by Ann Rule
Anita Hearn told Head that Jenn had been particularly worried about something that occurred on Thursday, December 2. “She had gone to work that day and she forgot her Christmas gift, so she went back home to get it. When she got there, it was weird because Bart’s brother was there sitting in his truck, and then Bart was sitting in his truck, warming it up. And then the Mustang was gone. She asked where the Mustang went, and he said he’d loaned it to a friend named Iron. She said it was weird because Bart would have kept the Mustang and loaned the truck.”
Head realized that Jenn must have been frightened that morning. She would have just come from Heather’s house after being there overnight after her foot was injured. She may have felt that Bart or his friends were going to do her harm.
Anita didn’t know which of the Corbin brothers was at the Bogan Gates Drive house that morning, but Jenn was afraid. And that wasn’t like her.
Head thanked Anita for her help.
“Not a problem,” she said. “I hope we can do something about him.”
Was she grieving? It was hard for Head to be sure. When he found hundreds upon hundreds of emails on his computer, sent by Anita, he read them all. For months, they had been from Christopher, until two weeks before Jenn was murdered. And suddenly, they were from Anita. It was a good thing that he had verified where Anita Hearn was on the night Jenn was killed because one of the later emails was truly bizarre.
Anita had asked Jenn if she had ever thought about putting a bullet in the cylinder of a gun and then holding the barrel against Anita’s head and pulling the trigger at the very instant Anita had an orgasm.
“No, no,” Jenn had written back. “I would never do that.”
Evidently, Jenn’s online seducer had been into masochism, and found a version of Russian roulette and sex fascinating. But Anita went too far, and it had troubled Jenn Corbin. Still, this was the kind of thing that a defense attorney would grab and run with, planting the suggestion in jurors’ minds that Anita was asking Jenn to shoot herself. A clever defense lawyer could argue that Jenn was suicidal.
Jenn had clearly been involved in something that was out of her league, and she was trapped between a jealous, punitive husband and, possibly, a masochistic game-player.
Jenn died without ever having seen even a picture of Anita. However Jenn had pictured this stranger in Missouri, she might have been surprised had they ever met. The woman who had written to her had long, straight, black hair, and very dark eyes, rimmed with black eyeliner. She had a rather sharp, pointed nose and Slavic flat cheekbones, slightly pitted with acne scars. She was short and thin, and neither particularly pretty nor homely. Whatever “magic” she possessed for Jenn had to have been in her false persona, in that image she painted of a tall, handsome man. There was a certain darkness about Anita—so different from the warmth that characterized Jenn.
Anita had been very accomplished in portraying Sir Tank. Now she seemed sincere in wanting to make sure that Bart would not walk away without being punished for Jenn’s death.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
DECEMBER 15–16, 2004
IT WAS EASY ENOUGH to check on the whereabouts of Anita Hearn on the night of December 3–4. She had been in Missouri, talking on the phone with Jenn. And Bart had been in his home until about 9 P.M.
The big question was, Where did he go after that?
That was answered when the Gwinnett County grand jury met on December 15. District Attorney Danny Porter had subpoenaed four men to testify at that legal proceeding: Brad Corbin, Bart’s twin; Bobby Corbin, his younger brother; Kevin Lyttle, his friend, the man they called “Iron” or “Iron Head”; and another acquaintance, Brian Fox. Although they were clearly uncomfortable at having any role at all in the investigation into Jenn Corbin’s murder, Bart’s brothers and friends had no choice but to appear before the grand jury.
The investigation thus far had brought forth the information that Bart Corbin had spent at least some of the missing hours between the time he walked out of his home—until he was notified of his wife’s death the following morning—with these men in the Wild Wing Cafe in Suwanee. None of them were particularly forthcoming when they were served with subpoenas or at the grand jury hearing. According to Bart, who spoke occasionally now through his attorneys, he had been some distance away from his house on Bogan Gates Drive after he left late in the evening of December 3. He said he hadn’t gone home at all that night, and that he slept at his brother Bobby’s house.
Kevin “Iron” Lyttle told DA Porter that he had known both Bobby and Bart Corbin for about thirteen years. He said he had “in-depth” conversations with Bart, but asked to describe them, the only specific topics he mentioned were football games and the time his car was stolen. Lyttle said he knew Jenn Corbin only as his friend’s wife. In the recent past, however, Bart had begun to discuss his failing marriage with him.
“We were at Bob’s house watching the game, and he just blurted out during the halftime show that he’d found she had a second cell phone.”
“Did he tell you that he had called numbers on that second cell phone?” Porter asked.
“Right…I really don’t get involved in other people’s relationships. I don’t ask, you know. If they talk about it, you know, I listen, but I don’t dig into anybody’s personal business.”
“And I understand that,” Porter said. “But what I’m trying to get you to tell me is what has Bart Corbin told you specifically about his relationship with his wife, and how that relationship began to end, and what did he find that led him to believe she was having an affair?”
“I guess he found some notes, and I guess he found the cell phones and then he called the numbers on the cell phone.”
“Now when he was describing this, what was his demeanor? What did he act like?”
“I guess he kinda suspected she was having an affair because she was on the computer all the time. And I guess [his] finding the notes—would probably confirm it.”
“Was he angry?”
“I wouldn’t say he was angry, no.”
Lyttle said he had learned that Jennifer was dead in a phone call from Bobby Corbin about 9:15 on Saturday morning, December 4. But Bobby hadn’t said how she died, nor had Lyttle asked.
“That was sort of back to your ‘Don’t get involved in other people’s business’ [approach]?” Danny Porter asked.
“No. I was kinda in shock and he asked me, ‘What time did he leave?’ and I said, ‘I don’t know.’”
Kevin Lyttle was one of the last people to see Bart Corbin late on Friday night.
“Since that conversation with Bob, have you had a conversation with Bart about the death of his wife?”
“No.”
It seemed that Lyttle had been either the soul of tact or just wasn’t very curious. He assured Porter and the grand jurors that he had never seen Bart Corbin angry during their thirteen-year friendship.
“Were you aware in the days after Jennifer Corbin’s death that there was some question about Dr. Corbin’s involvement?” Porter asked next.
“Yes.”
“Why didn’t you come forward this week?”
“I was working at that job and if I missed a day, or any time at all, I would have been fired.”
“So you couldn’t come forward, you couldn’t even call the police, and say, ‘Corbin was with me that night’?”
“I figured they’d be at my house sooner or later.”
According to Lyttle’s testimony, he, Bart, and another friend, Brian Fox, were to have had dinner at the Mexican restaurant and bar Dos Copas, in Hamilton Mill, on the Friday night Jenn was shot. But Bart hadn’t shown up. At about ten, Brian had called Bart, who assured him he was on his way. Bart did arrive shortly thereafter, and Lyttle hopped into his truck. The three men then drove to the Wild Wing Cafe.
Both Fox and Lyttle noticed that Bart was quiet and that he seemed “a little stressed.” That didn’t surprise them since they both knew he had filed for divorce from hi
s wife that week. The three men drank beer and watched a football game.
Fox told the grand jurors that Bart had brought up his marital situation a couple of times, but that both he and Lyttle had told him they didn’t want to know his personal business. “We told him,” Fox said, “we just want to relax, blow off a little steam, watch a ball game.”
Neither man knew Jennifer Corbin any more than to wave hello to her once in a while.
Investigator Kevin Vincent had obtained a copy of the bar tab from the Wild Wing, a $35 bill Brian Fox paid with his Visa card. The three men left the café at 1:07 A.M. Over their three hours there, they downed fourteen bottles of Miller Lite beer. Kevin Lyttle, who was to have been the designated driver, testified that he had had one beer, Brian Fox admitted to eight, and said that Bart had had about six before they switched to water.
“I wouldn’t consider myself very intoxicated at all,” Fox testified. “Or him” (meaning Bart).
Nevertheless, they had agreed that Bart would stay at Kevin’s house rather than drive on to Bogan Gates in Buford. As Kevin Lyttle took the wheel of Bart’s Chevy pickup, he realized he was out of coffee for breakfast, and he and Bart had stopped at the Wal-Mart in Hoschton to buy some. By the time they got to Lyttle’s house, it was 1:35 A.M.
But Bart had changed his mind. He didn’t want to spend the night at Iron’s house, and no amount of arguing from his old friend would dissuade him.
“I took his keys so he wouldn’t drive,” Lyttle told the grand jury. “It wasn’t that he was sloppy drunk or nothing. He had more than one beer—so he’s probably gonna get a DUI or something. I took his keys and he wanted to leave. I went into the master bedroom and put his keys in my dresser, so he wouldn’t get up and leave—and I went to the bathroom. And he was—the whole time—he was ‘I wanna go, I need to go.’ I told him to stay on the couch, and I was going to bed, and then I went to the bathroom. As I was coming out of the bathroom, I heard him say he had his own keys—another set of keys.
“And he left.”
AS THE GRAND JURY HEARING continued, the timeline was narrowing. Jenn Corbin had probably died somewhere between 2 and 3 A.M. that morning. Steve Comeau had heard the sound of what he thought was Bart Corbin’s pickup truck approaching close to 2 A.M., and then heard a truck leaving about fifteen minutes later.
Bobby Corbin was next. He was more expansive than the men who had gone to the Wild Wing Cafe with Bart, and more at ease on the witness stand. He recalled that he had met Jenn first—at Barnacle’s where he was the doorman and she was the bartender. “She kind of met Bart through me when he came to see me.”
Bobby said he lived in Auburn, Georgia. He gave his place of employment as a car dealership in Braselton, a job he’d held for nine years.
Danny Porter hastened to inform the grand jurors that he and Bart’s younger brother knew each other, and Bobby agreed that he and the prosecutor were members of the same gym, although they were mere acquaintances.
Bobby said he was close to Bart, although they didn’t see each other as often as he would like. They played golf, watched football games—usually at Bobby’s house. He had been aware of the difficulties in Bart’s marriage, and he had talked to Heather about it. Both of them had wanted to be sure that Dalton and Dillon were okay, but he hadn’t wanted to meddle in someone else’s marriage.
“She [Heather] said when she listened to Bart, then she was mad at Jenn, thinking she was being an idiot, and then next time she was talking with Jenn and [then] Bart was being an idiot. I told the same thing to Jennifer when she told me they were not talking. I said, ‘Bottom line is you either want to fix it or you don’t—if you want to fix it, you need a third party because neither one of y’all are opening up in any shape or form.’”
Bobby testified that as far as he knew, Bart had never stayed away from his home overnight, not even as he filed for divorce. And Bart told him he needed to move his truck to Bobby’s house because it was in his company’s name, and he didn’t want it sitting in the driveway at Bogan Gates. “So I came by before work, picked him up, went to get his truck, and drive it over to my house, and she happened to drive back up.”
There had apparently been nothing ominous about that encounter. He had asked Jenn how she was, and she said “Okay,” and that she was doing fine, and walked inside the house. Bobby had never seen her again.
“When did you learn that Jennifer Corbin had been killed?” Danny Porter asked Bobby Corbin.
“That would have been the 4th, I believe, between 8:30 and 9:00 A.M. Mama called me.”
“Where was Bart when your mother called?”
“Sitting across from me at the breakfast table.”
“When your mama called, what did she tell you?”
“She was a little upset, obviously, and she said ‘They are calling you,’ and I said, ‘Who is calling me?’
“Steve, which is the neighbor across the street. He said that Jennifer was dead—that she had been shot and they were saying that Bart did it. I said, ‘Well, he is sitting right here with me.’”
Bobby Corbin said he had been “flabbergasted,” and didn’t know what to say, that he and Bart had just been talking about going to Dalton’s basketball game at eleven that morning.
“I looked at my brother and asked, ‘You have something to tell me,’ and he says, ‘No,’ but I knew something wasn’t right.”
Bobby told Danny Porter that he had asked his wife to take his children upstairs, and then he called Steve Comeau.
“I said, ‘Steve, what is going on?’ and he said, ‘Well, Jennifer is dead.’ [And I said] ‘Yeah, my mama said that, but what is going on?’”
There was little question that things had been chaotic in Bobby Corbin’s house. Bart had run upstairs, and was vomiting, something he always seemed to do when he was upset. Bobby testified that his own plan was to drive with Bart over to the house on Bogan Gates, but then Heather called and accused Bart of shooting Jenn. And then Doug Tierney called, and asked where Bart was.
“Right here.”
“When did he get there?”
“Early this morning.”
“How did he look?” Doug asked.
Bobby said he had looked fine.
Danny Porter said, “Let’s talk about that. What time did your brother arrive at your house on the morning of December 4th.”
“My dog barked, and that is when he probably got there. My wife said about 2:30. I cannot look at the clock, and say when he came in.”
“Did you even get out of bed?”
“Initially, no.”
“He came into the house?” Porter pressed.
Bobby explained that Bart hadn’t come in at that point. He could have entered the garage, because since the problems with Jenn had escalated, he’d given Bart the code to his garage door so he always had a way to get in, but he apparently couldn’t unlock the door to the house itself because he didn’t know where the spare key was.
“He said he went around back to see if another door was open, and that’s when the dog barks again. He told me he didn’t want to wake me up, so he was going to sleep in my Suburban, which was parked in the garage. When it started getting cold, he called me on my cell and I went down.”
“About what time in the morning?” Porter asked.
“The phone call was at 3:23.”
“He called you on your cell, you woke up, and where was he?”
“When I came down, he was at my garage door.”
“Did you let him in?”
“Yes.”
“And what would you describe as his demeanor at 3:23 in the morning?”
“He had been out with the guys, but he wasn’t—I mean—walking—staggering. I mean his demeanor was fine. He’d had a few beers, but that was about it—nothing drastic.”
“He didn’t seem agitated or upset?”
“No—no.”
Bobby said he had pointed toward a recliner, given Bart a blanket, and gone back to bed. They both s
lept until about seven. Except for the fact that Bart had shown up in the middle of the night, everything was normal until Steve Comeau called. Bart was calm until he heard Bobby’s voice change when he heard the news about Jenn. Then he had begun to shake, and Bobby was afraid he was going into shock. He wasn’t sure which of them had decided not to go over to Bart’s house and talk to the police, but once Bart heard that his sons were with Steve and Kelly Comeau, he felt they were okay. The more the brothers discussed what they should do, the more reluctant they were to go to Buford. Feelings were running high, and Jenn’s family were already pointing fingers at Bart by then.
“WHERE DID YOUR BROTHER tell you he was between 1:40 in the morning and 3:30 when he showed up at your door?” Danny Porter asked.
Bobby repeated his earlier testimony about the two times his dog had barked, and Bart’s explanation that he couldn’t find the spare key. As far as Bobby knew, Bart had slept in the Suburban in his garage until he got cold. He wasn’t sure about when Bart left the Wild Wing Cafe or parted from Kevin Lyttle.
“So,” Porter pushed. “In other words your brother has not discussed the specifics of that event with you that night? Your brother denied to you that he had any involvement in the death of his wife?”
“He said he had nothing to do with it.”
“But his only story is that he left Kevin’s and drove to your house?” Porter continued.
“Um, hum.”
Asked to estimate the time it would take for Bart to make that drive, Bobby said his brother had a “lousy sense of direction,” and would likely have taken the long way from Kevin Lyttle’s house to his own. “Probably about thirty minutes.”
Then where was Bart during the almost two hours when no one saw him in the wee hours of December 4? Any convincing alibi virtually depended on his whereabouts when Jenn was shot. The investigators would have to chart time and distance precisely. It was certainly possible that Bart had gone directly to Bobby’s garage, and, half-drunk, had crawled in the Suburban and gone to sleep. Maybe Steve Comeau had heard a stranger’s truck at 2 A.M., just before Jenn died.