Too Late to Say Goodbye: A True Story of Murder and Betrayal

by Ann Rule

  Angela told the crime scene investigators that Dolly Hearn was not the kind of person who would commit suicide. “When she had a problem,” she said, “Dolly would just get a little more quiet than usual.”

  Asked about any relationships Dolly might have had with men, Angela mentioned Bart Corbin. She had last seen him at Dolly’s only the day before. “They were talking. I didn’t hear what their conversation was about, but Dolly didn’t mention any argument to me, and I talked to Bart afterward and he was very pleasant.”

  It had been months since the upsetting incidents when Dolly’s dad had bought her the gun she kept under her bed. Yes, Angela felt the gun in Dolly’s lap looked like that gun—but she hadn’t seen it for a long time.

  Coroner Sims officially pronounced Dolly dead at 6 P.M. Paper bags were taped over her hands so that tests for gunshot residue would not be contaminated, and her body was taken to the University Hospital Emergency Room to await autopsy.

  Peebles and Johnson, along with Sergeant Billy Hambrick, Captain Gene Johnson, and Lieutenant John Gray checked the rest of the small apartment. The sliding glass doors to the kitchen were locked. The patio area beyond the door had an intact lock on the outside of the privacy fence that surrounded it. There were no forced entry marks or gouges around the front door, which Angela Garnto thought had been locked.

  Dolly’s answering machine was blinking, indicating new messages. They rewound it and listened for any messages. One was from Bart Corbin. He was telling Dolly that he wouldn’t be able to take her to a party that night, but suggested maybe they could hook up later. As far as Angela knew, Dolly had had no plans to go to a party with Bart that evening. Why would he have called to break a date that never existed?

  It was eleven P.M when Dolly’s parents were notified of her death. When they heard the word suicide, they shook their heads. Dr. Carlton Hearn suggested that the investigators talk to Bart Corbin, explaining that Corbin had caused his daughter a great deal of trouble over the prior nine months. “It would be wise to check him out,” he said.

  Both Gray and Peebles knew of Dolly’s problems with Corbin. They recalled her reports to their department the previous fall. But Dolly Hearn herself had come down to their department’s Criminal Investigation Division to tell detectives that she had decided not to prosecute him.

  Carlton Hearn listened to a description of the gun found in Dolly’s lap, and he said it sounded like the .38 revolver he had given her to protect herself.

  When the Hearns were asked if Dolly had any history of depression or emotional problems, they were astounded by the question. They certainly had never seen any evidence indicating that. The Dolly they knew was cheerful, competent, and enjoying her life—particularly in recent weeks.

  Only three days before, she had been as happy as they had ever seen her—perhaps happier. It was almost impossible for them to believe that she was dead. She had had so many plans for her future.

  The Hearns were stunned by sorrow and loss. Instead of planning a vacation, they would now plan a funeral. Instead of watching Dolly become a dentist and join Carlton in his practice, they would bury her a few blocks from the big white house where she grew up.

  It was much too much to take, in an evening or a week or, quite possibly, in a lifetime. She had been the most vital person her family and her friends had ever known, and now she was gone.

  BART CORBIN HAD A NUMBER of supportive friends on the MCG campus or nearby. Eric Rader had been Bart’s office partner at the dental school for two years, and they were close. Eric was married, and there were several other couples, most working toward a dental degree, who had befriended Bart. They had listened to his concerns about his on-and-off relationship with Dolly, and worried that he was often so depressed that he broke into tears. Many of them believed that Dolly really was the “bitch” that Bart often described. He had once mentioned that she had the “cheerleaders’ syndrome,” explaining that she expected to get every thing she wanted. And even upon hearing about her externship, he had scoffed at the idea that she could hope ever to be an oral surgeon.

  Dr. Tony Gacita and his fiancée, Dr. Vicky Martin, were inclined to believe him. They had met Bart in October 1989 and felt Dolly was tormenting him, flirting with him when she had no serious interest in him. Vicky thought Dolly’s makeup was excessive and wondered why she wore it when she was already very attractive. She also disapproved of Dolly’s clothes, remarking that they were too flamboyant and sexy.

  Vicky felt sorry for Bart because he loved Dolly so much. One Sunday shortly after they met him, Tony and Vicky joined Bart for breakfast. He was all dressed up and said he had been to church. He told them that he hadn’t been to church in years but just felt like going. He went home with them after breakfast and began to talk, crying and upset over Dolly. “I have guns at home,” he said somewhat ominously, and that worried them.

  Fearing he might kill himself, the couple persuaded Bart to give them his guns. They tended to believe everything Bart said about Dolly, and her indecision about making a commitment to him. And, worse, he said that Dolly was trying to ruin his career by reporting him to the Honor Board at MCG after the alleged incidents at her apartment and the damage to her car.

  Word of Dolly’s death had flashed around the dental school, and many people knew of it even before her parents had been notified. Late in the evening, Bart showed up at the Gacita-Martins’ asking to have his guns back. Neither Tony nor Vicky knew about Dolly yet, and Tony brought the weapons out and gave them to Bart. Then Tony’s mother called and he had talked to her while Bart waited in the living room—checking out his guns.

  Another call came in, this one informing Tony that Dolly Hearn was dead—an apparent suicide. He and his fiancée panicked about what Bart might do when he found out, and even wondered if he had already been told and that was why he came for his guns. The couple huddled together, speaking softly, as they tried to decide the best way to tell Bart what had happened. He would surely be very distraught when he heard the news.

  They decided to take him to Eric Rader’s house. He was usually the best one to handle Bart when he veered off track. Vicky told Bart she needed a ride to Eric’s and managed to maintain a calm tone when she told him “just to leave the guns behind.”

  Once they got to the Raders’ home, they led Bart to a couch and Vicky told him that Dolly was dead. He looked shocked and seemed consumed with grief. Eric took Bart for a drive where they could talk alone. As much as he liked Bart Corbin, Rader believed—as Tony Gacita and Vicky Martin did—that he was very unstable, and they kept a close eye on him. Eric knew about Bart’s thefts of Dolly’s dental projects, her charts, and her instruments, because Bart had confessed privately to taking them when Eric accused him. But that was all in the past; if Dolly had forgiven Bart, Eric certainly could.

  But now, after an initial show of grief, Bart calmed down and acted almost normal. Nevertheless, his friends refused to give his guns back to him. They called Gene Corbin, Bart’s father, and explained their concern. To their surprise, his father didn’t feel that there was anything really wrong with Bart. He thought his friends were probably overreacting.

  THE NEXT MORNING, on June 7, 1990, Dr. Sharon Daspit, a medical examiner for the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, performed a postmortem examination of Dolly Hearn’s body. Dolly was five feet seven inches tall, and weighed 110 pounds. Every organ, every system in her body had been healthy, normal, and working well until the moment a gun barrel was placed against her skin just in front of her right ear, the “pre-auricular area.” The wound was a contact wound, its edges blackened with gunpowder and barrel debris. As the bullet entered there, just below the ridged petrous bone on the right, it had traveled through the brain in an almost-straight line, severing and macerating her brainstem, and ending just below the petrous ridge on the left side of her head.

  She had died instantly.

  There was no indication that she had been raped or beaten, nor had she any defense wounds
that might suggest that she had fought back against an attacker. She had no alcohol or drugs in her blood.

  Daspit estimated the time of Dolly’s death as probably between 1 P.M. and 3 P.M. on June 6. The “CAUSE OF DEATH” written on Dolly Hearn’s autopsy report read: “Gunshot wound to the head with destruction of the brainstem and secondary exsanguination, apparently self-inflicted.”

  And then Daspit had added: “Undetermined.” There was something about Dolly Hearn’s manner of death that disturbed her, and she herself still had questions.

  To Dolly’s friends and family, any presumption of suicide seemed a monstrous mistake. But the investigation was in its early days. Perhaps evidence or eyewitnesses, or even a confession from a killer would erase those words.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  JUNE 7–10, 1990

  BECAUSE SO MANY PEOPLE had mentioned Bart Corbin immediately after Dolly Hearn’s death was discovered, he was, of course, the first person the Richmond County investigators wanted to talk to in depth. Whatever their relationship was on the day Dolly died, he had been some part of her life for the past few years. Her postmortem examination was still under way when Bart arrived in the Criminal Investigation Division offices at five minutes to eleven on June 7. Lieutenant John Gray conducted the interview, and Chief Bruce Powers of the Medical College of Georgia’s security force observed.

  The taped interview would later prove to be highly significant.

  BART GAVE HIS birthdate, phone number, and his address on Parnell Street in Augusta. His occupation? “Full-time student, School of Dentistry, Medical College of Georgia.”

  He said he had lived in Augusta for four years, and that his home was in Snellville.

  John Gray began.

  Gray: You’re getting ready to graduate, I understand. What are your plans after that—or general idea of what you’re going to do?

  Corbin: Go back to Snellville for a month and hopefully find work within that month and go hopefully out of state.

  Gray: Okay. Yesterday evening—of course, I know you’re aware of it and what happened. It was 5:00 or so, they found the body of a Dolly Hearn. Are you familiar with this person?

  Corbin: Yes I am—she was my ex-girlfriend.

  Gray: When was the last time you saw Dolly?

  Corbin: The previous day at about 2:00 in the afternoon.

  Gray: Was anybody there with her?

  Corbin: Her roommate, Angela Garnto.

  Gray: How long did you stay…Or what did y’all—

  Corbin: Thirty minutes. Forty-five minutes. I stopped by to see how she was doing. She had been sick recently.

  Gray: The gist of the conversation—I’m not being totally personal, but—

  Corbin: Small talk—nothing important.

  Gray: Did y’all have any type of argument or disagreement while you were there?

  Corbin: No sir.

  Gray: When you left, did you call her later that evening or were y’all supposed to see her later that evening?

  Corbin: The evening of the sixth or the evening of the fifth when I saw her last?

  Gray: I guess it would be. Were you supposed to see her later that night?

  Corbin: No.

  Gray: When was the next time you were supposed to see her?

  Corbin: There was no next time. I was hoping we could have dinner one more time before graduation because she was going on vacation Friday for about a week or so, and I would be taking Boards when she got back, and I would be leaving after.

  Gray: All right, let’s go to Wednesday morning—June 6th. Let’s just kind of start your day off. What time did you get up?

  Corbin: About nine. I was late getting up so I just slapped on some clothes and went to school so I could practice for my Boards. I stayed at school until about noon.

  Gray: Did you talk to anyone from 9:00 to noon?

  Bart could not be sure, he said, whom he had talked to yesterday morning. He mentioned a few names, “perhaps Eric Rader, or maybe the office maid.” No, he wasn’t required to sign in when he went to his office—the one he shared with Eric.

  Gray: Was he there?

  Corbin: He was in and out. He had patients. I’m through with my patients.

  Gray: So he was in and out, and saw you there. Some of the names you gave us are actually students?

  Corbin: Yeah, all the ones I mentioned are students in my class.

  Gray: You stayed until about noon and what did you do then?

  Corbin: I left with John Harpers to go down to Atlanta Dental to pick up some denture teeth that I needed for my state Boards. After that, I went home, got my car, drove to Rally’s, got some lunch, and I went back to school—left probably at 12:35 and got back about a quarter to one, I reckon.

  Gray: So you ran and quickly got a hamburger and ate it between the car and the school?

  Corbin: Well, I got home and ate it.

  Gray wondered how Bart Corbin could have accomplished all those errands in forty-five minutes, but he didn’t comment on it.

  Bart said that he had a lot of things to do at the dental school. He was sorting through things he didn’t need anymore and throwing them out, and he was sterilizing and organizing his instruments to prepare for Boards.

  Gray: So you stayed finishing up a few loose ends until about when?

  Corbin: 2:00—then I walked home and took a shower and made a couple of phone calls, and then came back to school.

  Gray: Who did you call when you got home?

  Corbin: I called Dolly. Do you want to know what we talked about?

  Gray: Yeah.

  Corbin: We just discussed that I could not make the party that she wanted me to go to with her that night and that I would try to communicate with her later that night.

  Gray: Did she answer the phone?

  Corbin: No, she didn’t. I talked to the answering machine. There was a party but we did not have a date with each other.

  Gray: Was it the kind of situation where both of y’all were simply invited or what?

  Corbin: Yeah, that’s what it was.

  Bart said he couldn’t remember the name of the person who was giving the party. “Teddy…something.” But he obviously wanted John Gray to know that this phone message had to have been left for Dolly between 2:00 and 2:30 P.M. His memory for the afternoon Dolly died was remarkably precise. He had called another girl to see if she was coming to his graduation, and then returned a phone call to a male friend who had said he couldn’t make their weight-lifting session at 3:30 P.M. He figured he’d made this call at 3:30—or closer to 4:00.

  Since his weight-lifting partner couldn’t come to the gym until five, Bart said he’d decided to get a haircut, and he called his hair stylist and made an appointment.

  Corbin: It was at Accent on Hair with Wanda Wood. It was at 3:15—I had to rush to make it.

  Gray: And you went and got your hair done and came back. Is that right?

  Corbin: Right. It was about four. I went to my house. I don’t have a parking permit so I park at my house and walk to school. I basically hung around and talked to some people there and bulled, and just didn’t really do anything and then left about ten to 5:00 to go stretch out before we worked out at 5:00.

  Gray: And who did you work out with?

  Corbin: Scott Silliman—he’s a senior dental student. We worked out until 5:40–5:45.

  Gray: What did y’all do then?

  Corbin: Drove to my house where I called a young lady I was supposed to be seeing that night to see if she was gonna want to go to the party. She was not at home, so I decided to go on to the party with Scott. He had already left so I drove over to his house as soon as I could grab a towel. I got to his house about ten to 6:00.

  John Gray switched gears. Although some of his estimates overlapped, Bart Corbin had just accounted for virtually every minute of his time from noon to 6 P.M. Dolly Hearn had likely died during those six hours.

  Gray: Basically you and Dolly had been dating about how long?
/>
  Corbin: About a year and a half.

  Gray: What was the context of your relationship. I mean was it real serious, or was it—

  Corbin: It was real serious.

  Gray: Had y’all discussed marriage?

  Corbin: Yes, sir. It was my idea.

  Gray: In the last few weeks, how has the relationship been?

  Corbin: It’s been off. I’m graduating and I can’t stay around for just a girlfriend. I told her that.

  Gray: And what was her reaction?

  Corbin: It depended on the day. Sometimes it upset her, and sometimes she understood. Her moods would change from day to day. I mean she always projected the same mood [publicly], but in private, she varied.

  Gray: How had her mood been within the last week, as far as personality and everything?

  Bart Corbin seemed relaxed, and appeared to almost enjoy discussing Dolly’s state of mind. He became more voluble, now.

  Corbin: [She was] less upbeat that she has been. Instead of talking about what was possible, she talked about things in terms of dreaming. She said what she was going to try to accomplish was probably just dreams, anyway. She told me a few days ago. It was about general practice residencies or oral surgery residencies. And for her to be realistic is for her to be down.

  John Gray asked Bart to go over the prior day again. Bart continued to insist he had not seen Dolly for two days—and particularly not on “the day of the incident.” He hadn’t stopped by yesterday to see her. He was sure of that.

  “What kind of car do you drive?” Gray asked.

  “A silver Monte Carlo, 1988, with a black T-top, license plate KD 982 and a black ‘bra’ on the front of it.”

  THE INTERVIEW continued.

  Gray: What were you wearing yesterday?