00:00:05
Buford, Georgia, 2004. While this town east of Atlanta
is lighting up for Christmas--
00:00:11
[gunshot] --a young boy goes
to wake up his mom and makes a tragic discovery. [ominous music]
00:00:20
There was a single
gunshot wound to the head. There was a revolver present. There were some things
that did suggest
00:00:27
it could have been a suicide. NANCY GRACE: But circumstances
are not always what they seem.
00:00:32
CAROL TERRY: The
entrance wound was kind of unusual, but not impossible. NANCY GRACE: Another death
from 14 years earlier
00:00:38
is eerily similar. There was just that feeling. You know, it's like,
this is too coincidental.
00:00:48
NANCY GRACE: What kind
of killer can evade police and hide in plain sight? You're possessive.
00:00:55
You're jealous. You're a nut job. The problem was, what
do you do to prove it? A big part of the
South is we don't
00:01:04
want people to know about
the dark side of our lives. [theme music] [mysterious holiday music]
00:01:38
Hello, I'm Nancy Grace. This is "The
Christmas Killings." In Buford, Georgia,
the late fall
00:01:44
is a time to start
celebrating the spirit of the holiday season. That means putting families
and children first.
00:01:52
["god rest ye merry gentlemen"] JOE WEBER: We are
in the Bible Belt. So we do a candlelight
vigil on Christmas
00:02:00
Eve, which is beautiful. Families get together-- friends. There's Christmas parties.
00:02:04
The neighborhoods go crazy
with all the Christmas lights and the decorations. NANCY GRACE: The
season is especially
00:02:12
difficult for families in the
midst of parents breaking up. Just before Thanksgiving
2004, Bart and Jennifer Corbin
00:02:20
put their differences aside to
spend one last holiday season with their seven-year-old
and five-year-old sons.
00:02:28
[ominous music] Jennifer knew that
the Christmas holiday was quickly approaching.
00:02:33
With two young children, there
is nothing like the magic of Christmas, so I could just
believe that Jennifer wanted
00:02:40
to give those two little
boys some sense of normalcy and a together family
through the holidays.
00:02:48
NANCY GRACE: But Christmas
this year won't be coming for the Corbin family. On the morning of December 4,
their seven-year-old little boy
00:02:55
tries to wake up Mommy and
makes a heartbreaking discovery. The boy runs to the
neighbor's house for help.
00:03:04
CAMERON JAY: The
neighbors then go to the house across the
street, enter her bedroom,
00:03:09
and they notice that several
things are terribly wrong. Jennifer is cold to the touch.
00:03:15
She has a wound to her head,
blood dripping from her nose, a revolver laying next
to her, and an empty wine
00:03:24
bottle on the nightstand. And that ultimately leads
to them dialing 911. [siren wailing]
00:03:42
MARCUS HEAD: I
responded to the scene. It was about 30 minutes
away from where I lived.
00:03:47
[siren wailing] After I got there,
I noticed that there was the typical police
presence with a lot of cars,
00:03:54
crime scene tape,
and bystanders, onlookers from the neighborhood. EDWARD RESTREPO: When
we arrived at the scene,
00:04:01
I remember it obviously
being Christmas. There was a lot of Christmas
decorations in the house.
00:04:06
They had the trees up. There was gifts. There was wrapping paper. [suspenseful music]
00:04:15
NANCY GRACE: When detectives
Marcus Head and Edward Restrepo are briefed by first
responders, they're told
00:04:20
the deceased is 33-year-old
Jennifer Corbin, the wife of a local dentist. Her body is in the
master bedroom.
00:04:30
MARCUS HEAD: She was
in bed, on her back. The comforter was partially
covering her body,
00:04:36
about up to her waist. There was a Chrome
revolver present. It was down around her
hips, but yet slightly
00:04:42
beneath the comforter. And her clothes were a
little bit displaced, as though she had been moved.
00:04:48
There was a single
gunshot wound to the head. And there was a
stack of papers that
00:04:56
were tri-folded underneath
one of her shoulders. And I could see that it had
a court clerk stamp on it,
00:05:03
and that it was
a divorce filing. The divorce papers
said that it could have been the thing that put
her in that state of despair.
00:05:13
So we didn't know for sure. But there were some
things that did suggest it could have been a suicide.
00:05:20
But some things didn't
look exactly right. They were unusual. A bullet wound being
in her head, and then
00:05:26
the gun being down in
the area of her hips-- that just was unusual
to me because it was
00:05:32
not consistent with gravity. And so we didn't know for sure. We were looking for
any and all evidence
00:05:39
to see the circumstances of
Jennifer Corbin taking her life, whether it was indeed a
suicide or if it was something
00:05:47
other than that, more heinous. MARCUS HEAD: There were no
apparent signs of forced entry.
00:05:52
The house was not ransacked. It didn't look like,
for the most part, that it was disturbed.
00:05:57
And because the gun
was still at the scene, it suggested that
it was probably not
00:06:01
a stranger on stranger crime. EDWARD RESTREPO: We
felt pretty confident that it was not a robbery or a
burglary or anything like that.
00:06:08
The gun is basically the
key piece of evidence to put this thing together. MARCUS HEAD: I submitted a gun
trace or a gun origin request
00:06:21
to the US ATF for the
38 caliber revolver that was found with
Jennifer Corbin's body.
00:06:29
NANCY GRACE: Detectives then
speak to Kelly and Steve Como, the neighbors who called 911.
00:06:36
MARCUS HEAD: The important
thing was find out who was in the home at the time. And all we knew so far was
that it was her two sons.
00:06:44
The neighbors told me that
it was Bart and Jennifer Corbin's house, and their two
children lived there with them.
00:06:50
I was trying to get in
touch with Bart Corbin. And one of the neighbors
provided me with a phone number
00:06:56
for him or his brother. And so I contacted that
number, and I was talking to Bart Corbin's brother.
00:07:03
And he said that his
brother was upset, but he was not ready
to come to the house
00:07:09
where Jennifer was yet. It's possible that
he could be that distraught, that he can't talk,
that he can't communicate.
00:07:16
Bart Corbin's brother,
Bobby, says he's with Bart the previous evening. EDWARD RESTREPO: They
were at a restaurant
00:07:26
getting wings and beer. And then after they
had finished there, he went back to his
brother, Bobby's, house
00:07:32
and stayed there
throughout that night. MARCUS HEAD: Bart's
brother's house was about 30 minutes
from Bart and Jennifer's
00:07:38
home in the neighboring county. We learned that they were
having trouble in the marriage.
00:07:43
There had been arguments and
that Jennifer was making plans to move away from,
or get away from,
00:07:50
or separate from Bart Corbin. NANCY GRACE: Bart
and Jennifer Corbin decide to wait until
after the holidays
00:07:56
to make their breakup official. MARCUS HEAD: We
learned that Jennifer really relished and embraced
the role of being a mother.
00:08:03
She just really doted
over her children. She volunteered at a preschool,
a daycare type place.
00:08:10
She was a very caring
person, and a fun person to be around also. NANCY GRACE: Jennifer
Corbin meets her husband,
00:08:16
Bart, nine years earlier. So, 1995, a 24-year-old
Jennifer is working as a waitress in an oyster bar.
00:08:25
She meets this tall,
dark-haired young man by the name of Bart Corbin. Bart is very focused on career
and making a name for himself
00:08:35
in the world of dentistry. NANCY GRACE: Bart is also taken
with the carefree waitress,
00:08:40
and the two begin dating. Not long after, Bart and
Jennifer take a trip to Italy.
00:08:46
They come home and, just
a few short months later, learn that Jen is
expecting a child.
00:08:52
And so not long after
that, the couple decide to get married in 1996. Jennifer Corbin thrives
as a stay-at-home mom,
00:09:00
but husband Bart struggles
to find success as a dentist. [grim music] CAMERON JAY: He does
not have bedside manner,
00:09:10
which is extremely important
when dealing with patients. And he also messes
up on a procedure
00:09:15
with one of his patients
that leads to a complaint being filed against him. He takes out a second
mortgage on the couple's home.
00:09:23
We know that he transfers
assets to Jennifer's name to shield them from creditors.
00:09:29
The financial struggles
that the Corbins were facing were a direct result of Bart's
inability to effectively
00:09:36
run and manage a practice. NANCY GRACE: Their
arguments over money snowball into other problems
for the married couple.
00:09:44
The two stop having intimate
relations with one another, and she starts sleeping
in a separate room.
00:09:53
NANCY GRACE: Bart sometimes
stays at his brother Bobby's, as he did the
night of the murder.
00:09:58
That leaves his
seven-year-old son to discover his mother's dead body. [tense music]
00:10:07
[dramatic music] So I remember, at
some point, we actually listened to the 911 call.
00:10:16
[dramatic music] [dramatic music] [holiday music] The days leading
up to Christmas
00:10:40
are magical for young children. Jennifer Corbin adores her
boys and wants them to have
00:10:46
a wonderful holiday season. But just before Christmas 2004-- [ominous music] --their son, aged 7, makes
a heartbreaking 911 call.
00:11:07
EDWARD RESTREPO:
At that point, we felt that, you know-- to get a
formal statement from a child.
00:11:12
And it's typically members
of the Special Victims Unit that dealt with, you
know, crimes and things
00:11:16
of that nature. And so they're brought in. When other children are
thinking about Santa Claus
00:11:21
and what they may
get for Christmas. A little seven-year-old boy is
thinking about who killed Mommy?
00:11:30
EDWARD RESTREPO:
What we learned was he didn't see Barton
shoot Jennifer. But because of previous
arguments he had observed,
00:11:36
he just assumed that
Daddy had harmed Mommy. That's why I think
he said at that.
00:11:41
And then, obviously,
he saw a gun, so he automatically assumed
that she had been shot.
00:11:46
[somber music] MARCUS HEAD: I don't know
if one of the neighbors screamed that in the
excitement or the confusion
00:11:54
of discovering Jennifer's
body during the 911 call. The information is not hermetic,
because even though it's
00:12:00
a short period of time,
it's still a period of time where those two boys
are around adults who
00:12:05
are already forming
opinions about what has happened to Jennifer Corbin. NANCY GRACE: Jennifer's family,
the Barbers, rushed to the scene
00:12:13
to take care of the boys. They tell detectives
about the family Thanksgiving just days earlier.
00:12:20
That's when tensions between
Bart and Jennifer explode. Jennifer's family
told me about Bart's
00:12:30
demeanor and Bart's interaction
on the most recent Thanksgiving. They said that he seemed
to be mad about something,
00:12:38
that he just was hardly
speaking to anybody and just had a-- just an
underlying seething intensity
00:12:45
about him all day long. Once Thanksgiving lunch
is over, the two leave. And as Jennifer is driving,
Bart goes into a fit of rage.
00:13:00
And for the first time,
he strikes Jennifer in the face in front of her two
children while she is driving.
00:13:09
[tense music] Jennifer Corbin escapes
to her sister's that night. Against her family's pleas,
Jennifer returns to the family
00:13:23
home the following day. NANCY GRACE: Four days
later, November 29, Bart files for divorce.
00:13:40
Two days later, on December 1,
the situation gets even worse. CAMERON JAY: The Christmas
holiday was quickly approaching,
00:13:49
and we continue to
see Bart's aggression with Jennifer escalate. There is one morning where
Bart is in the shower.
00:13:56
She discovers that he has
gone through her purse and taken some things. It was like a cell
phone, some notes,
00:14:02
and things of that nature. [ominous music] CAMERON JAY: She confronts him. He runs out of the house wearing
only a towel, jumps in his car.
00:14:19
[car door slams] [engine starts] NANCY GRACE: Jennifer
tries to stop him, and Bart almost
drives over her foot.
00:14:33
[tires squealing] She calls 911 for help. [sirens wailing] EDWARD RESTREPO: With
the police responding,
00:14:58
she decided not to press
charges because I think she was concerned
that that would
00:15:04
cause problems in separation
or divorce type things. So she just let it lie. She didn't break any bones.
00:15:10
And so based on her not
getting seriously injured, she decided not to prosecute.
00:15:15
[mysterious music] CAMERON JAY: After Bart becomes
physical at Thanksgiving and after he files
for divorce, Jennifer
00:15:24
does not choose to leave. She decides that she is going
to press onward and forward
00:15:29
through the holidays and
decide what the next step is after Christmas has passed.
00:15:36
I ultimately believe
that Jennifer stayed and that she was
still in that home because she wanted,
with all of her soul,
00:15:44
to give her two little
boys a normal Christmas with both of their parents. NANCY GRACE: Christmas
just a few weeks away,
00:15:55
Jennifer's family
worried about her safety. By December 3, there's
a lot of growing concern
00:16:02
among Jennifer Corbin's
family and friends about not only the
state of their marriage,
00:16:07
but about Bart's increasing
abusive behavior toward her. NANCY GRACE:
Detectives interviewed
00:16:15
neighbors and family. When they called Bart Corbin's
brother, Bobby, again, Bobby says Bart's deeply
upset because he's heard
00:16:23
others are accusing
him of murder. This is late evening
now, the same day that she was discovered.
00:16:29
He has still not
given me a statement. He has not given me any
timeline or any information
00:16:34
that would characterize
Jennifer Corbin's state of mind. So I had a search warrant to
seize Bart Corbin physically
00:16:41
and perform a gunshot
residue test on his hands. Bart Corbin had now an
attorney representing him.
00:16:49
And so the attorney,
through some discussion with our prosecutor's
office, brought Mark
00:16:54
Corbin to police headquarters. And we swabbed his
hands and conducted the gunshot residue test.
00:17:00
During that time,
Mark Corbin did not and would not make a statement. He had nothing to say to us.
00:17:05
Both him and his attorney
made that very clear. The results of the gunshot
residue test on Bart Corbin
00:17:17
were negative, so the
results alone did not suggest that he had fired a gun. However, we had to
keep in mind now
00:17:24
that we are hours since
death for Jennifer Corbin. So there's a lot of
time that's gone by.
00:17:31
NANCY GRACE: Detective Marcus
Head looks at the results from the gun trace. EDWARD RESTREPO: That return
came back pretty quickly.
00:17:38
And the last record the ATF had
for that firearm that was found with Jennifer Corbin's
body was that it was sold
00:17:45
by a hardware store type
of retailer in Birmingham, Alabama, in the '50s. After that, there
were no other records.
00:17:55
NANCY GRACE: Police have
a lot of questions now. How did Jennifer
Corbin have that gun?
00:18:01
Is Jennifer so upset by the
collapse of her marriage, she uses that gun to
take her own life?
00:18:08
Detectives hope the
medical examiner's report will have answers. My investigator
called me and said,
00:18:14
I've got what looks like a
suicide of this young woman. She has a gunshot
wound to the head.
00:18:19
And her family is
saying, there's no way that this is self-inflicted. Looking at the gunshot
wound that Ms. Corbin had,
00:18:27
there were some things
that were a little unusual. The location of the
wound was a little
00:18:31
above and behind her right ear. It was roughly here, on my head. And then the bullet was
underneath the skin,
00:18:38
right about here. The first moment
was when I received the pictures from the scene.
00:18:45
What I had initially been
told by my investigator was it looked like she had
shot herself in the head
00:18:50
and then fallen over
on her left side, and that that accounted for
her position in the bed.
00:18:55
She was a little
diagonal in the bed. But when I looked
at the photographs, I noticed that blood
came out of her nostrils
00:19:03
and went straight down in
accordance with gravity. So she was in that
position on the bed
00:19:08
at the time she received that
gunshot wound of the head, no doubt. The gun was tucked in the
comforter down around her waist.
00:19:17
Given the wound
path, there is no way to explain how that gun
wound up down at her waist,
00:19:22
tucked in the comforter. Because at the time
she received that wound cutting across the
brain stem, she should
00:19:28
have just dropped the gun. The physical evidence was
just so compelling that this
00:19:34
was not self-inflicted. And once you're able to exclude
it being self-inflicted,
00:19:41
you're left with homicide. [ominous music] [soft music] Back to "The
Christmas Killings."
00:19:51
Buford, Georgia, Christmas
2004 just around the corner. The probe into
Jennifer Corbin's death
00:19:58
is now a homicide investigation. Her husband,
dentist Bart Corbin, is raising suspicions
by refusing
00:20:06
to cooperate with police. He's now their only
POI, person of interest. Then investigators
get new information
00:20:14
and another potential suspect. EDWARD RESTREPO: So
one of the things that we normally do
is look at, you know,
00:20:21
computers, data, phones,
all these different things because a lot of our lives
are on those devices.
00:20:26
And so what we found was
correspondences back and forth, emails. In September of 2004, we
know that Jennifer starts
00:20:34
to play a game called EverQuest,
which is a fantasy online game. In that game, she meets an
individual by the name of Chris,
00:20:42
and they begin chatting. NANCY GRACE: The
chats between Jennifer and the man named Chris
become more serious.
00:20:48
CAMERON JAY: She saw that
there was hope for something different than this terrible
marriage that she found herself
00:20:54
in, so much so that the two
discussed what life after Bart will look like. They discuss Jennifer
moving to be with Chris.
00:21:03
NANCY GRACE: Then Jennifer
learns she's being catfished. [dramatic music] Chris is actually a
woman by the name of Anita,
00:21:14
who lives in Missouri. Suddenly police have a
second person of interest. Does girlfriend Anita, a.k.a.
00:21:23
Chris, have an alibi for the
night of Jennifer's murder? So through IP addresses,
through phones and things
00:21:31
of that nature, we
were able to figure out that Anita was in Missouri. However, despite that, you
know, you can get on a plane.
00:21:38
You can be somewhere in a
totally different time zone in a matter of hours. So that being said, contact
was made with Anita.
00:21:45
NANCY GRACE: Police
wonder if the catfish episode causes bad feelings
that end in murder.
00:21:51
EDWARD RESTREPO:
Initially, Jennifer, when Chris revealed to her
that she was not a male
00:21:55
and was actually a
female, she was upset. But then she changed and
said, it doesn't matter.
00:22:00
I love you, or I care for you. NANCY GRACE: Anita also
says she's got an alibi. When we looked at it,
yeah, she was obviously back
00:22:08
in Missouri and wasn't here. And her whereabouts checked out. NANCY GRACE: Anita's
alibi is rock solid,
00:22:16
and police are
back to square one. Then, December 6, two days after
the death of Jennifer Corbin,
00:22:24
detectives get a tip
from out of the blue. [suspenseful music] I received a phone
call from a resident who
00:22:30
lived in middle Georgia, and she
informed me that her daughter attended dental school at the
Medical College of Georgia
00:22:38
at the same time as Bart Corbin. She tells me that Bart Corbin
had a girlfriend at the time,
00:22:44
and that that girlfriend had
been discovered dead and found in a similar way
as Jennifer Corbin,
00:22:51
meaning with a gunshot
wound to the head and what someone wanted
to appear as a suicide.
00:22:57
So at the end of
this phone call, I realized he may
have done it before. [dramatic music]
00:23:03
My next steps now would be to
contact the Richmond County Sheriff's Office and
find out some details
00:23:09
about Dolly Hearn's death. That became a process
in itself because Dolly Hearn's death was in 1990.
00:23:17
So I'm calling a sheriff's
department, asking for somebody there who may remember
something or be
00:23:23
able to find a record of an
incident or a suspicious death that occurred 14 years ago.
00:23:28
Also, I had learned
which funeral home handled Dolly Hearn's burial. So the funeral director
was able to provide me
00:23:36
the lead investigator's name. So I called back to the
Richmond County Sheriff's Office
00:23:41
and asked for that detective
and learned that he was retired. But they said his son works here
now, and he is an investigator.
00:23:49
Scott Peebles called me back and
said, my dad remembered that. And he told me that
his father always
00:23:54
had doubts about how
Dolly Hearn died, that he had suspicions
that it was not a suicide.
00:24:00
And he assured me that
he would find the records and look into it. NANCY GRACE: Dolly Hearn,
the victim in the older case,
00:24:09
is bright and beautiful. In 1990, she's about to join her
dad in his dentistry practice.
00:24:17
One of Dolly's good friends
at the time is Joe Weber. [soft music] I moved to Augusta
in August of 1987,
00:24:28
and that's when I met Dolly. The first class I walked
into, dead center, front row,
00:24:33
was this strikingly beautiful
woman with the biggest smile. And it was like,
hey, how are you?
00:24:39
My name is Dolly. And it was instant friendship. When I first met Bart
in dental school,
00:24:45
he was one class above us, so
they had a different schedule. He seemed not as friendly.
00:24:50
He was more serious
about things, subdued. So in 1989, Dolly and
Bart begin a relationship.
00:25:00
And as is often the case
with college relationships, it was truly an up
and down romance.
00:25:06
There was a point where,
with Dolly and Bart, there are some issues. You know, he can be jealous.
00:25:11
He can be overbearing. He can be very controlling. This relationship was
really weighing on her.
00:25:17
When it was finally said
and done, it was over. I remember Bart, senior
year, he did propose,
00:25:23
and Dolly, she declined. NANCY GRACE: Their final
breakup occurs October 1989. Almost immediately, Dolly Hearn
becomes the target of a series
00:25:35
of mean-spirited pranks. JOE WEBER: Things
started to happen. Dolly had her car vandalized.
00:25:42
There was keying on the door. The tires were punctured. Another time,
there was hairspray
00:25:48
in her contact lens solution. And I remember sitting in class,
turned around-- poor thing,
00:25:54
her eyes were bloodshot. You know, at that point,
we're kind of going, there's something going on.
00:25:59
NANCY GRACE: It's not only
Dolly Hearn who's harassed. So in November of 1989,
Dolly and her roommate
00:26:06
come home to find her beloved
cat, Tabitha, is missing. They find that the sliding
glass door is off track,
00:26:14
and they immediately
call the police. JOE WEBER: I realize-- and a bunch of us did--
it had to be Bart.
00:26:20
The problem was, what
do you do to prove it? CAMERON JAY: Dolly is
able to finally get
00:26:26
Bart to admit that he
is who took her cat and dropped it off miles
away from her home.
00:26:32
So Dolly goes out, and
she goes door to door and miraculously finds her
missing cat, which has been
00:26:40
gone out there for two weeks. [pounding] Finally, in February of 1990,
Dolly awakes at 4:00 AM to find
00:26:52
Bart beating on her door. She then calls the police. They come over and not
only tell him to stop,
00:26:58
but let him know that
if he doesn't, there will be consequences,
and he might face arrest.
00:27:03
NANCY GRACE: Bart Corbin seems
to take the warning seriously and seemingly fades
from Dolly Hearn's life.
00:27:12
But he hasn't forgotten. CAMERON JAY: So a few months
after the harassment from Bart
00:27:19
stops, we might assume that
Dolly's life returns to normal and that she's able to, again,
focus on becoming a dentist.
00:27:26
NANCY GRACE: Tragically,
that's not the case. Dolly Hearn's roommate
comes home June 6, 1990.
00:27:33
[dramatic music] CAMERON JAY: Dolly's roommate
comes into the living room and finds Dolly slouched
over on the couch.
00:27:46
She has a gun in her
lap and a single gunshot wound to the head. JOE WEBER: My mom
called and said,
00:28:04
your friend Dolly
has killed herself. I'm like, no, she hasn't. I know who did it.
00:28:09
And it wasn't Dolly. I knew Bart had done it. Just broke my heart
because I knew--
00:28:20
I knew what had happened. In my heart, I knew
what had happened. And there's that one little
glimpse where you're like, well,
00:28:26
did he drive her to suicide? And that lasted for
about half a second because the answer was no.
00:28:35
I just don't know. It's-- to lose
somebody like that and to lose somebody so great--
00:28:43
it wasn't her time. NANCY GRACE: 14 years
later, Jennifer Corbin dies in the same
manner as Dolly Hearn.
00:28:52
Two women who loved
Bart Corbin are both victims of violent deaths. Has dentist Bart Corbin been
getting away with murder
00:29:03
all these years? ["god rest ye merry gentlemen"] Welcome back to "The
Christmas Killings."
00:29:17
Two vibrant, beautiful,
intelligent women died by gunshot wounds after
they break up with the same guy.
00:29:29
That man-- Buford, Georgia,
dentist Bart Corbin. Could it all be
just a coincidence?
00:29:37
Detective Marcus, head
of Gwinnett County PD, doesn't think so. The instant he hears
about Dolly Hearn,
00:29:44
he starts making
calls about her case. MARCUS HEAD: I called Dr.
Hearn, Dolly's father,
00:29:52
and asked if I could come meet
with him, because I wanted to hear his characterization
nation of Bart Corbin
00:30:00
and Dolly's relationship. And I wanted to hear his
opinion of how Dolly was found.
00:30:06
So that night, myself
and another detective went to East Georgia
and met with Dolly's
00:30:14
father, mother, and brother. We heard stories about what
a wonderful person Dolly was,
00:30:20
that she had a lot of
personality similarities as Jennifer did. She was exuberant, just a
vibrant person to be around,
00:30:27
and that her breakup
with Bart Corbin was very, very contentious. NANCY GRACE:
Detective Head learns
00:30:34
what he already suspects-- Bart Corbin is a
deeply vindictive man. MARCUS HEAD: One of
the other details
00:30:42
that they told me is
that in dental school, Bart had taken one of Dolly's
lab projects and disposed of it
00:30:49
so that it impacted
Dolly's grades. It impacted her reputation
as a dental student.
00:30:54
My reaction is that Bart
just did not have regard or boundaries for other people.
00:31:01
And in Bart Corbin's
view, he could not be rejected or turned away. It was his decision to
make, not another person's.
00:31:11
NANCY GRACE: For
the past 14 years, Dolly Hearn's parents believe
their beloved daughter
00:31:16
could not commit suicide. MARCUS HEAD: Dolly even
had short-term plans. the day that she
was discovered--
00:31:25
had been grocery shopping. The Hearn family was going to
travel within the next few days
00:31:31
to somewhere for
a short vacation, and Dolly had bought groceries
to bring on that trip and cook.
00:31:37
NANCY GRACE: The family's
sorrow over Dolly's sudden death has never ended. MARCUS HEAD: Their grief
was still palpable.
00:31:45
This family was still
missing their daughter. I hated to be bringing
up these things,
00:31:50
but these were
details that I needed. NANCY GRACE: Dolly Hearn's case
is reopened in Augusta, Georgia.
00:31:58
Detective Marcus Head
returns to Buford. He is determined to bring
Bart Corbin to justice.
00:32:06
In Jennifer Corbin's
case, the medical examiner determined
she dies around 2:00 AM the morning of December 4.
00:32:16
[camera shutter clicking] Investigators must
establish where is Bart Corbin at that time?
00:32:29
Bart Corbin was
with some other people at a restaurant/bar
type place, and they stayed there pretty late.
00:32:39
They left there, and then he
drove to his brother's location. And Bart spent the
night at his brother's
00:32:46
house in a neighboring county. EDWARD RESTREPO: We wanted that
timeline as tight as possible.
00:32:52
And it was us trying to
get to the restaurant, you know, figure out, you
know, who the server was,
00:32:58
the receipt, who all was there,
because, obviously, we wanted to figure out if there was any
time where he could have been
00:33:05
away or where he could have
been at the house, and you know, committed this murder,
and went back, got back
00:33:11
in with the people,
and then basically say, oh, no, he was with
us the whole time,
00:33:15
and he couldn't have
been back at the house. NANCY GRACE: Bart Corbin's
alibi is already weak and starts
00:33:22
to fall apart when
neighbor Steve Como remembers
something that happened the night of Jennifer's murder.
00:33:29
EDWARD RESTREPO: He
said that he remembered hearing Barton's truck
show up to the residence
00:33:34
in the early morning hours. He was up at the time that
sometime after 1:00 AM, maybe around 1:30, 1:40,
he heard Barton's truck
00:33:43
pull into the neighborhood. And it became a very
crucial piece of information in the investigation.
00:34:10
NANCY GRACE: The case
against Dennis Bart Corbin is getting stronger. Can Gwinnett County
Police put the murder
00:34:16
weapon in Corbin's possession? The gun is a Smith and Wesson
that's registered in Alabama.
00:34:24
Through Jennifer's
family, we had found out that Bart
sort of bragged or boasted about this
friend in Alabama
00:34:30
that he sort of held out as
somebody who was resourceful. He was sort of like a guy on
the fringe, maybe a little edgy.
00:34:38
He was somebody who
could get you things or take care of problems. EDWARD RESTREPO: Someone
named Richard Wilson.
00:34:44
And so we were like, who's
this guy, Richard Wilson? So they said he was an
avid fisherman, hunter.
00:34:52
And that's what took
us to Troy, Alabama, to try to find Mr.
Wilson and kind of gain
00:34:56
some perspective as far as
how he knew Barton, if he knew of what kind of had
unfolded, and if he
00:35:02
had any useful
information to provide. I remember getting up
to the residence there,
00:35:08
and we sat down at
the kitchen table. And he was very
free, very willing, and telling me about all the
things that they have done,
00:35:14
that he had recently come up. And then when we started
talking about guns is when he was kind
of trying to cut
00:35:22
our discussion a little short. We tried to serve him with
a subpoena to come back
00:35:25
to Georgia, and that's when
he really clammed up and said, that's-- I don't have to honor a subpoena
from Georgia here in Alabama.
00:35:35
They came back and they said,
he's not going to talk to us. He told us to kick rocks.
00:35:38
NANCY GRACE: It's a
temporary roadblock for detectives working
the Jennifer Corbin
00:35:42
murder case in Gwinnett County. At the same time,
in Augusta, Georgia, the Dolly Hearn
homicide investigation
00:35:49
is heating up, detectives taking
a second look at blood spatter. MARCUS HEAD: Back in 1990, at
the time of Dolly Hearn's death,
00:35:59
blood pattern analysis
was not a science. But over that 14 years,
blood pattern analysis
00:36:04
had evolved and become
an acceptable science as expert testimony on the
witness stand in court.
00:36:10
And so Augusta was
able to capture the time of an
expert in that field, and he reexamined the
crime scene photos.
00:36:19
Some of the blood staining
was not 90 degree. It was not spatter. It was, in fact,
contact or transfer,
00:36:26
which meant that someone
had to have touched or manipulated the scene. His determination was clear--
00:36:33
Dolly Hearn was not shot
in the same position that she was found. She was moved.
00:36:38
[ominous music] [ominous music] Three days before Christmas
2004, police in Augusta,
00:36:53
Georgia, secure an arrest
warrant for Bart Corbin. He stands accused of
killing ex-girlfriend Dolly
00:37:02
Hearn 14 years before. MARCUS HEAD: At that
point, we had Bart Corbin under 24-hour surveillance.
00:37:13
And as it turned
out, December 22 was also Bart Corbin's birthday. EDWARD RESTREPO: We
have the wiretap.
00:37:19
We're listening to
his phone calls. We're following him. And I was in the
monitoring room.
00:37:23
There's a lot of radio
traffic in the room because, hey, they're
giving out where Barton is.
00:37:27
They're at his dental office. MARCUS HEAD: He was
leaving his office about lunchtime in a vehicle.
00:37:34
He pulled out into the road,
and our surveillance team, they did a traffic stop
and arrested Bart Corbin
00:37:41
for the murder of Dolly Hearn. I raced up the road and took
him to police headquarters.
00:37:47
From there, we waited for
the detectives in Augusta to come from Augusta,
and then they
00:37:53
transported him back
to Augusta, where he was lodged into their jail. Gwinnett County law
enforcement investigating
00:38:02
Jennifer Corbin's murder now
relieved her husband, Bart Corbin, off the street,
but the pressure is on them
00:38:09
now to bring enough evidence to
a grand jury and do it quickly. [ominous music] Augusta wanted to
use our evidence,
00:38:19
and we wanted to use Augusta's
evidence because there was so much similarity. We wanted both cases to be
heard in each other's court.
00:38:27
NANCY GRACE: They look again at
the Corbin brothers' timeline. MARCUS HEAD: What we did was
subpoena Bart Corbin's two
00:38:33
brothers and a friend of his. And we compelled them to
give testimony under oath
00:38:38
about their whereabouts
and information they knew about Bart Corbin's
whereabouts on the night of
00:38:45
and the night before Jennifer
Corbin was found dead. So what we learned through
the grand jury testimony
00:38:52
from Bart's friend
and brothers is that Bart and three other people
went to a restaurant sports bar
00:39:00
and stayed pretty late. They had alcoholic
beverages to drink and food, and that they left there.
00:39:07
And Bart rode home with a friend
to that friend's house, stayed there for a period of time.
00:39:14
And then Bart left
in his own vehicle and went to his brother's house
in the neighboring county.
00:39:23
By now, some of the cell
phone records were coming in, so we were able to
place Bart Corbin
00:39:27
and learned that
that version was only partially correct,
that, yes, Bart Corbin was at the sports bar.
00:39:36
He was at that
friend's house, and he was at the brother's house
in the neighboring county.
00:39:42
But he also had time to stop by
his own house, which was also consistent and supported
what the neighbor
00:39:50
said by hearing Bart
Corbin's truck in the wee hours of the morning. [suspenseful music]
00:39:57
NANCY GRACE: The timeline
police establish in Jennifer Corbin's murder is solid.
00:40:01
On January 5, 2005, Gwinnett
County law enforcement charge Bart Corbin in
the murder of his wife,
00:40:10
Jennifer, the mother
of his two little boys. But the key item
that we still needed
00:40:16
was to determine
how Bart Corbin came into possession of
that 38 caliber Smith and Wesson revolver.
00:40:23
So one of the district
attorney's investigators ran what's called
an offline search.
00:40:29
And that's much
different from an ATF gun trace in that it captures
and records the whole history
00:40:36
of that serial number
related to that gun as far as law enforcement
contact with that firearm.
00:40:41
And so when he ran that
number through the system, that serial number, it
showed that a police
00:40:47
agency in Troy, Alabama, had ran
that serial number on that gun. And it turns out
the chief of police
00:40:54
himself ran that
serial number and said, I ran it because a friend
of mine brought it to me.
00:40:59
And so I ran the
serial number for him. And it turns out
that that person was the friend of Bart Corbin.
00:41:06
So having this new
information in the record, the chief of police
from Troy, Alabama,
00:41:11
and the Gwinnett County District
attorney's investigators went back to that person and
said, you need to be honest.
00:41:17
And that person said, yes, a
few days after Thanksgiving, Bart Corbin came to me and said
he was worried about his safety
00:41:24
and that he asked that
friend if he could have a gun maybe for his protection. And the friend
gave him that one.
00:41:46
The pretrial motions hearing
was going on at the time in Gwinnett County. And when the investigator
walked into the courtroom
00:41:53
and notified our district
attorney that they now had the gun linked
directly to Bart Corbin,
00:41:58
they stopped that
pretrial proceeding, went back to judge's
chambers, and they consulted with the district
attorney in Augusta at the time.
00:42:07
They brought him in on
that, and they said, we have the gun
tied to Bart Corbin.
00:42:11
And the defense counsel and
Bart Corbin were present. And they said, your
only option now
00:42:16
is we'll take a plea to murder. The Augusta district
attorney said, you're going to plead to ours also.
00:42:22
Otherwise, we're going to seek
the death penalty for this. When that final
tipping point came--
00:42:28
we put that gun in Bart
Corbin's possession-- there was no defense
to put forth.
00:42:33
NANCY GRACE: September 15, 2006
Bart Corbin takes a plea deal. He admits to Dolly
Hearn's and Jennifer
00:42:42
Corbin's brutal murders. JUDGE: Did you, in fact, commit
the offense of malice murder,
00:42:48
to which you are now
pleading guilty as it is outlined in this indictment? Yes. JOE WEBER: The day
that Bart finally
00:42:57
met justice, that finally-- I don't even want
to say man enough to admit that he murdered both
women, Dolly and Jennifer--
00:43:06
I was in car pickup
line for my son. And all my friends
knew about this. And one of my best friends,
his wife rolls down the window
00:43:14
and goes, he just
admitted he did it. That was one of the
greatest victories ever.
00:43:20
And I was so happy
for both families. I knew Dolly's
family really well. But for both families to even
have that closure where they
00:43:28
knew what the answer was, but he
finally admitted to what he did. CAMERON JAY: Bart
Corbin was a guy
00:43:35
who truly believed that
if he could not have you, no one else could either. And so, just as he harassed and
ultimately killed Dolly Hearn,
00:43:45
he made sure that Jennifer
Corbin, who wanted just to spend that one last
Christmas as a family,
00:43:52
would never have
the chance to leave. ["carol of the bells"] I do think of this
case during the holidays
00:43:59
because of the impact
it had on Jennifer and the victims' families. You know, that happened right
after Thanksgiving and just
00:44:07
before Christmas. They were just dealing
with so much grief, so much anger, so much sadness.
00:44:11
And I've never forgotten that. CAMERON JAY: Bart
Corbin is handed down two life sentences
for killing both Dolly
00:44:20
Hearn and Jennifer Corbin. And in the state
of Georgia, I would be very surprised if he ever
sees the outside of a prison
00:44:28
again. NANCY GRACE: Aspiring dental
student Dolly Hearn murdered before she can graduate.
00:44:35
One year after Bart
Corbin sentenced, she receives her doctorate
in dentistry posthumously.
00:44:44
In 2007, the Medical
College of Georgia awarded Dolly her
doctorate degree. And so from now on, she's Dr.
Dorothy C. Hearn, Dr. Dolly.
00:44:55
And we had a celebration. It kind of was, I guess,
almost, you'd say, the exclamation point on
this whole story, is that.
00:45:03
You know, she's a doctor. A vindictive man driven
by his own feelings of rejection, driven to
murder not once, but twice.
00:45:15
The evil within him
shatters the futures of two vibrant, beautiful, and
brilliant young women, women
00:45:24
that had so much to give
the world, including one of them to give to her
own two little boys, now
00:45:32
without a mother. I'm Nancy Grace. Thank you for joining us here
on "The Christmas Killings."
00:45:39
[soft piano] [theme music]