Morbid: Episode 482: The Murders of Jennifer Corbin and Dolly Hearn- Part 2

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Hey, weirdos, I'm Ash.

And I'm Alaina.

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 more bitter.

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 like really, really sad domestic violence cases that involve like a whole family.

Yeah.

So 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.

Yup.

I was like, wait, wait.

So in part one, we went over the main people involved in the case, Jennifer and Bart Corbin,

and they're 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 lured 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.

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.

They just really liked each other.

Yeah.

They're in dental school together.

Yeah.

It feels like, you know?

Like a kismet, you know?

Yeah.

Probably felt it 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, which that statement tells you something.

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 him.

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 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?

Yeah.

I love it.

We just won't consider her in this equation at all.

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.

And 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, 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 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, 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 sets attention 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 made the relationship crumble before it could even take off.

Yeah.

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, even rhymes with this name.

Yeah.

Oh my God.

I didn't even mean to do that.

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.

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.

Just for her.

She was ready to get out of there.

So Bart's friend, Eric Rader, said he was really taken it hard.

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.

Oh, no.

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

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, in this like ruined me, her cat Tabitha, who she really, really

loved, just simply disappeared.

Went missing.

I have a hunch.

Me too.

So that's awful.

Yeah, it really is.

All of it.

So at first, and this 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.

Any time 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.

Angela ran to the apartment of their neighbor who happened to be a doctor, Dr. Steinhaus,

and he went running back with her to their, 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 talked 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.

Yeah.

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, right?

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.

Maybe you were in a position, staged.

But the medical examiner easily signed off on the death as a suicide.

Jesus.

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 the 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 Balsa.

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, you didn't go tell anyone fuckface.

I am.

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.

Anyone who tells me that they're going to murder somebody legit is like,

I know how to get away with the perfect murder.

911, what's my emergency?

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.

Never.

And if it just doesn't, it would shock me if someone said that.

No, I'd be like, what?

That's not even a joke.

I'd be like, don't say that to me.

I haven't heard somebody joke about that.

Like it's just not a thing.

No.

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.

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.

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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 6th and he went to Dolly's apartment.

She was not expecting him.

And his car had actually been spotted by the apartment manager.

Like that managed the apartment complex.

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.

Wow.

Her friend had given her this gun for protection.

Wow.

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 believe believed that Bart went about the apartment staging the scene,

reposition the body, place 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.

Like, can you imagine if this fucking 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 went like when on, can you imagine he fucking coached your child's little weak team?

Imagine that.

That's even worse than being your dentist.

Yeah.

Imagine being your child.

That's scary.

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.

Wow.

And, you know, Dolly's death seemed 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 mean, George is really big.

You opened up a dental practice and 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 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.

Yeah.

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 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.

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 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 of 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.

He was 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 were young.

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.

And left them to deal with it.

To deal with it.

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.

Good.

Just one week after Jennifer's murder, the DA 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.

According to the Washington People's 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 reevaluation 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,

At the time of Dolly's death in 1990,

law enforcement didn't have the best understanding of stalking.

I mean, the laws surrounding it had like barely been put into place yet.

Yeah.

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 weren't many laws in general,

but especially 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.

Exactly.

Which is why stalking laws exist now.

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,

Duane 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 go out in the end?

Is it like the real version of the truth?

Yeah.

Or you think your version of the truth is going to come out?

Exactly.

No.

No.

No.

So a week later on the morning of December 23rd,

a grand jury in Richmond County considered the evidence against Bart

and 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 OK to arrest him.

So as he and his mistress pulled up to a stoplight at a red light,

three cruisers surrounded the car.

Oh my God.

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.

Yeah.

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, oh.

Reputation.

Tainted.

Yeah.

Way worse.

Yeah.

Worse than whatever could have imagined.

Way worse than a divorce would have tainted it.

Just get fucking divorced, dude.

Yeah.

But at that point, don't even do that because you're already a murderer.

Yeah.

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.

So on January 5th, 2005, they may have felt slightly better about the situation when a

grand jury indicted Bart on three counts regarding Jennifer's murder, because at that point

he hadn't even been arrested for that.

He was issued for his arrest in that case.

Whoa.

So he got arrested in prison, I guess, or in jail.

Wow.

Now, while he sat in Augusta, because he was in Augusta jail, he had to be transferred

over there because Dolly's murder happened in that county.

Yeah.

He was sitting in that jail without bond.

And while that was happening, his lawyers went to work juggling pretrial motions in the

two murder cases.

And this is where things kind of get a little bit complicated.

Okay.

But I did my best.

So I did my best.

And the defense was hoping to keep the two cases completely separate when it came to the

evidence, obviously, because it would make for 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.

Okay.

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's 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.

Yeah.

So it's like, this would be great.

But like, we're really making it happen.

But we don't know.

Yeah.

So for 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 Park 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 in 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 pretrial motions.

A judge and there was like a judge's recusal, which is where they get rid of them because

like they have 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

this.

Exactly.

But finally on March 30th, 2006.

Wow.

A judge in Gwinnett County ordered that evidence related to the death of Dolly Hearn could

indeed be introduced.

Good.

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.

The Supreme 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 County's 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.

Also 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.

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...

Bart.

Bart, yeah.

I thought you were just like, Bart.

Yeah, it was like, 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, boohoo.

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.

Mm hmm.

Luckily, it turned out that Richard Wilson's loyalty to Bart did have limits.

Good.

When he was threatened with a subpoena to testify under oath, he was like, actually, I have

to talk to you about something.

He became a bit more forthcoming.

Crazy how that happened.

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.

Ooh.

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 might

not 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?

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 for Bart, excuse me, would

plead guilty to both murders and make a full confession before a judge 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 not letting Dolly's case go by the wayside here.

No way.

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.

There's literally nowhere you can go.

You fucked yourself.

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.

I have no idea.

I think she says big reputation.

She says that.

All the time.

No, she's just like, she says it.

Oh, yeah.

I didn't want to let them know that, like, we were like hanging out with you.

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 they fall into very strange bits.

We do.

Yeah.

I like that about us.

It's part of the charm, I think.

Hey.

So after Bart's confession, Judge Michael Clark 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 was 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.

16.

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.

He is a monster.

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.

Mm-hmm.

This 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.

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.

Yeah.

Like, you're a piece of shit.

He's disgusting.

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.

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 Corbin and he told them he won't have a realistic chance

meeting up parole until 28 years.

And as far as things went with Richard, 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 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 like

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.

So he's 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, it makes me so sad that everything happened the way that it did.

And that 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 like in a loving fulfilling relationship, like two little boys.

And now they who deserve to have her.

Yeah.

And she 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.

Oh, but what a fucking tragic case overall.

Truly, I am not excited to make my next dentist appointment.

I'm really freaked out about that because the fact that like a murder

could be anybody and that scares the shit out of me.

Like he was a little league coach.

He was a little league coach.

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.

Jennifer went to Italy with a murderer.

Yeah. No idea.

Like I can't imagine. I can't imagine.

It's always questioned.

Somebody who's temper is that explosive.

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.

We need to get get a little bit of a spookies in there.

Yeah, definitely.

So we hope you keep listening for that.

And we hope you keep it weird.

But that's 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 this sad, sad, sad stuff.

Get me out of here.

Yeah.

Bye.

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Machine-generated transcript that may contain inaccuracies.