The Murder of Jennifer Corbin | The Christmas Killings hosted by Nancy Grace | Forensic Files

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

Jennifer Corbin is found shot to death. At first, it looks like suicide, but cops aren’t so sure. Did her desire to spend one last Christmas with family lead to her murder?

Hosted by Nancy Grace, The Christmas Killings is a true crime docuseries that blends merry with mystery as it delves into holiday-season homicide investigations.

Brief Summary

Bart Corbin is charged with murdering his wife Jennifer and ex-girlfriend Dolly, revealing a pattern of domestic violence and manipulation.

Key points

The Christmas Killings. In Buford, Georgia, a young boy discovers his mother's body, leading to a tragic investigation.
A Mother's Heartbreak. Jennifer Corbin's tragic death raises questions of suicide versus homicide.
A Dark Past Uncovered. Detectives uncover a chilling connection between Bart Corbin and a previous death.
Dolly Hearn's Tragic Death. Dolly is found dead with a gunshot wound, raising suspicions of foul play.
Bart Corbin's Confession. Bart Corbin pleads guilty to the murders of Dolly and Jennifer Corbin.
Dolly's Posthumous Honor. Dolly Hearn is awarded her doctorate in dentistry after her tragic death.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

Christmas this year won't be coming for the Corbin family.

Nancy Grace foreshadows the tragedy for the Corbin family.

2:44WatchMar 25, 2025

Tension

85/ 100High tension

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