True Crime Campfire - Possession: The Story of Bart Corbin, Pt 1

Episode Date: February 18, 2022

A little mystery can be fun in a relationship. It keeps things interesting. You don’t have to share every thought that passes through your head, or tell all your best stories on the first or second date. Keeping your partner guessing about a few things can add a little spice. You shouldn’t feel like you have to make your life an open book. But if you end up with someone who won’t even let you take a peek at the very first page, that’s a red flag. This is the twisting, turning story of a marriage built on secrets—some of them so potent, so poisonous, that they began to eat at the relationship from the inside out. Some secrets can be harmless, but some you take to the grave. Join us for the story of Dr. Bart Corbin, a dentist whose charming exterior hid a dark past, and a smoldering rage so powerful that it swallowed the lives of at least two women.Sources:Ann Rule, Too Late to Say GoodbyeCBS "48 Hours," episode "Love and Lies"https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna15253153https://www.oxygen.com/a-wedding-and-a-murder/crime-news/dentist-bart-corbin-pleads-guilty-murdering-girlfriend-wifeFollow us, campers!Patreon (join to get all episodes ad-free, at least a day early, an extra episode a month, and a free sticker!): https://patreon.com/TrueCrimeCampfireFacebook: True Crime CampfireInstagram: https://gramha.net/profile/truecrimecampfire/19093397079Twitter: @TCCampfire https://twitter.com/TCCampfireEmail: [e-mail] a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/true-crime-campfire--4251960/support.

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Hello, campers. Grab your marshmallows and gather around the true crime campfire. We're your camp counselors. I'm Katie. And I'm Whitney. And we're here to tell you a true story that is way stranger than fiction. We're roasting murderers and marshmallows around the true crime campfire. A little mystery can be fun in a relationship. It keeps things interesting. You don't have to share... thought that passes through your head or tell all your best stories on the first or second date. Keeping your partner guessing about a few things can add a little spice.

You shouldn't feel like you have to make your life an open book. But if you end up with someone who won't even let you take a peek at the very first page, that's a red flag. This is the twisting, turning story of a marriage built on secrets. Some of them so potent, so poisonous, that they begin. to eat at the relationship from the inside out. Some secrets can be harmless, but some you take to the grave. This is Possession, the story of Dr. Bart Corbin. So, campers, for this one, we're in Gwynette County, Georgia.

December 4th, 2004, 7.30 a.m. Kelly Como and her husband, Steve, were still in bed when they heard a frantic banging on the front door. Throwing on a bathrobe, Kelly ran to see who it was. Her heart was already pounding, because you know at 7.30 in the morning, it's probably not going to be anything good. When she'd look through the little window beside the door to check who was there, she was shocked to see little 7-year-old Dalton Corbyn, one of the neighbor's kids. He was red-faced and crying and still wearing his pajamas. Dalton, she said, throwing open the door and hustling him in. What's going on, honey?

Dalton was so upset he could hardly get the words out. There's something wrong with my mom. This, Kelly and Steve knew, was Jennifer Corbin, their sweet, thoughtful neighbor. Jen and her dentist husband, Bart, were going through a difficult time, Kelly knew, and she was immediately worried. She followed little Dalton back over to Corbin's house to see what the hell was going on and to check on Dalton's little brother Dylan. And it didn't take her long to find Jen.

She was lying in bed, not moving. Blood had run out of her nose and all down her face, shocking red against her skin. She was wearing only a nightgown, held together with a safety pin. It was obvious she was dead. Kelly grabbed Dalton and his five-year-old brother Dylan, who had just woken up and come out of his room and rushed them back to her house to call 911. Investigators arrived to find the same grim scene Kelly had, and they quickly discovered a gunshot wound to the back of Jen's head,

just slightly behind her ear. The gun, they found under the bedclothes. On the nightstand was an open bottle of wine and an almost empty glass. As they examined the bed, they realized there were some papers underneath Jen's body. Divorce papers, by the look of them. Hmm.

There didn't seem to be any signs of forced entry to the house. No defensive wounds on the victim's body, no signs of anything stolen, and no indications of sexual assault. The investigators took all this in, plus the divorce papers and the open bottle of wine, and they thought, yeah, this looks like a suicide. But it didn't fit perfectly.

There were a few things that didn't quite track. The position of the gunshot wound, for example. It'd be kind of an awkward angle for a self-inflicted shot. And then there was a location of the gun. It didn't seem likely that it would land in the place where they found it, if Jen had shot herself. And then there was the state of Jen's body. Now, obviously, this is not a hard and fast rule,

because everybody's different, but experienced detectives see a lot of suicides, sadly, and they know that women tend not to shoot themselves. They tend to think about how they'll look when their bodies are found, not like just for vanity, but because they don't want to leave a mess or traumatize the person who finds them any more than they absolutely have to. Jen Corbin's face was covered in blood, and she was wearing a ratty nightgown and no makeup. And then there were the boys.

Would a mother take her own life when she was the only parent at home with two, small children, when those children would be the ones most likely to find her body? I mean, it's not unheard of, but it seemed unlikely. Maybe someone had tried to make a murder look like a suicide here. The wine, the divorce papers scattered on the bed. Could it be staging? And there was something else that put a question mark beside the suicide theory. When the investigators reviewed the recording of the 911 call made from the neighbor's house,

they were surprised to hear the little voice of Jen's seven-year-old Dalton on the line. The dispatcher had asked to speak to him, and neighbor Kelly had put him on the phone. And when the dispatcher asked if anyone else had been in the house the night before besides him, his mom, and his brother, Dalton was matter of fact. Yes, my dad was home, he said. He's the one that killed my mom. Oh, wow. Wow. Okay. They quickly clarified. Dalton hadn't actually seen his mom shot, but he knew who did it, he said.

His dad had been angry at his mom for a while now. There was a lot of fighting. It had to have been him. The CSIs swabbed Jen's hands to test for gunshot residue, and detectives immediately set out to track down her husband Bart, who was nowhere to be found. As Jen's devastated family gathered together to try and help each other absorb this earth-shattering news, They tried to reach out to Bart, too.

Jen's sister Heather and her husband finally called Bart's brother, Bobby. Bobby's tone seemed odd, stilted. When they asked if Bart was with him, Bobby said, yes. But when they said, Okay, well, are you on your way over to get the boys? Dalton and Dylan were still with the neighbors. Bobby just went silent. No response.

It was bizarre. So you don't want to, I don't know, check on your kids real quick, Bart, my man? Since they just found their mom's body? Guess not. Yeah, they're fine. They're with the neighbors, right? Kids are resilient. Ugh.

Heather and her husband also called Bart's mom, but they couldn't get any straight answers out of her either. Where was Bart? Was he going to go get the kids at some point? Bart's mom just stonewalled. It seemed clear to Jennifer's family right from the, very first day that Bart's family was circling the wagons around him, closing ranks. And those two little boys who just lost their mother were being left in the dust.

Yeah, nothing suspicious about that, right? This is how an innocent husband always behaves when his wife is found shot to death. By the way, while they were trying to find out if Bart was planning on going to the neighbors to pick up the boys, Jen's family hadn't heard anything yet about Dalton's conversation with the 911 operator. So they had no idea that Dalton believed his dad was the one who shot his mother. But Bart showed no interest whatsoever in being with his boys on the scariest and most traumatic day of their lives. So finally Jen's sister Heather just went to pick him up herself. Poor kids. After hours of failed attempts, the Gwynett County police finally got a hold of Bart at his brother Bobby's place. But Bart refused to talk to them himself. So they had to play

a ridiculous game of telephone, relaying everything through Bobby, like, okay, well, Well, tell him we're going to need him to come in for an interview as soon as possible. Bart, they said they need you to come in for an interview. Fucking was. Yeah. Bart's brother, Bobby, told the cops that they'd been out drinking the night before, so Bart had come over to his place to sleep it off. And that was about all they got out of him,

or anybody else in the Corbin family that day. In fact, everybody who'd been out with Bart and Bobby that night before refused to talk to the cops. Meanwhile, Jen's family were frantic to do whatever they could to help. And most of all, they were adamant about one thing. Jen did not take her own life. She wouldn't do it

in the first place, they said, but with the boys in the house, where they'd be the ones to find her? Never, never in a billion, billion years. They knew she had to have been murdered. And just like seven-year-old Dalton, they had a clear idea of who must have done it. Bart, who was already stonewalling the investigation,

already leaving his own kids twisting in the wind at the worst moment of their lives. Bart, who finally, reluctantly, came to the police station with attorney in tow, seeming more annoyed than anything else. The mother of his children was dead, and Bart just seemed kind of irritated about the whole thing. And the police, while swabbing his hands for gunshot residue, couldn't help thinking about how he'd had plenty of time to wash up by now. But let's put a pin in all that for right now. Who was Bart Corbin?

Who was Jen? How did we get to a point where when a seven-year-old boy found his mother dead in bed, he immediately assumed it was daddy who killed her. As investigators would soon learn, it's a story with a lot of twists and turns, the kind you wouldn't believe was real if you hadn't seen it for yourself. Bart Corbin grew up in the 60s in a typical middle-class southern family. He had two brothers, a fraternal twin, Brad, and a younger brother, Bobby. Despite the whole twin thing, Bart got along better with Bobby.

They were both outgoing and funny and popular. while Brad was a little shyer, more reserved. According to crime writer Anne Rule, whose book Too Late to Say Goodbye was one of our sources for this case, the Corbans were very focused on outward appearances. Dad Gene was so determined to make sure his boys were sports stars that he donated money to their junior high

to build new athletic facilities. Some of the other parents, understandably, assumed he was trying to buy his kids' guaranteed spots on the teams they wanted to join, and, yeah, you know, and for God's sake, but he needs to take middle school sports this seriously. For real, I promise you, no matter who you are, your kid has the coordination of a drunk baby giraffe until they're like 16 minimum.

You do not need to buy your way onto a junior high football team. That's bananas. But, you know, people are intense about that shit in the South KT, remember? Flipping, what was her name, Wanda Holloway, tried to take a hit out on her daughter's cheerleading rivals? Yeah. Football and everything football-adjacent is serious business down here. And another thing that tends to be serious business in the South is sex education.

Sometimes that means arguing against letting your kids have any, of course. And when you do let them have it, it's not always the most informative or accurate. A lot of times it's just do it and you'll die of clahurpe-sifil media, leaving an army of unplanned babies for the state to raise. This was especially true in the 1960s, and Anne-Rul's theory is that one particular sex ed class had a formative effect on Bart Corbyn, helping shape the view of women he'd carry with him for the rest of his life. He had this real southern, real conservative teacher, and the guy basically reenacting that scene from mean girls decades before the movie was

ever made, told the boys, look, girls don't enjoy sex. They hate it. Okay, so if you're a considerate boyfriend, you're never going to try and talk them into it because they hate it like poison and they're only doing it because they love you. So have mercy on the poor little dumplings, okay? Which is, you know, a better message, I guess, than no means yes, but still, yikes. Yeah, yikes. That teacher was so close to getting the point, but then he veered off the fucking tracks hard. Okay, you be the health teacher, Whitney, and I'll be a normal human with a working brain. Okay. Um, so, son, you should never try to manipulate a woman into sex. It's wrong. Right, right, because you should always get enthusiastic consent.

No, no, it's because women hate sex, son. They just lay back and think about making biscuits and count the ceiling tiles till it's all over and they only do it because they want to have your babies. Oh, shit. Okay. You put your crazy pants on today, I see. Go take a cold shower, son. I think I had that teacher at school. That was pretty good. Pretty good. So probably in part to make Daddy proud.

And in part because he'd been led to believe that women had bear traps where their fun bits should be. Bart spent his entire high school career laser focused on football. Yeah, instead of his, you know, throbbing pubescent urges. Right. All three of the Corbin boys were pretty good athletes, and Bart had the size advantage, too. At 6'3 and 240 pounds, if he'd stuck with it, he probably could have played for a smaller university. But instead, Bart decided he wanted to go to the University of Georgia in Athens. He did walk on in his freshman and sophomore years there, but he ended up having to drop the football.

He just couldn't keep it up and study at the same time. It was at U.G. where Bart learned that women did, in fact, enjoy sex. Gasp. At 19, he met a girl, and Rule calls her Shelly in the book. We're not sure what her real name is. And they hit it off. In fact, Shelly pursued him, which must have come as a shock given what his teachers had taught him about girls. Shelly thought he was cute and she went after him.

And Bart was all over it. It was his first... Love. Yes, I put that in air quotes. Yeah, I could hear him. Shelly was from New York. She thought Bart's southern accent was charming, and he thought she was beautiful.

They fell pretty hard for each other, and at first, She felt like her handsome new man could do no wrong. She liked that he was easygoing and even keel, never acting jealous of any of her exes, never showing anger. He was a little bit vain, she noticed, like, liked looking at himself in the mirror,

fixing his hair, Miami Vice-style blazers and tank tops. But she just kind of thought that was funny. There was one thing that kind of gave her the ick, though. One time they were talking about their future plans after college, and Bart told her he wanted to be a dentist. She thought that was gross. She was like, ew, I couldn't stand to stick my fingers in somebody's mouth.

Bart just laughed. He said, well, I'm not in it for altruistic reasons. I subscribe to the Deep Pockets theory, meaning he was in it for the money. That was the first hint that Bart had a greedy streak about a light year-wide. One time, Bart bought a ticket in the student lottery and won tickets to the UGA versus Florida Gators game, a huge deal. Shelly would have been beyond thrilled to go, but before she even found out, Bart sold the tickets. The money was much more valuable. to him than the experience of taking Shelly to the game.

She couldn't believe it. For her, it would have been a once-in-a-lifetime experience, something they'd have remembered forever. Bart couldn't care less. Ech. He definitely wasn't what you'd call the sentimental type. Once, in the middle of a tiff, Shelley just kind of let loose and bared her soul about how she was feeling.

And Bart leaned in toward her and said, in the nastiest most mocking tone he could use. I wanted to smack you just then so I can imagine. God. So basically, although Bart treated Shelley well on paper, he wasn't what you'd call a nurturer caregiver type. And when Shelley met his family, she got a little peek into the dynamics that created him. For one thing, it was immediately obvious to her that youngest son Bobby was the family Golden Boy, T.M.

I mean, he was the best at football, after all. Shelly thought Bart's dad Gene was nice, but his mom, Connie? Ugh. Connie was a raging bitch to her. Like, just basically seemed to view her as the enemy, as Shelley later told Anne Rule. Like, how dare you? Try to take my baby boy away from me, you Jezebel. Can you say emotional incest?

Gross. Yeah. And we all know these moms, right? One of my boyfriends in high school had one. She hated me from the minute she clapped eyes on me, and she never even made the slightest attempt to hide it. Like, I was just the hobag who was trying to seduce her precious baby Lamekins away. And I was all of 15 at the time, by the way.

And he was 19, so, like, who was trying to corrupt who, lady? Anyway, Shelley could feel the bad vibes coming off Connie a mile away. One weekend, she and Bart went to visit Connie and Jean, and Connie just ignored them the whole time they were there, like, icy, cold, silent treatment. Ouch. And she never found out why either. It was just, like, no reason stated just icy cold. But in the end, though, it wasn't Bart's greed or weird family tensions or anything that broke up their relationship. It was just typical college romance stuff. Paths diverging.

She wanted to be a news anchor. She had since she was eight years old. But Bart wanted her to come with him to dental school. She just couldn't do it. She said, look, I didn't get a degree so I could become somebody else's accessory. Good for her, right? So eventually she threw the white flag and just broke up with Bart. Shelly would be the last woman to make it out unscathed. Born in Gwinnett, Georgia, Jennifer Barber grew up tall and statuesque and full of energy, one of those people who stand out of the crowd everywhere they go. She was a high achiever, but she sure as hell wouldn't stuck up about it.

She was hilarious, and she had a bit of a rep as a potty mouth, which that alone makes me want to be her friend. She was close with her family, her parents and her two sisters, Heather and Regel. Like her mom, Jen was creative, so passionate about all. art that after high school, she got a degree from SCAD, the Savannah College of Art and Design. She wasn't 100% sure what she wanted to do, though. She loved photography, but she was also really into interior design. She was one of those creative people who excel at so many different things that they can kind of get stuck trying to pick one. She had a great time in school,

but she wasn't sure where she was headed career-wise. She even went to nursing school for a while after graduation, and then ended up getting a job as a bartender at an oyster bar. She was 25, still just a baby, and she wasn't going to stress out too much about her career plans just yet. She wanted to be young and enjoy life, and she liked working at the oyster bar. She was famous all over town for kick-ass white Russians. Ooh, man, I love me a white Russian. That used to be one of my signature drinks back in the day when I could drink without immediately falling asleep, you know, good times. And it reminds me of the one and only time I ever had a huge public tantrum and kicked somebody out of my house, because, you know, I'm usually a delight. But it was St. Patrick's Day. I was

having a party, and some dipshit, who I barely even knew, decided it would be funny to give my little 12-week-old kitten some of his freaking white Russian. And she was a fucking weirdo, too. Like, she was a type of cat who'd actually drink it. Like, definitely. She was obsessed with, like, the weirdest non-cat foods. Like, she'd steal chewing gum out of my purse. One time I came home and there was just chewing gum and wrapper everywhere, because she had gotten, like, chewing gum out of my purse and chewed it. She liked peppermints and watermelon and, like, Sprite. She was obsessed with Sprite, odd duck. Like, I had to watch her like a hawk because she'd eat anything. So this asshole's leaning over, like, pouring, flipping white Russian into her water dish,

and I just flipped a switch, y'all. Like, I don't even remember. I kirked out, like, you would not believe. If I'd been physically capable of doing it, I'd have picked him up by his collar and thrown him down the stairs. I would have done it. I was like, get away from my cat, you fucking asshole. And I kicked him out of my house. And this guy referred to me as a psycho for like the rest of the time I knew him. It's like, yeah, I'm a psycho. You tried to poison a cat, and I, you know, yelled at you and hurt your little fee-fis. Ugh. A man calling a woman, he wronged a psycho? How groundbreaking? That never happens. Mm-mm.

It was at the oyster bar where Jen, 25 at the time, met 31-year-old Bart Korman. Bart's brother Bobby worked there, too, and he introduced them. It was 1995, and Bart had graduated from Dendell School by then. So now he was Dr. Bart Corbin. Uh-la-la. On paper, Bart was a heck of a catch. He was good-looking in a

Ken doll sort of way. Emphasis on the doll. Yeah. His eyes are like a doll-sized guys. He dressed well. He worked out, and he was funny too. When they went out with friends, he'd have everybody laughing their asses off.

Jen liked that he was tall. Not many guys she dated were actually taller than she was. As a tall girl myself, I can relate to this. Although, don't get me wrong, I am all about my short kings, too. It's all about the attitude. And in addition to all the other stuff, Bart had going for him. I mean, what's not to like about dentist income? I didn't even into that.

In the beginning of the relationship, Bart laid on the romance with a trowel. It was all champagne and candles and Mooney looks across the table. He made her feel special, the way she'd sometimes catch him kind of gazing at her when he didn't know she could see. Say it with me, campers. Love bomb. So, unsurprisingly, the relationship moved pretty quickly. That's one of the goals of a love bomber. Lock it down as fast as you can.

And if Jen noticed that Bart was often a little hard to read, if his humor sometimes seems, seemed a little bit sarcastic and biting, if he could even be a little secretive at times. Well, none of that seemed like a huge deal at the time. She was in capital L love, and she felt sure that Bart was too. And Jen's parents, Max and Narda, liked him, which was important to her. Her dad kind of hated that he swore a lot, but I mean, Jen did too. So that was kind of a wash. Bart definitely had his charms

and he was undoubtedly a smart guy Oh yeah He was even a member Campers I know you see it coming Of Mensa What's this now Number 5, number 6

Somebody needs to start keeping a tally I'm telling you We need to investigate these Mensa meetings We need a Patreon tier That will If we hit that tier We will take the Mensa test and try to get in.

I think the FBI needs to investigate the men's meetings. We can be there moles. Yeah, I'm up for that. They hadn't been dating long when Bart invited her on a trip to Italy. He was headed there for a dental conference, and he decided to turn it into the trip of a lifetime for Jen. Super mega, ultra, romantic. Of course, neither Jen nor her family knew that Bart was secretly seeing

other women, including one who was two decades his senior. Interesting. Whoa. Got a little mommy thing going on there, Bartholomew? The other girlfriend was an office manager at the dental practice where he worked, and she was married, so their affair was very much on the hush-hush. It seems like maybe he wasn't quite as head over heels for Jen as he made out to be. If Jen had known about Bart's side interests? She almost certainly would have sent him pack in and moved on with her life, but he made sure she didn't and kept on giving her the full court press of hearts and flowers. And not long after that fairy tale trip to Italy, Jen called her parents with some big news. She was pregnant, she said, and she and Bart had talked it over and come to a decision. They were going

to get married and raise this baby together. Jen's mom Narda was surprised. At first, she'd never really seen her daughter as the mom type. Jen was always so focused on developing as an artist, figuring out where she wanted to go career-wise, but she could see how excited Jen was about the baby, and she realized she was going to be a fantastic mother. They planned the wedding on the fly, so Jen wouldn't be showing at the ceremony, but it was beautiful all the same.

There was just one thing that kind of struck a wrong note for Jen. Bart spent, like, a lot more on his own wedding ring than he did on hers. Hers was pretty, but real simple, but Bart's had a big old pricey diamond set into it. And when she mentioned it, he was just like, oh, you know, I have to maintain a certain image now that I'm starting my own dental practice. People expect it. Uh-huh. Gross. So they got married, they moved to Beaufort, Georgia, Bart opened up his own practice, and they were all set to have their baby and start life as a brand new family.

So we told you Jen didn't know about Bart's extracurricular role. romances, right? Well, unbeknownst to her, those kept right on trucking along. Wedding rings or no? In fact, Bart's married main squeeze, well, second main squeeze next to Jen, came to the wedding, which is just, wow. It's an odd dynamic, actually. This girlfriend actually advised Bart to marry Jen when she found out she was pregnant. I mean, the girlfriend couldn't, because she was married already. And she later told Anne Rule that Bart was really angry about Jen's pregnancy. But marrying her was the right thing to do, the girlfriend told him, and she said she felt like Bart genuinely did love Jen, which given what we're about to find out, says a lot about this poor woman's

definition of love. Boy. Bart's affair with this woman, which started before he met Jen, went on for years and years after he married her. And the mistress apparently liked Jen a lot and managed to convince herself that what Jen didn't know wouldn't hurt her. She and her husband actually socialized with Bart and Jen sometimes, which is just yikes. Yikes. And there were some Other things Jen didn't know about her newly minted hubs, too. For example, Jen didn't know that as a dentist, Bart wasn't what you'd call top of the class. He'd squeaked by in dental school because he worked really hard, but he didn't really have the right stuff. And his patients sometimes paid the price for that.

You mean greed doesn't make good doctors? I'm shocked, Whitney. Appalled even. So, y'all, this is a weird thing to put a content warning on, but just so, you know, we apologize in advance. to anybody who already has a phobia of dentist, because if you don't, you might by the end of this story, okay? It's fair warning. So one woman went to him to get crowns on her front teeth. Bart was very reassuring at that first appointment. He's bragging about how good he was at putting on crowns and telling her not to worry about a thing. And so she came back, she saw him for two

sessions, both of which ended up lasting twice as long as he said they would. And Dr. Bart was a hot mess the entire time. Kept getting all flustered and sweaty and, and like yelling at his hygienist and swearing under his breath, he struck her as completely off the rails, which is not the vibe you want from a guy who's poking around in your mouth with sharp instruments, right? Mm-mm. At one point, this poor woman started hemorrhaging during the procedure, and Bart, like, clearly had no idea how to stop it.

His hands were shaking, and as this poor woman started literally choking on her own blood, Dr. Bart just, like, dropped his head into his hands and said, he didn't know how to stop the bleeding. He didn't actually have any experience with this type of procedure. He finally said, I'm sorry, you what? Holy absolute shit. So she just leapt up out of the chair and just ran the fuck out of there to find an emergency dentist who, of course, fixed her right up. Bart had the gall to charge her $2,000 for this experience, which of course she disputed and complained about to the state board, and she got her money back.

But, like, the board didn't censure him or anything like that, which is really kind of. kind of terrifying. He just went right on practicing, albeit with his reputation a little bit tarnished. The first few months of her marriage to Bart, Jen was pretty much floating around in a pink cloud of joy. She'd found her man. She was getting ready to be a mom. What could be better? But it didn't take long for Bart's mask to start slipping. Before they were married, he pulled out all the stops to love bomb her into delirium. But once he had her lockdown, it was like a switch flipped. And Bart said about assaulting Jen's ego. He nitpicked everything she did.

He didn't like it when she polished her nails. He hated it when she cleaned the house while he was home from work. She should be spending that time with him. But at the same time, he expected the house to be spotless. He criticized her all the time, called her a bimbo, said she'd never be his equal. And he liked to remind her that although he'd chosen her as his wife, he was a doctor. Oh, my God. Which obviously meant he was always going to be the one in charge.

I don't remember that line in the Hippocratic oath, do you? No, I think that's in there, right? It's like right after the part about making sure the diamond and your wedding ring is a lot bigger than your wife, so the bitch won't get ideas above her station. And then after that, it's due no harm. I think that's how it goes. Okay. Yeah, yeah. That sounds about right.

And, oh, my God. He was an asshole about money. Bart had always had a touch of Ebenezer Scrooge about him, and now Jen was getting an up-close look at just how controlling he was about finances. Jen couldn't spend a dime without consulting him first. He could fly into a tantrum over $10. And if he didn't hate this guy already, this will do it. Jen had a sweet dog named Sebastian, a big old yellow vassion.

and a very good boy. She'd had him for years since before she met Bart. Sebastian got along with everybody on planet Earth, except for Bartholomew Corbin. He hated him like poison. Anytime Bart got close to him,

Sebastian would snarl and growl, totally out of character for him. Dogs know, man. They always do. Mm-hmm. Bart hated Sebastian as much as the dog hated him. And one night, not long after the wedding, Jen called her parents in a panic. She said, you have to take Sebastian. Bart's going to kill him if I don't get him out of the house. Narda and Max were horrified.

They'd never seen Sebastian growl at anybody. They came and picked the puppy up and thank God Sebastian lived happily ever after with them, but it was unsettling for everybody in Jen's family. Now, obviously, a lot of you are thinking, run, Jen, get out of there now. It can be hard to understand why people stay in relationships like this, but remember, we have to condense a huge story into an hour or two. Bart wasn't an asshole all day every day. There were good times, too. And like a lot of people in abusive relationships, Jen found ways to explain Bart's behavior to herself, ways to forgive him and hope things would get better. Yeah, I mean, I've been there myself. And believe me when I tell you, it is not as cut in

dried as it looks. And then Jen had her first child, baby Dalton. She loved Bart, she loved Dalton, and she wanted that family life. She managed to tell herself, Bart's just got kind of an abrasive personality. When he got into one of his moods, she'd just give him some space, and when they came back together, he'd usually be over it and things would feel normal. They had a lot of fun times along with the bad ones. They bought a houseboat, docked it next to the one Jen's parents owned, and had a ton of

like barbecues and parties on both of the boats, which sounds super fun, but the tensions always came back. After Dalton was born, Bart seemed to resent the time Jen spent taking care of him. He was impatient with the baby, surprise, surprise, and the more time that passed, the more Jen began to realize that her marriage wasn't normal. One time she asked her sister, Heather, do you ever wonder what your husband did or who he knew before you met him? Heather was like, what? What do you mean? Like, I know all that stuff about him. You don't, know that stuff about Bart? Nope, she sure didn't.

He'd always been close-mouthed about his prior relationships and pretty much his life in general before he met her. That's a red flag. Another time, she said to her, sis, God, don't you wish you could just give your kids cereal for breakfast sometimes? Once again, Heather was like, I do do that. I do that all the time.

What are you talking about? But Bart wouldn't allow it, Jen said. He told her, if you won't cook for my child, I'll find a woman who will. charming man ain't he a peach uh you cook for your fucking kids bart what the hell he's out there bust in his ass working with his giant terrible job at dental procedures and making people hemorrhage in the chair with his giant ring diamond ring you're right so nevertheless despite all of this stuff in 1998 jen found out she was pregnant again

she was excited and she hoped bart would be too she bought a silver rattle for him to let him know the big news, and it did not go as she expected. Instead of throwing his arms around her, he threw the rattle, box and all, across the room in a huff. After a little Dylan was born, he went right out and got a vasectomy. As the kids got older, Bart became more and more possessive of Jen's time. She was the archetypal supermom, baking and helping out at the kids' school and driving them around all their activities, but Bart got his boxers in a wad about anything that took her time and attention away from him. Meanwhile, he's having multiple affairs, but you know, he's a doctor, so, you know. And he wasn't what you'd call a nurturing dad. At the kids' little league games, he'd

scream at him from the sidelines, because of course, in his mind, their performance reflected on him, so they better hustle. The other parents would just roll their eyes at him. And his work wasn't going too great either. He couldn't hold on to employees, because when anything went wrong, he'd just scream at him and swear at him. So people just... just quit on him, left and right. Bart could really roll out the charm and wit when he felt like it, but it seems like he was feeling like it, less and less. And as the years passed by, that took more and more of a toll on Jen.

And in 2003, looking for some stress relief, Jen discovered a new interest. An online RPG called EverQuest. Remember EverQuest? You could team up with other adventures online and go on all these high fantasy quests, racking up treasure, fighting dragons, all that Rasmataz. nerd stuff. I love it. At first, Jen mostly played with her mom, who was also into the game. Then she started branching out and interacting with other players.

And one with the username Sir Tank soon caught her attention. They started chatting about their lives in between boss fights, and before long they took their conversation off the game and into email. Brings back big memories of meeting my husband on Neil Gaiman's message boards in 2002. Ah, the early days of the Internet. such innocent times. I know y'all see where this is going. Jen soon found out that her new friend Sir Tank

was really a guy named Chris, sweet, funny, and kind-hearted. And Jen was falling for him fast. Chris seemed like everything Bart wasn't, in the best possible way. He was attentive, understanding, willing to be emotionally vulnerable, everything Jen wasn't getting from Bart.

And soon, Jen was confiding in him about her toxic marriage. She told him about how cruel Bart was to her, and Chris was horrified. He listened as she poured out all her worries. How much she wanted out of this abusive mess, but how scared she was to take the plunge. What effect would it have on the kids? How would she support them? Chris confided in Jen too.

He told her about how he lived in Missouri with his sister, helping her raise her kids. That was another huge point in his favor. He loved kids. and Jen started allowing herself to daydream about what it might be like to start a new life with a new love. Jen had no idea what Chris looked like yet, but she increasingly felt like it didn't really matter to her. He was everything she was looking for in a man,

and he seemed every bit as into her as she was into him. They started talking about a future together, making tentative plans. It didn't take Bart Long to notice a change in Jen, where before she'd always fawned over him when he'd get into one of his raging moods, now she didn't even try to placate him. And she stopped sleeping with him, too. She'd gotten to the point where it made her skin crawl any time he touched her. Cutting off the sex supply really got Bart's attention, so much so, in fact, that he

trying to go to Jen's family for support. Talk some sense into her, blah, blah, blah. Jen's sisters were mostly ambivalent, but surprisingly her mom Narrow. did try talking to Jen. Think about what you're doing. Think about the kids, etc. Jen wasn't having it. She told her flat out that Bart disgusted her,

and she was leaving him. Jen had told her mom and sisters about Chris, but only the bare minimum, that he was a friend she met in the game and liked chatting with sometimes. They had no idea how far it had gone, that she and Chris were talking about Jen taking the boys and moving to Missouri to be with him.

But Jen was full seam ahead, and she was set about crafting an escape plan. She got a credit card in her own name and managed to scroll away about two grand in savings, some of which she used to buy some stuff she and Chris would need when she moved into her own place. That was going to be phase one of the plan, her own apartment across town. In early November of that year, she finally brought up divorce. But Bart wheedled and begged and convinced her to stay with her. him through Christmas, for the boy's sake. And then, a few weeks later, Chris suddenly went dark. They were emailing almost constantly all day every day, and then suddenly nothing.

Jen was practically frantic. She emailed him a dozen times, but no response. She felt panicky. She wondered if he died or something. Would there be anybody in his life who'd know how to reach her? Would anybody let her know what had happened? Finally, finally, Chris got back to her. His mom had been in the hospital, he said. But it wasn't just that. Jen could sense a change. His replies to her emails were short,

almost to the point of curtness, and he avoided answering her questions. After a few days of this, Jen was about to snap, and she let loose on Chris. Like, dude, you've got to tell me what the fuck's going on. You owe me that much. You owe me the truth. But when the truth came, Camper's,

it came down like a flaming meteor, leaving a big smoking crater where Jen's hopes had been. She'd always been frustrated with Chris for refusing to send her any pictures. He said he was insecure about his looks. She'd sent him some, and she was so beautiful, Chris said he just wasn't sure he'd measure up. He wanted to wait until he could take some really good ones.

And she'd noticed, too, that he never seemed to be able to arrange a phone call. Every time they planned one, something would come up. Now, as she read Chris's latest email, she understood why. Her online love, Christopher, didn't exist. Chris was really a woman named Anita in Missouri, who just liked playing male characters in computer games. Anita had told Jen a mixture of lies and truth, she explained. A lot of the life story she told Jen was true, but of course it was all piled on top of this massive flaming lie. She and Jen had done plenty of, I don't know what

you'd call it, not sexting exactly, because it was by email, but they'd written some very intimate things to each other. And Anita had always been careful never to reference any specific genitalia. The Jen, of course, was humiliated and heartbroken and furious. She'd felt a real, deep connection with this person that had apparently been lying to her for months. It was just a terrible betrayal, and it hit her like a kick in the face. And for a while, she just cut off all contact with Anita and grieved. But after a while, she found she couldn't bring herself to end things like that, and she reached out again. And amazingly, she and Anita started corresponding again. As far as everybody in Jen's circle knows, she was straight, and she'd never expressed any

romantic or sexual interest in other women, but after a while, she and Anita started tentatively talking about sticking to the plan that they'd made when Jen thought Anita was Chris. Not necessarily a romantic relationship anymore, more like a best friendship, but maybe we'll just see what happens kind of thing. Now, author Anne Rule thinks Jen was just kind of desperately clinging to a way out of her abusive nightmare of a marriage, and I think there might be something to that, but at any rate, Jen still fully intended to leave Bart. And on Thanksgiving Day, Bart found out about the affair, when he went snooping in Jen's purse and found a stack of printed out emails from Chris. At Thanksgiving dinner, the whole family could tell he was seething about

something. After everybody left, he punched Jen in front of the kids. And terrified, Jen packed a bag and scooped up the kids and went to stay with her sister, Heather. Poor little Dalton was so scared that he stayed plastered to Jen's side for days after this, afraid his dad was going to hurt her again. Bless his little heart. When Jen finally came back home, she was walking on eggshells. On December 1st, Jen came back from a run to find that Bart had rummaged through her purse again, stolen her cell phone, and gone through her. through all the numbers. Jen was pissed, told Bart to give her her phone back. Bart said he didn't know what she was talking about, and when she tried to confront him again, he ran out the front door

wearing only a towel, which must have been a real treat for the neighbors. He got in his car, in the towel, and Jen stood behind it trying to call 911, and Bart started backing the car towards her. Jen, of course, thought he would stop. He didn't. At the very last second, Jen tried to leap out of the way, but she didn't quite make it, and Bart backed over her foot. leaving a nasty bruise but fortunately no broken bones things were getting ugly jen took the kids and fled back to her sister heather's house and later that night heather was horrified when little dalton told her i'm scared that dad is going to kill mommy oh my god poor heather tried to take action on this she called bart's brother and his mom but nobody seemed to take it seriously even jen she reassured

Heather. No, no. Bart wouldn't kill me. He wouldn't hurt his own kids like that. Everyone wanted Jen to stay away, but there was a problem with that. As we've seen in previous cases, divorce lawyers always want to tell you not to leave the marital home. If you do, the court can think you're abandoning the property. And it can be a lot more likely that you'll lose it in the divorce. And I just want to say, that's a stupid fucking rule. So dumb. I hate that. I hate that. I hate stupid. Irresponsible. Fuck off. Yeah. So on December 2nd, because she didn't want to risk losing her house, Jen went back home again. On December 3rd, Bart made plans to go out drinking with his brother Bobby and some friends

while Jen stayed home with the kids. And we know what Dalton found the next morning when he went in to wake his mom up for breakfast. From the start, Jen's family knew it wasn't suicide. They knew Jen had no interest in guns and had never owned one herself, but Bart did own a shotgun. In fact, Jen had been concerned enough about it to mention it to her parents a few days before she died. Heather was so convinced that Bart had murdered her sister that she called 911 trying to reach the sheriff, who she knew personally. The 911 operator told her, ma'am, you don't understand what happened. Heather would later say, I knew I did not.

understand, and she didn't. So frustrating. Maybe take the family story seriously, assholes. I'm not kidding. The autopsy quickly put the final nail in the coffin of the suicide theory. First, there was no alcohol in Jen's system at the time of her death, making it pretty obvious that the wine bottle and half-empty glass were just props, elements of crime scene staging. Plus, the ME determined that the path of the bullet had severed Jen's brainstem, cutting all motor function. meaning it would have been impossible for her to move after that. The first responders had found the gun under the covers. Somebody had to put it there, and that somebody could not have been Jen.

Jen's cause of death was a single gunshot wound, and the manner of death was homicide. Since Bart wasn't cooperating with the investigation, the police quietly kept him under surveillance, and they soon learned an interesting tidbit of info. Bart had filed for divorce shortly before the murder. As the hours and days went by after the murder, Bart continued being distant with his kids. When Heather and her husband asked to pick up some of the boys' clothes and Christmas presents, Bart refused. Holy shit, what an asshole move.

Oh, God. Bart showed zero interest in helping to plan Jen's funeral. He did try to interfere, though. When Narda and Max went to the funeral home for the evening, excruciating process of picking out a coffin, they were informed that Dr. Corbin had arranged for Jen to be cremated. Narda was completely horrified. That wasn't what she wanted. She hadn't even seen her daughter since her death. She wanted to say goodbye, one last time. She understood that legally the decision was Barts, but she wanted, needed to see her baby. Fortunately, the mortician

understood, and he arranged for Narda to have some time alone with Jen's body. Narda remembered that day later in a conversation with Anne Rule, she said, I kissed her little face and her hands and her toes. It was my only chance to say goodbye to my sweet, Jennifer. There was nothing else I could do. An hour later, against her family's wishes, Jennifer Corbyn, was cremated. At the funeral, Bart sat silently, if a little jittery, through the whole service. It was a heartbreaking day for the people who loved Jen.

Dalton and Dylan had drawn pictures of their mom and hung him up beside the urn. During the eulogy, Heather praised her sister and expressed her anger that Jen's children had been robbed of their mother. And as she said that, she tried to make eye contact with the man she believed to take in her sister's life, but Bart wouldn't look at her. And when Narda asked if she could please take Jen's remains home with her so the boys could say goodbye in private, Bart hemmed and hawed and finally reluctantly said yes. But he made sure to remind Narda that the remains were his. Yes, Bart, make sure to remind everybody that Jen's ashes are your property. That's how I viewed her when she was alive.

So it makes sense, right? Some of the investigators were at the service, as investigators often are, just quietly watching the crowd, seeing if they could detect anything or anybody that looked amiss. After the funeral, Bart's family hustled him out of the church as fast as they could before the detectives could corner him for questioning. As the Barber family sat mourning the loss of their sweet, beautiful Jennifer, they didn't yet realize that there was a middle-aged couple in the crowd who knew exactly what they were feeling. A dentist and his wife had driven for hours to be at Jen's funeral, to pay their

respects to a woman they had never known in life. And as people filed out of the church after the service, they expressed their sympathies to Narda and Max, who later realized they didn't know who those nice people were. But they were soon to find out. Jen never knew anything much about Bart's past. It was something that always really bothered her, and her family was about to learn Bart's best-kept secret. See, Dr. Carlton Hearn and his wife Barbara knew Bart Corbin very well. Fourteen years earlier, when Bart was in dental school, their daughter Dolly had been involved with him, and broken things off. Dahlia died not long after. The cause of death was a gunshot wound to the head, and the local police,

had named the manner of death a suicide, but the Hearns knew better. For 14 years, they'd been waiting for a chance to bring the truth to light. They knew Bart Corbin had killed their daughter, and now he'd done it again, and they were going to make sure that this time, he paid. Okay, we're going to leave it there for Part 1, Campers. This is a big one. You know, we'll have another one for you next week. But for now, lock your doors, light your lights, and stay safe, until we get together again around the True Crime. campfire. And as always, we want to send a grateful shout out to a few of our lovely patrons. Thank you so much to Joy, Robbie, Karen, Carolyn, Laura, Megan, and Ann. We appreciate you to

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