, New York.
I was like at my locker and she came up to me and she was like, stuttering, super bad.
I'm like, stop around.
She's like, I can't.
A mystery illness, bizarre symptoms and spreading fast.
Like doubling and tripling, and it's all these girls.
With a diagnosis, the state tried to keep on the down low.
Everybody thought I was holding something back.
Well, you were holding something back intentionally. Yeah, yeah.
Well, yeah, it's hysteria.
It's all in your head.
It's not physical. Oh my gosh, you're exaggerating.
Is this the largest mass hysteria since the Witches of Salem, or is it something else entirely? Something's wrong here.
Something's not right. Leroy was the new dateline and everyone was trying to solve the murder.
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So the police, like I said, put together a theory and that was that. Bart had put a plan into motion on June 6. And he went to Dolly's apartment. She was not expecting him, and his car had actually been spotted by the apartment manager that managed the apartment. And after being let inside, detectives figured some kind of argument had started between the two of them. That escalated to the point where Bart, quote-unquote, lost it and grabbed the .38 Rossi revolver. That Dolly had actually been given by a friend because she was so worried about what was going on, her friend had given her this gun for protection.
Bart grabbed it and then used it to shoot Dolly in the head. They figured the bullet would have killed her instantly. And then she fell back onto the couch, they assumed, and then detectives believed that Bart went about the apartment. Staging the scene repositioned the body, placed the gun in Dolly's lap and then left through the sliding glass door, able to lock it behind him as he went.
So this guy murdered his ex-girlfriend and then just went on to get married and have two kids. And went about his day-to-day life as a fucking dentist.
Can you imagine if this motherfucker was your dentist and you were like you had murdered?
Someone not only did you murder someone later, but you had murdered someone when you were my.
Dentist Yeah, damn, insane, damn.
So creepy, yeah, like creepy's not even the right word, but he's just I can't believe he was able to.
Just.
Damn, and just like, when can you imagine he fucking coached your child's little league team? Imagine that, imagine that that's even worse than being your dentist.
Yeah, he was around your child, that's scary.
O.OF.
But unfortunately, even though there was a lot of circumstantial evidence and hearsay that led them to this conclusion, there wasn't any physical evidence linking him to the scene. So they weren't going to be able to get an arrest warrant, unfortunately. And, you know, Dolly's death seems suspicious, for sure, but the medical examiner had labeled it a suicide. Now Dolly's family actually ended up hiring their own private pathologist to review everything. But that doctor also wasn't able to rule out suicide as a possible death or cause of death. Excuse me. So there wasn't a lot they could do.
Wow, and because of that, the case just ended up going cold.
Damn.
So Bart went on to graduate from dental school, marry Jennifer, start a family, and relocate to the suburbs outside of Atlanta. Just leaving the investigation and all that gossip over there behind him.
Wow.
But still lived in the same state.
That's what's shocking to me. I'm like, you, like, opened up a dental practice and, like, no one was like, Hey, that guy was thought to have murdered his ex-girlfriend.
You didn't at least move to another state?
Yeah, that's pretty wild.
Truly so the day after. Now we're going back to Jennifer's investigation. The day after Jennifer's body was discovered in the corbin house. Bart was served with a warrant that allowed authorities to test him for gunshot residue. But by that point, enough time had passed that he probably washed his hands 650,000 times and, like, washed his clothes as well. So there was nothing. They didn't find anything.
And beyond the residue test. He continued to refuse to cooperate in any way with the police or give any kind of formal statement. But luckily, the police were undeterred, and the Gwinnett Police corporal Dan Huggins told reporters We will continue investigating this case with or without him.
Good.
They were steadfast, which is awesome. So, on December 8th, 2004, the news broke that investigators were now investigating Jennifer's death as a homicide. And while they hadn't officially labeled Bart a suspect, they were very interested in speaking to him about the murder now. At the same time, the press had learned a little bit about Bart's past when it was uncovered that he had quite the connection to Dolly Hearn's suspicious death. Yeah.
And everybody was putting the pieces together. So the press was starting to ask questions now about Dolly, too. And when asked about Dolly's death, Sergeant Scott Peebles told reporters. That case is still open and we are talking to Gwinnett police and we'll let them do their thing first before we reinvestigate. Whoa. So now we have two police forces working together at this point.
Now, in the meantime, Jennifer's friends and family did whatever they could to spread the word that this death was a homicide, Jennifer's divorce lawyer, Judy King, told reporters. The family was highly suspicious. Then, when they heard about the circumstances in Augusta, where Dolly was killed, they became even more suspicious. Yeah.
Jennifer's sister and her husband also spoke out and told reporters about how she and Jennifer had gone Christmas shopping just days before Jennifer was killed. Which pointed to evidence that Jennifer was future-oriented.
Like, she wouldn't have killed herself, that's the thing. Yeah, I was going to say she was already planning stuff.
Her sister said she was not depressed, she was buying presents for her boys. She would not commit suicide now. While Bart continued to drag on the investigation and dodge investigators. An emergency hearing was held to determine custody of the two boys, which was temporarily granted to Jennifer's sister and brother-in-law, Heather and Doug. Now, worth noting here that Bart was well aware this hearing was going on and he was given an opportunity to show up.
And he knew that if he didn't show up, his in-laws were definitely going to get custody. He refused to go to the hearing and never even checked in with his kids.
Yeah, because he doesn't give a shit.
Like, he literally just abandoned those kids as soon as he killed their mother.
Yeah.
Which is insane.
He severed the connection.
Wild to me that you could do that.
He's a monster.
Like, I can't even move to another state. Like, sometimes I talk about it and then I'm like, no way I would miss my nieces too much.
It's like your nieces.
Like those are my nieces, I can't imagine leaving my children.
Yeah, and just being like, fuck, that also leaving them with that kind of trauma, too.
Well, he just left them in the house with their mother, who had just been killed.
And also they're like, baby babies.
They're like, young.
Yeah, like they shouldn't have been left alone, even under the most wonderful of circumstances.
No.
And you just killed their mother and then leave them alone in a house to deal with it.
And left them to fend for themselves.
Like, what a fucking monster.
And left them to find their mother like that. That's the last image both of those kids have of their mother.
Truly a monster.
Truly, but luckily, the police were moving quickly and efficiently. Just one week after Jennifer's murder, the D.A. Danny Porter officially designated Bart Corman as the primary focus and the main suspect in the investigation into the murder. Good fuck this guy.
And as investigators in Gwinnett County, where Jennifer had been killed, searched the Corbin house for a second and then a third time. Detectives in Richmond County, where Dolly was killed, had reopened their investigation into her death. Oh wow, and they those investigators made a statement asking anyone who might have information to please come forward with it. Sergeant Peebles told reporters The Gwinnett case caused us to bring it back to active status because of new information that needed to be followed up on now. The new information that Peebles was referring to came about after detectives decided to do a thorough re-evaluation of Dolly's case in Augusta.
Now, after going over the case file, Peebles immediately immediately recognized this pathology in Bart's behavior.
Same kind of thing.
Yeah. In the months leading up to Dolly's death, he said he was a sociopath. He was a stalker. At the time of Dolly's death in 1990, law enforcement didn't have the best understanding of stalking. No.
I mean, the laws surrounding it had, like, barely been put into place yet. And they didn't know to look for the kinds of behavior patterns that Bart was displaying.
Like, the escalating kind of thing, yeah.
Becoming more and more menacing. And even if they had understood those things, like I said earlier, there weren't laws.
There, not in Georgia, that would have protected Dolly from what Bart would have or could have done to her.
That's so fucked up.
Yeah, the law couldn't do much until she'd actually been hurt, which is insane in and of itself. And at that point, as we know, was already way too fucking late. Which is why stalking laws exist now.
Like, punish these weirdos.
But in 2004, Bart's behavior was easily recognizable to these detectives. And they were like, clearly, he was intent on controlling and terrorizing Dolly, just like he was intent on controlling and terrorizing Jennifer. Exactly so, given that Peebles revisited every aspect of the case with subject matter experts, and that's when he hit a big break in this case. In 1990, in Richmond County, where Dolly's death had taken place, there was no blood spatter expert at that point.
And they didn't typically call one in if they thought the case was a suicide.
Yeah.
But in 2004, Scott Peebles sat down with a forensic analyst, Dwayne Piper, and he looked over the photos and told Peebles. If she committed suicide, then somebody moved her body after.
Yeah.
Now, his confirmation that the body had been moved meant that, after 14 years of inactivity, Dolly's case could finally be labeled a homicide.
Finally.
Because she didn't move after killing herself, obviously.
No, of course not.
And now, investigators main suspect obviously was Bart Corbin, so on December 14th, Bart's attorneys broke their silence for the first time and held a press conference of their own. They told reporters We've learned some things that point pretty strongly to Corbin's innocence.
Oh yeah.
Then they declined to elaborate on what those things might be because they don't exist. But when asked why he remained uncooperative with the investigation, Bart himself finally spoke up and said. I've been persecuted in the media in the last 10 days. I'm anxious to speak but have not because of legal advice. The truth will come out in the end.
It sure will.
It's like, Yeah, Bart, I think we all know that, but do you?
Do you really know that?
Do you know that the truth is going to come out in the end?
Is it like the real version of the truth or the fake? You think your version of the truth is going to come out? Exactly? No, no.
So, a week later, on the morning of December 23rd, a grand jury in Richmond County considered the evidence against Bart in the murder of Dolly Hearn. And they returned an indictment where he was formally charged with one count of felony murder and one count of malice murder. Hell yeah. After almost 15 years, Dolly's family and friends finally got the chance to see some kind of justice served.
Knowing this man was just walking around, living his life for 15 years.
I can't imagine.
Becoming a dentist?
And they all knew, like her friends and family all knew what had happened. Oh my God, that must have been torturous, maddening, yeah.
Because there's no way to prove it. But now there was, so. A warrant for his arrest was faxed to Gwinnett County authorities. This is fucking awesome, just this will give you so much life.
Oh, I love it, it gave me life. So they faxed the warrant for his arrest to Gwinnett County authorities, where he lives, and they were more than prepared. They had been monitoring Bart around the clock so they knew that he was at his office with his secretary.
Oh my God, shut up.
So, with an arrest warrant in hand, they headed straight to the office and waited outside for the go ahead to arrest him. A little past noon, he left his office in the company of his mistress, Jennifer Garner.
Oh my God, shut up.
Classic. They got into his car and they started driving out of the parking lot. Now. Little did they know at first, but police were close behind and a news helicopter that had been tipped off was also flying overhead.
Shut the fuck up.
So just minutes after they left the parking lot, officers got the okay to arrest him. So as he and his mistress pulled up to a stoplight at a red light, three cruisers surrounded the car. Officers got out with their guns drawn and demanded that Bart exit the vehicle with his hands in the motherfucking air.
Oh, I would have paid to see this.
Oh my God, I know he looked completely stunned, to which I say, Ha, but he did, as he was told he was handcuffed, he got put into an unmarked police vehicle. And the entire scene was captured on camera from beginning to end, and was aired on all the news stations in Georgia later that night. Bart's worst nightmare?
Obsessed?
Reputation gone?
It's like, Ooh.
Reputation tainted, yeah.
Way worse.
Yeah, way worse.
Worse than you ever could have imagined, way worse fart than a divorce would have tainted it.
Just get fucking divorced, dude, but at that point, don't even do that because you're already a murderer. So Bart's arrest was encouraging for both families, the Hearn and the Barber family. But not everybody was eager to get too far ahead of themselves. They were very worried about getting their hopes up, of course.
Dolly's brother Carlton told reporters We still understand that it's a long road ahead of us. And Jennifer's sister, Heather was also cautious. She told the press We do not feel victorious, and I suspect it's not a victorious day for the Hearns either. Now I can definitely understand why both of them were apprehensive in the wake of Bart's arrest. Again, for Dolly's family, it had been 14, almost 15 years since they lost her, and Bart had gotten away with it for that long.
Yeah, of course.
And in Jennifer's case, the evidence against him wasn't necessarily going to make for a slam dunk case.
Yeah, it's not like airtight case here, right?
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She struck him with her motor vehicle, she had been under the influence, and then she left him there.
In January 2022, local woman Karen Reed was implicated in the mysterious death of her boyfriend, Boston Police Officer John O'Keefe. It was alleged that after an innocent night out for drinks with friends, Karen and John got into a lover's quarrel en route to the next location. What happens next depends on who you ask. Was it a crime of passion?
If you believe the prosecution, it's because the evidence was so compelling. This was clearly an intentional act. And his cause of death was blunt force trauma with hypothermia.
Or a corrupt police cover-up?
If you believe the defense theory, however, this was all a cover-up to prevent one of their own from going down.
Everyone had an opinion, and after the 10-week trial, the jury could not come to a unanimous decision.
To end in a mistrial. It's just a confirmation of just how complicated this case is.
Law and Crime presents the most in-depth analysis to date of the sensational case in Karen. You can listen to Karen exclusively with Wondery Plus. join Wondery Plus in the Wondery App, Apple Podcasts or Spotify.
So on January 5, 2005, they may have felt slightly better about the situation when a jury indicted Bart on three counts regarding Jennifer's murder. Because at that point, he hadn't even been arrested for that, but a bench warrant was issued for his arrest in that case. So he got, like, arrested in prison, I guess, or in jail now. While he sat in Augusta, because he was in Augusta jail, he had to be, like, transferred over there. Because Dolly's murder happened in that county, he was sitting in that jail without bond. And while that was happening, his lawyers went to work, juggling pre-trial motions in the two murder cases. And this is where things kind of get a little bit complicated, but I did my best.
So I did my best.
The defense was hoping to keep the two cases completely separate when it came to the evidence, obviously because it would offer an easier way to defend him.
Of course.
But the prosecution was already ahead of them, trying to get approval to introduce evidence in each case. That's called similar transaction evidence. Essentially, it's a legal term that refers to evidence that is used in a different case that can demonstrate a pattern of behavior. So, like a robbery case where evidence from a separate burglary case in the past is used, okay?
That makes sense, right?
Yeah, I could see that, okay.
So the Da Danny Porter? He felt like it would be specifically implied in these two cases and said this is a classic case for similar transaction evidence. It's going to be really important to both cases, but I think it's kind of hard to get that entered.
Yeah, that makes sense.
Like to get the judge to sign off on it, basically.
Yeah, so it's like this would be great, but like, can we make it happen?
But we don't know.
Yeah.
So, under Georgia law, a defendant's past criminal history can only be introduced under certain circumstances, including quote. If the evidence of an alleged separate offense can help prove a defendant's identity, intent, motive, plan, scheme, bent of mind or course of conduct?
All right.
So Dolly and Jennifer were both killed after indicating their intent to end relationships with Mark Corbin. Which was then followed by a period in which he terrorized each of them and eventually killed them in very similar manners. So kind of seems like this is a special circumstance.
Yeah.
So, allowing the evidence and testimony from the Dolly Hearn murder case and Jennifer's case, or vice versa, would 100 demonstrate a pattern of behavior and an indication of guilty. And both the prosecution and the defense knew that, and that's why they were solely focused on this matter of similar transaction evidence. Okay, so the defense and prosecution spent months on pre-trial motions, a judge, and there was like a judge's recusal. Which is where they get rid of them, because.
Like, they have bias or something, some kind of bias or conflict.
Yeah, they talked about a change of venue, they talked about preventing this similar transaction evidence in, they talked about dropping the charges even.
So they're really trying to get this case like airtight, so that there's no slip ups. Like he doesn't slither his way out of this.
Exactly, the prosecution is trying to do that, while the defense is trying to dismantle all of. Finally, on March 30th, 2006, now a judge in Gwinnett County ordered that evidence related to the death of Dolly Hearn could indeed be introduced into the Jennifer Corbin case.
Thank goodness.
And that struck a major blow to Bart's defense.
Of course it did.
So his lawyers were hoping to actually appeal that decision before they even went to trial. So they took it to the Supreme Court, but the Supreme Court was like, Yeah, we're not interested in that. No, like the lower court's decision stands so. While lawyers on both sides continued to battle over these pre-trial motions in the courtroom, detectives in Richmond and in Gwinnett counties continued their investigations. Just trying to gather even more evidence that could be used at trial.
Now, among the most important evidence was the origin of the gun used in Jennifer's death. They didn't know where it had come from. Oh yeah, and as far as they knew, the corbins actually didn't own any guns. So determining where it had come from was extremely important.
Yeah, now. In the course of their investigation, they learned that just days before Jennifer's murder, Bart had traveled to Troy, Alabama, to visit his old friend, Richard Wilson. Now, the visit seemed very suspicious to detectives, and they figured that the murder and the timing of the visit were two likely connected events. So they paid a visit to Mr. Richard Wilson and his wife in Alabama to ask a couple of questions about Bart's visit.
Uh-oh.
Now, Richard Wilson and his wife told the investigators. Actually, as far as they knew, the Corbins did own a shotgun, and they said, we never gave a gun to Bart or anyone in the Corbin family for that matter. So just to be sure the detectives were like, I don't know, like this doesn't sound right. So they stopped at the Troy Police Department on their way back to Georgia, and they learned that. Richard Wilson's wife, Janice, owned a .38 caliber gun special, a .38 special, that's what it's called, exactly like the one used in Jennifer's murder.
What the fuck?
So you're a couple of fucking liars, how dare you? So? In the weeks that followed, detectives in Georgia started learning more and more about Richard Wilson and who he was and how he was connected to Bart. It turned out that he and Bart had met almost 20 years earlier, when Richard was working for Bart's father as a salesman for a chemical company. Now, in the 15 years that passed since then, Richard and Bart had become really good friends, and Richard had this really weird sense of loyalty. That ended up playing a very significant role in this case.
EW Yeah, it's very layered.
Don't be loyal to those people.
These hoes ain't loyal, don't do that, and Bart is a hoe. Yeah, so among the a fart, yeah.
I thought you were just like Bart.
Yeah, it was. Bart. Yes, exactly indeed.
So among the things investigators learned was that. Bart and Jennifer had paid a surprise visit to Richard and Janice's home in Troy the summer before Jennifer had been killed. And that was followed by another visit from Bart alone on November 30th, 2004, after Thanksgiving, yeah, now. In the months between then, Bart and Richard had a ton of conversations, where Bart was telling Richard all about his crumbling marriage, how his wife was having an affair with. Quote unquote someone on the internet, Oh, boo hoo.
And he had plans to divorce Jennifer, but was nervous about it because, you know, she really flew off the handle all the time.
Oh, shut the fuck up.
Now the investigator, excuse me. The information investigators learned about Richard Wilson and Bart Corbin's relationship was collected over a pretty long period of time. And it took a lot of diligence to get. In fact, since they interviewed him in the days after Jennifer's death, Richard Wilson had maintained that he knew nothing about the murder and maintained that he still maintained he never provided Bart with any kind of gun. Luckily, it turned out that Richard Wilson's loyalty to Bart did have limits when he was threatened with a subpoena to testify under oath. That'll do it.
He was like, Actually, I have to talk to you about something. He became a bit more forthcoming. Crazy how that happens.
Yeah, suddenly he's chatty, wow.
Now, on September 13th, 2006, as jury selection was underway in Gwinnett County, the district attorney, Danny Porter, made an emergency trip to Troy, Alabama, to record what would become a critical interview with Richard Wilson. According to Wilson, Bart returned to Troy alone for that November 30th visit and told him that the divorce was imminent. But he was concerned for his safety and Quote wanted to have a little extra protection for himself.
Come on.
He said, just in case Jennifer or one of her family members became threatening.
Oh, shut up.
Now it turned out that Richard Wilson had just gotten a 38 special as a payment for some mechanic work that he'd done. And after checking with the police that the gun wasn't stolen, they registered it in his wife's name. But after that, they didn't really do anything with it, it was just kind of sitting around the house. So Richard Wilson gave his friend Bart the revolver that evening, and then Bart returned to Buford with it.
And four days later, Jennifer Corbin was shot with Richard Wilson's gun. Wow, so the prosecution's case against Bart Corbin in Gwinnett County before that was strong. But there were definitely holes that could have been poked in the case. And one of the biggest issues that could have been poked was the fact that. Before they spoke to Richard Wilson, they had no idea where that gun had come from. Now they knew, and now this interview was on tape.
So now they could prove that Bart had procured the weapon used in his wife's death just days before she was killed.
He sure did.
And of all of the evidence collected during investigation, it turned out that nothing was more damning than that interview. Damn if they hadn't looked into his past and found this Richard Wilson character, Bart would not have. That would have been a huge hole. Yeah, it would have been a really big hole.
So the next day, district attorney there, Danny Porter, gave a copy of Richard Wilson's recorded interview to Bart's lawyers, who had until then been eager to go to trial. But hours later, the DA's office got a call from Bart's defense team, saying that Bart now wanted to discuss a plea deal. He was fucked.
Oh yeah, where is he going to go? Exactly like there's no way out of this one.
Because between the similar transaction, evidence connecting both of the murders and now Richard Wilson's interview connecting the gun directly to Bart. He and his defense knew that there was pretty much no chance he was going to be acquitted.
So, instead of proceeding with the trial, which again was already currently underway with jury selection Danny Porter, the DA offered a deal. Bart, Excuse me, would plead guilty to both murders and make a full confession before a judge. Damn in exchange for two life sentences, with the possibility of parole after 15 years.
Damn.
With no better options, Bart accepted the deal. And on September 15th, he appeared before a judge in a Lawrenceville courtroom and confessed to the murders of Dolly Hearn and Jennifer Corbin.
I can't believe that they were like, this is actually like such an impressive case.
It's such a gotcha case.
That's the thing, and I love that nobody gave up.
Nobody gave up.
And everybody was like, not only are we not going to give up for Jennifer's case, but like, we're going to get Dolly in there.
We're going to get both of these women justice.
Like, it was like, we're not letting Dolly's case go by the wayside here.
No way.
Like, I love that. They just fucked him into a corner.
Oh, into.
And we're like, What are you going to do now, Bart?
And there was nothing you could do.
There's literally nowhere you can go, you fucked yourself.
You fucked yourself like we got ya, and all of fucking Georgia knows exactly who the fuck you are.
How's your reputation doing, buddy?
Big reputation, yeah, is that that's swift, right?
Oh, is it? yeah, she? I have no idea.
I think she says big reputation.
She says that all the time in the song. No, she just like she says it.
Oh yeah, well, I didn't want to let them know that, like we were like hanging out with each.
Yeah, like, sometimes when you hang out with Taylor, she'll just be like, big reputation, you know, and you're like, Yeah, Taylor.
Sometimes we fall into very strange bits. We do, yeah, yeah, I like that about us.
So after Bart's confession, Judge Michael Clarke allowed two family members to make a statement. So Jennifer's father, Max Barber, spoke first and told his former son-in-law God may forgive you, I never will. I just virtually hope you burn in hell. Oh, good for him, like, Fuck that guy.
Chef's kiss Yeah.
Like, that was a really great way to say it, mm-hmm.
And Dolly's brother, Carlton, shared a similar sentiment and told the court. 16 years of silence because by that point it had been 16 years, he said, 16 years of pain. Bart Corbin has disgraced his profession, dentistry, and stolen from mankind. My family is in complete agreement with the sentence.
Yeah, and it's like, this fucker for 16 years got to live a life where he had a dental practice, he had children, he got to get married, he got to fuck up two children's lives.
Yep.
Like, that's what kills me. I'm like, you got to fuck up these two kids and traumatize them for however many years before you got caught like that sucks.
He's a monster.
And then you got to take this woman out of the who didn't want to be with you.
No.
Who would have lived a totally happy and probably fulfilling as fuck life? Yeah, you could have just gotten divorced outside of your bullshit. ugh, it just makes me so angry.
And all it really came down to, I'm sure, was money and greed, of course. And it's like, Okay, then you should have gotten a fucking prenup.
He wanted to keep his dental practice. Mm-hmm. He didn't want people to be, you know, chit-chatting about the divorce and about affairs and all that. And he didn't want anyone to think that he actually hit her, even though, so it's like, okay, so you hit her, but you don't want to. I don't want to admit that I hit her.
I don't want anyone to know I hit her, no, like, you're a piece of shit.
He's disgusting.
But you laughed.
The part where he was like, she can't prove it.
Yeah.
I love, I hate when that's like their first offense. When you you just hit someone and you know very well that you have hit them and you say you can't prove it.
You can't prove it.
Like, you're a fucking animal.
Like, fuck you, you're an animal, that's exactly, you're an animal.
And you got exactly what you deserved. So, when court was adjourned, reporters asked the district attorney, Danny Porter, about the deal that he had made with Corbyn. And he told them he won't have a realistic chance. Meaning at parole until 28 years. And as far as things went with Richard, Oh, I kept reading that like it was a quote, but it was my writing. So he won't have a realistic chance at parole until 28 years. And then, as far as things went with Richard Wilson, Porter said he had no intention of actually charging Wilson with a crime.
He said Once Jennifer was found dead, he figured it out. I think he figured if he kept his mouth shut and his head down, it would blow over, which is really fucked up.
Yeah.
But overall, Danny Porter believed that Richard Wilson was just too scared to come forward and didn't want to betray his friend. Which, like, you can betray your friend if it means that you were not involved in a murder.
That's the thing it's like. -.
Betray your friend, Betray your friend. Yeah, all the live long day. But luckily, he eventually decided Richard there to do the right thing, even if it was at the final hour.
And it really is because of that that they were able to hold the right person responsible for the murders of Dolly and Jennifer. And I think that's probably why they didn't go any further with charging him with obstruction of justice or anything like that.
Yeah, that makes sense.
As of today, Bart Corbin remains incarcerated at the Central State Prison in. I think it's Macon, Georgia, but I'm not positive.
I think you're right.
I think so. And he will be eligible for parole in 2030..
Damn, got a little while, but it's not that far. But he still don't give him parole.
I hope he wouldn't get parole. Come on.
I mean, I would think, sitting on that.-.
On that board of parole officers like, he got away with this for 16 years and clearly didn't feel any shred of guilt.
And he tried to make both of them look like they had killed themselves.
Like, that's some nefarious shit.
Like, he's a nefarious fucker.
He is, keep him where he is. But it makes me so sad that everything happened the way that it did, like most of these women's lives. I mean, Dolly was 27 when she met him, like she still had some of the best years of her life ahead of her.
And so did Jennifer, like, who knows what would have happened, maybe she would have ended up with Anita.
Yeah.
And it's like she had two boys, and like in a loving, fulfilling relationship, like two little boys, and now they-.
Who deserve to have her?
Yeah.
And she seemed to be the one that was like the only one that was giving them the love and support that they deserved.
Exactly other than like her family and luckily, the boys, in case anybody is wondering, they did end up.
Jennifer's sister, Heather, got permanent custody. Good, so that makes me happy because she seems like a really good person.
Yeah, and it's like, that's I'm glad.
And it's like a piece of their mom is still with them, yeah.
Exactly Yeah, ooh.
But what a fucking tragic case. Overall, truly, I am not excited to make my next dentist appointment. No, I'm really freaked out about that.
Because the fact that, like a murderer could be anybody and that scares the shit out of me.
Like, he was a little league coach.
He was a little league coach, he was a dentist, and he had killed a woman. He volunteered in the community.
And these poor parents have no idea he's sitting there screaming and yelling at their seven-year-olds on a baseball team. And they have no idea that he is an actual fucking monster, he's not just a monster in that sense.
Like, he's a Jennifer. Went to Italy with a murderer, yeah, and had no idea. Ooh, like, I can't imagine.
I can't imagine.
Always question somebody whose temper is that explosive?
Mm-hmm, absolutely.
Just question it.
Absolutely.
But that's so fucked.
This whole case is, I think we need to do something like haunted-ish next.
Yeah, we truly do, yeah, need to get a little bit of spookies in there.
Yeah, definitely, you know, so we hope you keep listening for that.
And we hope you-.
Keep-.
It-.
Weird, but not so weird that you're not in the mood for something haunted, because now I'm really in the mood for something haunted. After all the sad, sad, sad, sad, sad.
So I can get out of here, yeah.
Bye.
Bye.
Bye.
Bye.
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