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Death & the Dentist

September 20, 2023 /

This episode covers the tragic deaths of Jennifer Corbin and Dolly Hearn, both linked to Dr. Barton Corbin. It discusses the investigation into their deaths, the similarities in their cases, and the eventual arrest and guilty plea of Bart Corbin.

Jennifer Corbin was found dead in her home in December 2004, with her seven-year-old son discovering her body. Investigators initially considered suicide due to evidence found at the scene, but her family insisted it was murder. They believed Bart Corbin, her husband, was responsible.

Dolly Hearn, who dated Bart during dental school, was also found dead from a gunshot wound in 1990. Her family believed her death was a murder, not a suicide, and they fought for years to prove it. The similarities between the two cases prompted a re-examination of Dolly's death.

As evidence mounted against Bart Corbin, including phone records and the gun's ownership, he was arrested for both murders. In a surprising turn, he ultimately pleaded guilty to both charges, providing closure for both families.

The episode highlights the emotional toll on the families involved and the long fight for justice for Jennifer and Dolly.

TLDR

Dr. Barton Corbin pleads guilty to murdering his wife Jennifer and girlfriend Dolly, revealing a dark history of violence and deception.

Episode

38:49
00:00:00
It's the worst news you could ever possibly have to deliver to somebody. On a Saturday morning in an upscale Atlanta suburb, a young son saw something no child should ever see.
00:00:19
Oh, he's going to remember it forever. Where is he at now? Is he with you? Yes. Okay. All right.
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How old is he? Seven. He's seven? And what he saw would soon open the eyes of investigators to something they had missed for years.
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The deep, dark secret had been exposed. This is a tale of two tragedies of two young women who lived and died at different times and in different cities,
00:00:47
but left behind a mysterious trail of almost identical clues. Could solving one case lead to the truth in the other?
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For one family, the story began on December 4, 2004 Typical Saturday morning And the phone rang
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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
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She was 33-year-old Jennifer Corbin The wife of Dr. Barton Corbin A tall, handsome dentist who was 40
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They'd been married seven years and had two adorable sons, ages 7 and 5. On the surface, they led a storybook life,
00:01:32
a big, beautiful home filled with photos of a fun, loving family. He the picture of the adoring dad, she a devoted mom.
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Jennifer had been a free spirit when she was younger, but having children changed all that.
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She was born to be a mom, and when she became a mom, she did it 110%. She became Miss PTA.
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The SUV driving, baseball, totem, super mom. Her sister, Heather, marveled at Jennifer's ability to connect with people in ways that others could not.
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She was very easygoing, a great listener. She was an amazing listener. Jennifer connected so well with people of all ages, she was hired as a part-time preschool teacher at her church.
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Her family took Bart in as one of their own. We loved Bart Corbin. He came into the family very quickly.
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He did a lot of traveling with us, vacations. He spent most of his weekends with us.
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Bart was very bright and could be a lot of fun. Bart is a very funny person. He's got a very quick wit, and people, I think, are drawn to that.
00:02:39
If you crack on him, he has a crack that's five times better than yours immediately.
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He thinks very fast, and he's very funny. But now all that was a distant memory.
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Jennifer's family felt unimaginable grief because the way Jennifer died was almost as painful as the loss itself.
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Her older son was the one to find her body and run to a neighbor who called 911.
00:03:05
My girlfriend's dead. Okay, what do you mean by that? She's been shot. Her son just ran over and got me.
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He lives across the street from me. Okay, do you think that she can be helped? No.
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It's like somebody took the engine of a jet and put it on backwards and just sucked the air out of my lungs.
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Never in a million years did I ever think that I would have to live my life without my sister.
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Heather was the first relative to hear the news. Right away, she called her parents, Narda and Max Barber.
00:03:48
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.
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They wouldn't let me see my daughter. So he went to the neighbors to get Jennifer's sons.
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The older one, Dalton, was crying very hard. He'd been the one to find his mother first that morning.
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And he ran across the street in his underwear, and he's going to remember constantly hitting the doorbell.
00:04:15
Police found Jennifer's body in her bedroom. She was dressed in a nightgown, lying on her side.
00:04:21
Then there is a blood trail coming down from her nose directly down to the bed. Then District Attorney Charles Ross helped investigate the case,
00:04:30
along with Danny Porter, then prosecutor of Gwinnett County, just outside Atlanta.
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There is a gun that is tucked under the sheet with her hands basically above it.
00:04:41
There were divorce papers on the bed as well. Going through a troubled time in life.
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Right. What's the initial impression of this scene? Suicide. There was reason to believe
00:04:51
Jennifer Corbin might have killed herself. Her marriage that once seemed so perfect had soured,
00:04:57
and there was evidence she may have worried about losing her children in what was certain to be
00:05:02
a nasty divorce and custody fight. Still, when Dateline first spoke with Jennifer's family
00:05:08
shortly after she died in December 2004, they were adamant Jennifer would never have killed herself.
00:05:15
Is it possible that Jenny took her own life? Positively, no way. And I'll tell you, there are two reasons, Dalton and Dylan.
00:05:24
She lived for those kids. She certainly would not have committed suicide and let her children find her that way with a gun next to her.
00:05:34
Jennifer would never have abandoned those kids. No, you could not convince me of that in a million years.
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No way. I knew that she was dead and I knew that somebody did it. And it wasn't Jennifer.
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Did you think you knew who did it? In my heart, absolutely. That second that you found out?
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That second. Can you say who that person is? No No I don want to I let Gwinnett County do its job It turns out the Gwinnett County prosecutor wasted no time doing his job
00:06:05
He was about to take a journey into a troubled marriage and a dark past. jennifer corbin was found dead from a single gunshot to the head her family insisted this
00:06:28
was not suicide i think the biggest breakthrough came when i got a phone call just a few days after
00:06:36
the death, her mother received a stunning call that would ignite the investigation.
00:06:42
It is enormous. It is beyond belief. The caller said Bart Corbin had been involved in another
00:06:50
volatile relationship 14 years earlier with a fellow dental student named Dolly Hearn,
00:06:56
a beautiful, vivacious woman Jennifer's family never knew about. She lit up every room that she
00:07:03
entered with her smile. Dolly's brother Gil says his sister dated Bart during her third year of
00:07:09
dental school, which was 150 miles from Atlanta in Augusta, Georgia. At first, they seemed to get
00:07:15
along well. Then their relationship became strained. Near the end of their relationship,
00:07:21
things started going wrong. Dr. Travis Hampton was a friend and classmate of both Bart's and
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Dolly's. He says Bert became incredibly possessive of Dolly and when she broke up with him,
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strange things began to happen to her. Dolly filed police reports complaining that someone
00:07:40
had broken into her apartment, vandalized her car, and stolen a package from her mailbox.
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One day, a school project disappeared, and then her cat. At first she thought that she
00:07:51
was just unlucky, but after a while we realized that luck had nothing to do with it and she
00:07:57
was being targeted. Dolly was so convinced Bart was the culprit, she tried to secretly record a
00:08:04
conversation with him, hoping he'd confess. But Bart became suspicious. Is there any way
00:08:10
that you could give him back? I mean, are you sure? What do you want me to say? I mean,
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how do I know you haven't got a recorder on here or something? Dr. Hampton says Dolly confided in
00:08:22
him, telling him she feared what Bart might do. She actually wanted to stay at our house one night
00:08:27
because she didn't want to sleep at her house alone. But by the time summer break arrived, the harassment seemed to have stopped.
00:08:34
Dolly looked happy as she attended her brother's high school graduation. He was valedictorian, and she beamed as he gave his speech.
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I glanced at Dolly, and she just had the biggest smile that she was directing right at me.
00:08:48
Then, just a few days later, a terrible shock. My mom said, we lost our Dolly. My first response was natural in that, no, this can't have happened.
00:09:01
And that really is the worst thing that she could have told me. Dolly's roommate discovered her body in their apartment on the afternoon of June 6, 1990,
00:09:14
just as Bart was about to graduate from dental school. She died of a single gunshot to the head.
00:09:21
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 to the right side of the head.
00:09:30
To the investigators in Augusta, Georgia back in 1990, it looked like suicide. There were not crime scene technicians working the case as we do today.
00:09:40
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.
00:09:48
Is there any way your sister could have taken her own life? There's absolutely no thought in my mind or any of the family's mind that she would have done that.
00:09:59
Like Jennifer's family, the Hearns were adamant that Dolly had not taken her life.
00:10:05
Because of the troubles Bart and Dolly had in their relationship, authorities investigated the possibility of foul play in 1990 and interviewed Bart Corbin.
00:10:15
But they couldn't find conclusive evidence of either a homicide or suicide, and no one was charged.
00:10:22
The hardest part has been having no official closure, having a case that was just casually ruled suicide,
00:10:30
and having to see my parents make their best efforts to get law enforcement to cooperate, to see it through to the end.
00:10:39
Over the years, the Hearn family fought to prove Dolly didn't take her life, even hiring a private investigator.
00:10:47
But that didn't help them. Your family's own independent expert is saying this looks like it probably was a suicide.
00:10:53
Right. So that obviously made things more difficult because it did nothing to convince us that it was suicide.
00:11:02
Gil said his family was well aware that Dolly had been living in fear in the months before her death.
00:11:09
You're saying your sister was afraid? Yes, definitely. I would describe him as Jekyll and Hyde.
00:11:15
He was obviously bright. He could perform well academically. He could relate well to people. He could fool a lot of people.
00:11:27
Dolly's classmate says he wasn't fooled. He even told Dolly to take precautions.
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I suggested to her she might want to get a gun to protect herself, and her dad launder a gun.
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I know that her father had told her, you need to get away from him, you're going to wind up in a dumpster one day.
00:11:43
In fact, from the day Dolly died, her family was convinced she was murdered. I knew that Bart had killed her. There was never any doubt in my mind. There was never
00:11:54
any doubt in my parents mind But Dolly death remained a cold case for 14 years until Jennifer Corbin was found dead and investigators began to look at Dolly case in a whole new light What are the chances
00:12:08
that two women who were both involved in volatile relationships with Bart and Corbin would both
00:12:14
kill themselves in the exact same way? It certainly seemed very, very unlikely and as the investigation
00:12:19
unfolded, similarities were just staggering. It couldn't have been a coincidence.
00:12:25
The Dolly Hearn case was reopened in Augusta. The lead investigator there re-examined her death
00:12:31
with a new perspective and new crime scene technology. He takes the crime scene photographs
00:12:37
and blows them up and turns them over to his expert. The expert begins to look at the
00:12:43
blood spatter patterns and finds three significant findings that tell him the body was manipulated
00:12:52
after the wound was inflicted. As evidence against Dr. Corbin mounted, prosecutors tapped his phone.
00:12:59
One of the people calls and says, I heard they were reopening the Augusta case. And he said,
00:13:05
yeah, I don't know why they want to learn about that bitch in Augusta. I don't have any idea about
00:13:09
That's the way he referred to Dolly Hurt? That's the way he has always referred to her.
00:13:14
And not only is it offensive, but you start seeing another side of his personality through these unguarded conversations.
00:13:23
A side Dolly's parents had seen 14 years earlier. They always believed Bart Corbin had staged a suicide in their daughter's case.
00:13:33
Now they were convinced he'd struck again. And they felt a duty to support Jennifer's family.
00:13:38
to attend her funeral, to console her parents, who should never have suffered the same way they had.
00:13:46
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,
00:13:52
there hasn't been a day in 14 years that Bill doesn't talk about Dolly. And I shook Dr. Hearn's hand, and I just remember saying to him,
00:14:02
I'm sorry that we have to meet under these circumstances. Jennifer Corbin's family knew nothing about her husband Bart's girlfriend,
00:14:24
who died from a single gunshot back in 1990. But like the girlfriend's family, Jennifer's relatives immediately told police
00:14:32
that no matter how her death looked on December 4, 2004, this wasn't suicide, it was murder.
00:14:40
I said, have you arrested Bart Corbin? And his reply to me was, why? Since we first spoke with Jennifer's family,
00:14:48
they've become much more outspoken about what they think really happened that terrible day.
00:14:53
I knew that there was no one else that could have done it but Bart. I just could not understand
00:15:00
how they could possibly not realize what we knew. It's what even Jennifer's seven-year-old son Dalton assumed
00:15:09
right from the moment he found his mother's body and ran to the neighbor who called 911.
00:15:15
Was there anybody home last night? Was your dad home? Yeah, he was the one who killed my mom.
00:15:23
In reality, Dalton didn't see or hear the fatal shot, but he clearly remembered how his parents fought
00:15:29
and how at times his dad's temper would just explode. I don't know when. It was fighting for a long time.
00:15:35
It was a long time? Yeah, it's like the night for today and like yesterday and the day after that.
00:15:44
Yeah. They've been fighting a lot lately? Yeah. Jennifer's family became well aware of the hair-trigger temper Dolly Hearn's family had known years ago.
00:15:56
One minute he is happy-go-lucky, the next minute it is just like he goes into a rage.
00:16:02
According to Jennifer's family, Bart often lost his temper with the boys, calling them names like Idiot and Crybaby.
00:16:10
And after years of frustration, Jennifer finally had had enough. And she said, Mom, Mom, I do not love Bart.
00:16:21
I have loved him because he is the father of our children. But I am ready to leave and I'm ready to get on with my life.
00:16:33
The turning point came on Thanksgiving Day 2004 after a family dinner at Heather's house.
00:16:40
They say Bart didn't seem himself and suddenly wanted Jennifer and the boys to leave.
00:16:45
Bart was ready to go. Her sister, Rogelle, remembers that day well. She said, OK, Bart wants to go. It's time to go.
00:16:52
And she left. And it wasn't much longer that Dad got the phone call that Bart had slapped her, punched her, hurt her in the car.
00:17:05
And Dad told her to immediately come back. And where were the kids? The kids were in the vehicle with Jennifer and Bart.
00:17:12
The following Monday, Bart filed for divorce, asking for the house custody of the children and child support.
00:17:19
Two days later, Jennifer called 911, saying she caught Bart going through her purse and taking a journal she kept and her cell phone,
00:17:28
and that he took a shotgun from the house and drove off wearing only a towel. He only had a towel on? Yep.
00:17:36
Jennifer called me. It had just happened. She called me and she was crying. hysterically. Three days later, Jennifer was dead. Her family was overwhelmed by grief and
00:17:47
outrage by Barton Corbin's reaction or lack of one. I don't know if there's a guideline of how
00:17:53
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 Oh my God where Jennifer Oh my God what happened
00:18:12
There was not a peep. There was not a word. That's really what I focused on. But why didn't he come and get his kids?
00:18:21
He left them at the home that night before, and he never comes. He never shows up.
00:18:26
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.
00:18:35
That would be critical to the case. But a weapons check could only trace it to a gun dealer in Alabama way back in 1957, years before Bart was born.
00:18:46
The D.A. did know Bart had a friend in Troy, Alabama named Richard Wilson. So I dispatched investigators to Alabama for the first time on December the 15th of 2004 to talk to Richard Wilson in Troy, Alabama.
00:19:03
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.
00:19:13
Investigators also use Bart's cell phone records to map his movements on that fatal night.
00:19:19
Bart said he was at his brother's house around 2 a.m., Jennifer's estimated time of death.
00:19:25
But cell phone records put him right near the house where Jennifer died. That's the first critical piece of information that blows his alibi out of the water.
00:19:34
It puts him at the residence at about quarter of two in the morning till about five after two in the morning.
00:19:41
And that's the time of the murder. And investigators found the angle of the bullet wound and the trail of blood on Jennifer's face were not consistent with a suicide
00:19:51
So if this indeed was a suicide, how would Jennifer have held the gun? I'm not sure she could have
00:19:58
Because you take the bullet, the gunshot wound, later confirmed through autopsy, was within an inch of the skin
00:20:07
Then you had four inches for the barrel, you had another three inches for the grip
00:20:12
and my arms aren't long enough to get to where the gun has to be. Are her fingerprints on the gun?
00:20:18
No. There are no fingerprints on the gun. How do you explain that? Barton Corbin either wiped it down or has access to latex gloves.
00:20:26
I mean, he's a dentist. He washes his hands and puts on latex gloves 30 times a day.
00:20:32
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?
00:20:40
With that particular gun, it would be very difficult. According to authorities, the medical examiner found even more evidence that Jennifer could not have killed herself.
00:20:50
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.
00:20:59
The hand would have immediately dropped from the position had she committed suicide.
00:21:04
It is absolutely unlikely, literally impossible, that her hand could have come back to a resting point,
00:21:10
tucked under the sheets with the weapon as she was found. And there was one more thing that didn't look good for Barton Corbin.
00:21:18
We determined that Barton Corbin was involved in a long-term sexual relationship
00:21:23
that started before his marriage began, continued throughout his marriage, and in fact, continued on after Jennifer's death.
00:21:32
As Gwinnett County authorities investigated Jennifer's death, prosecutors down in Augusta indicted Bart Corbin in the murder of Dolly Hearn.
00:21:43
Police arrested him in a very dramatic and public fashion. Dolly's brother heard about it from his wife.
00:21:51
She said, Bart Corbin is on the ground on TV and he's being arrested. I'm watching it live.
00:21:57
That was one of the best moments of our lives since the day Dolly died. Two weeks after his arrest in Dolly's case, he was also charged with murdering his wife, Jennifer.
00:22:22
Barton Corbin had been indicted for murdering his girlfriend back in 1990 and his wife in 2004.
00:22:29
To mount his defense, he hired top legal talent who argued both deaths were in fact suicide and that Bart's connection was pure coincidence.
00:22:38
We've contacted some of the finest forensic people in the country and all of them say that the evidence is consistent with suicide.
00:22:47
High profile attorneys David Wolf and Bruce Harvey were confident they could successfully defend Dr. Corbin.
00:22:53
We're going into the courtroom in an attempt to demonstrate that nothing that the state can offer can overcome the presumption that Dr. Corbin didn't commit either of these offenses.
00:23:07
And as a result, he should be found not guilty. 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.
00:23:18
The family hired one of the premier medical examiners, forensic pathologists in the country and said that there is nothing inconsistent with suicide.
00:23:31
He said if you showed this information to 100 pathologists, they'd tell you the same thing.
00:23:39
In fact, the defense pointed out that if it were not for Jennifer's case, there would never have been an indictment in Dolly's.
00:23:45
They couldn't prove a homicide. Still, the obvious connection between the two women,
00:23:50
Bart Corbin, could not be ignored. What are the chances of two women having volatile relationships with the same man
00:23:58
and then taking their own lives exact same way. We were talking about coincidences and the circumstances surrounding the two cases
00:24:06
aren't as similar as they're making them out to be. There's been much made about the fact that
00:24:13
Bart and Dolly were having difficulties at the time of her death and that's not true.
00:24:21
According to Bart's attorney, the harassment Dolly blamed on Bart occurred months before she died
00:24:26
and they'd actually reconciled their relationship. After that, they had in fact gotten back together
00:24:32
and Dolly Hearn had asked several people not to let her family know that she was dating him again.
00:24:38
But what about Bart's relationship with his wife Jennifer? The defense says it was never violent
00:24:44
and the alleged punch during an argument on Thanksgiving Day was really just an unintentional slap.
00:24:50
And she was trying to push his hand away and her hand slipped off and it hit her in the face.
00:24:55
And Bart's lawyer also had an explanation for the fact Jennifer's fingerprints were not found on the gun.
00:25:01
Whenever I try a criminal case and we ask the officers on the stand, did you fingerprint the gun?
00:25:08
The inevitable response is how difficult it is to raise fingerprints from a firearm.
00:25:17
Why no gunpowder on Jennifer's hands? With regard to gunshot residue, it is incredibly unreliable.
00:25:24
particularly where there is a thick tuft of hair. As for the bullet angle the prosecution argued would be nearly impossible in a suicide,
00:25:34
the defense said it was possible and in fact found another case involving a self-inflicted wound that was nearly identical.
00:25:43
And while the prosecution argued cell phone records placed Bart near his home around 2 a.m. when Jennifer died,
00:25:50
The defense said those records don't prove anything because no one really knows the exact time of death.
00:25:57
They don't know when Jennifer Corbin died. And that was an interesting aspect of our case.
00:26:05
In fact, the defense says the temperature of Jennifer's body when the medical examiner arrived
00:26:10
indicated she may have died later than 2 a.m., perhaps as late as 6 or 7 in the morning.
00:26:17
When both sides agree, Barth clearly was not near his home. And as a result of that, it couldn't have been him.
00:26:24
And the defense argued the strongest indicator of suicide was the turmoil in Jennifer's life at the time she died.
00:26:32
You ask anybody, what does a divorce do to people emotionally? It's heart-wrenching. It's gut-wrenching.
00:26:39
It's one of the things that drive people to take their lives or attempt to take their lives.
00:26:46
Under the defense theory, Jennifer feared losing her boys in a custody battle, and with good reason.
00:26:54
Her divorce proceedings would have exposed a secret online relationship, revealed by a trail of hundreds of emails, some of them explicit.
00:27:03
The relationship turned graphic, and romantically graphic. And there was something else.
00:27:12
She learned that the gentleman she thought she was communicating with was in fact a woman.
00:27:19
And upon learning that information, elected to continue the relationship. Suffice it to say that it seemed pretty likely that Dr. Corbin would win custody of the boys.
00:27:35
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
00:27:47
A second call was made right back to the 911 person where Ms. Corbin emphasized the importance of finding him
00:27:58
and getting her stuff back because she was concerned and specifically said he's going to use it against me.
00:28:04
911? Yeah, hi, I'm sorry. This is Jennifer Corbin. I called there a few minutes ago about my husband taking off some of my possessions.
00:28:11
And he's probably going to take them and use them as evidence against me because we're in the process of going through a divorce.
00:28:18
What's more, the prosecutor had not directly tied Bar Corbin to the gun used in his wife's death,
00:28:25
a major weakness in the case against him. All of this, the defense contended, added up to reasonable doubt for a jury.
00:28:32
As the trial approached, Jennifer's family braced for the possibility her reputation will be tarnished in the courtroom.
00:28:41
But they said they weren't concerned about the emails. She was exceptionally lonely. She just wanted somebody.
00:28:50
And she had had a marriage that was void for years. He was having an affair. She just was dying for some companionship. And she found someone that listened to her.
00:29:00
and somehow it gave her comfort. Nearly two years after Jennifer's death, her husband, Dr. Barton Corbin, was finally going to trial.
00:29:22
His high-profile attorneys at his side. We're very confident that there can be a reasonable doubt.
00:29:30
His defense team had a reputation for finding inconsistencies and attacking weak evidence.
00:29:36
They are meticulous. They are always well prepared. They are lawyers who will fight you at every turn.
00:29:43
Those are two of the best lawyers I know. Then, Gwinnett County District Attorney Danny Porter had the complete confidence of Jennifer's family.
00:29:51
But he knew he had at least one weakness in his case. He hadn't tied the gun to Bart Corbin.
00:29:57
I knew that the gun was going to be a critical piece of evidence. Remember, the gun had been traced to a gun dealer in Alabama.
00:30:04
The prosecution knew Bart had a friend in Troy, Alabama, named Richard Wilson, and suspected Wilson gave Bart the gun, but Wilson wouldn't talk.
00:30:13
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 Corbin was in Troy, Alabama on November the 30th of 2004 and had spoken to Richard Wilson.
00:30:32
November 30th was just one day after Bart filed for divorce and five days before Jennifer was shot.
00:30:39
Strong circumstantial evidence, but not enough to put the gun in Bart's hand. So a few weeks before trial, investigators ran an advanced computer search of the gun's serial number.
00:30:51
And finally, a break. The search showed that in 2002, the gun was run by the Troy, Alabama Police Department.
00:31:00
Troy, Alabama, the town where Wilson lived and Bart had visited. The prosecution was close, but still no smoking gun in Bart Corbin's hand.
00:31:09
And by now it was September 11th, the day jury selection began. Then on day two as the prosecutor questioned potential jurors he noticed his investigator was trying to grab his attention 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
00:31:33
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.
00:31:40
Can I be excused? And I walked out. His investigator told him the police chief in Troy, Alabama,
00:31:46
had just questioned Richard Wilson about the gun. He says you're going to have to tell the truth.
00:31:52
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.
00:31:58
He said that he thought his wife was fooling around on him. He thought he needed a gun to protect himself.
00:32:05
And he asked me if I had one. And I had gotten one a while back, traded it for a used lawnmower.
00:32:13
So he came down here and got it. You've now tied that gun to Barcourt. We've put it directly in his hands on November the 30th, 2004.
00:32:22
How big is that? It's a bombshell in the case. And I went up and told the defense attorneys.
00:32:27
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.
00:32:35
It was pretty devastating coming as late as it did. It sort of dispels all of the scientific, consistent with suicide and homicide stuff.
00:32:48
Jennifer's mother was in the courtroom and could tell something happened, but Prosecutor Danny Porter wouldn't say a word.
00:32:54
Danny's standing in the hall and I said, what's going on? And he said, I can't talk about it. I can't tell you anything.
00:33:01
I said, is it good news? And he said, yes. The DA thought his case was now a slam dunk, a conviction all but certain.
00:33:09
So he approached Barton Corbin's attorneys. And I said at that point, now is the time.
00:33:14
The best deal you're going to get is a plea to murder and life in prison. You either take it today or we start moving towards it today or we're going to continue with the trial.
00:33:25
Then the DA conferred with the Hearn family and the prosecutor in Dolly's case. If convicted, Bart Corbin faced the possibility of the death penalty in her case
00:33:35
If he pleaded guilty to both murders then and there, he would get life, not death
00:33:41
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
00:33:47
Dr. Barton Corbin had a decision to make and his next move would catch a courtroom by surprise
00:34:00
On Friday, September 15, 2006, Dr. Barton Corbin faced a judge and two families.
00:34:17
Jennifer Corbin's relatives had waited almost two years for this moment. Dolly Hearns had waited 16.
00:34:24
Prosecutors had just linked the gun in Jennifer's death directly to Dr. Corbin. 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.
00:34:37
I kept saying to myself, what an SOB. He knows that he is guilty. He knows that we have the proof.
00:34:48
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.
00:34:57
And then the moment arrived. 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
00:35:09
will? No. Did you in fact commit the offense of malice murder to which you are now pleading guilty
00:35:14
as it is outlined in the indictment? Yes. Whose decision was it to plead guilty?
00:35:19
Dr. Corbin's. The right decision? He made the decision for many reasons. The most important one being not to have to have his children relive all of these things.
00:35:35
Anything else from the state? And with that admission of guilt in both murders, the cases were closed.
00:35:41
For Dolly's brother Gil, it was words he thought he'd never hear. It just brought an amazing sense of relief and closure for me,
00:35:52
and I'm sure for the rest of my family. and my parents especially. For Jennifer's family, who had taken Bart into their family as a beloved
00:36:02
member, that guilty plea meant much more than a guilty verdict would have. I didn't want to hear
00:36:08
a jury telling me he's guilty. I wanted to hear him say that he killed Jenny. Why is that so
00:36:14
important? I didn't want somebody else telling me that Bart Corbin killed my daughter. It had to
00:36:20
come from him. And it did. When he said, yes, that I did kill Jenny Corbin, I actually breathed a sigh
00:36:32
of relief. Then Jennifer's father delivered a message to his son-in-law. He stood up and made
00:36:38
a statement in court. The broken hearts of the Barber family, the Herden family, and the Corbin
00:36:47
family. Can't be measured. The hearts are going to mend. I can't speak about your heart. What's going to happen
00:36:59
to you? God might forgive you. I never will. I speak for my family when I say I just virtually
00:37:09
hope you burn in hell. I wanted to make sure he understood that I hated him. I wanted
00:37:15
to make sure he understood that I would never forgive him for that. Dolly's brother, Carlton Jr., also spoke.
00:37:24
Mark Corbin has disgraced his profession, and he has stolen from mankind. He deserves no place in society.
00:37:35
16 years of silence. 16 years of pain. Did you see any remorse? If there's any remorse in Mark Corbin right now,
00:37:46
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.
00:37:53
Not only were their lives snuffed out, but they were humiliated, for a lack of a better term.
00:37:59
They were labeled as suicides, and that's just not the way a person should be remembered.
00:38:06
I want Dolly to be remembered as a fun-loving, compassionate, encouraging person.
00:38:13
Her smile would make you forget about your troubles. As for Jennifer's family, they say her children are daily reminders of who she was and what she left behind.
00:38:27
I see their faces, and I see Jen. And I know that Jen is with me. I feel that Jen is with me every day.
00:38:43
you

Badges

This episode stands out for the following:

  • 90
    Most shocking
  • 90
    Most surprising
  • 90
    Biggest twist
  • 85
    Most heartbreaking

Episode Highlights

  • A Tale of Two Tragedies
    The story of two young women connected by a dark past and mysterious clues.
    “Could solving one case lead to the truth in the other?”
    @ 00m 53s
    September 20, 2023
  • The Grief of a Family
    Jennifer's family faces unimaginable grief after her tragic death.
    “Jennifer's family felt unimaginable grief because the way Jennifer died was almost as painful as the loss itself.”
    @ 02m 50s
    September 20, 2023
  • The Unraveling of Bart Corbin
    Investigators uncover Bart Corbin's dark past and connections to both women's deaths.
    “Bart Corbin was involved in a long-term sexual relationship that started before his marriage began.”
    @ 21m 23s
    September 20, 2023
  • The Defense's Argument
    The defense claims Jennifer's turmoil led to suicide, not murder. 'You ask anybody, what does a divorce do to people emotionally?'
    “You ask anybody, what does a divorce do to people emotionally?”
    @ 26m 32s
    September 20, 2023
  • A Shocking Admission
    Dr. Barton Corbin pleads guilty to two murders, shocking the courtroom. 'He made the decision for many reasons.'
    “He made the decision for many reasons.”
    @ 35m 21s
    September 20, 2023

Episode Quotes

  • Oh, he's going to remember it forever.
    Death & the Dentist
  • I knew that she was dead and I knew that somebody did it.
    Death & the Dentist
  • I just could not understand how they could possibly not realize what we knew.
    Death & the Dentist
  • It's heart-wrenching. It's gut-wrenching.
    Death & the Dentist
  • I wanted to hear him say that he killed Jenny.
    Death & the Dentist
  • I just virtually hope you burn in hell.
    Death & the Dentist

Key Moments

  • Child's Discovery00:11
  • Mysterious Clues00:53
  • Family Grief02:50
  • Dark Past06:10
  • Emotional Turmoil26:32
  • Guilty Plea35:21
  • Courtroom Tension36:38

Tension Over Time

Words per Minute Over Time

Vibes Breakdown