BOOK REVEALS DISTURBING TIME FOR EVIL KILLER AT U.S. COLLEGE

KILLER wife Molly Martens' parents withdrew her from university after she was found sitting underneath a running shower, fully clothed, consuming soup and chips, at her student residence.

- BY BRIAN CARROLL

The college authorities were alerted after the residence, shared with about a dozen other students, all living in two-bed apartments off a central corridor, had filled with steam.

Detectives investigating Martens over the 2015 killing of her husband, Limerick man Jason Corbett, discovered the Tennessee woman had a reputation for erratic behaviour at Clemson University, a prestigious South Carolina college charging $7,200 (€6,174) per semester.

When North Carolina detective Michael Hurd interviewed some of Martens' former college associates, he was told she was a party girl who regularly missed classes and had dropped out before the end of the first semester in 2003.

Detective case notes released to me while researching A Deadly Marriage, a new book on the killing of Jason Corbett reveal a disturbing picture of Martens' time at Clemson.

Classmates found her mood swings unnerving - Martens was either morose or manic.

When Martens, then 20, was manic, her roommate, Jessica Thompson, would have to bunk in with other students because Martens liked to 'stay up all night making collages that she pinned to the wall'. When morose, Martens would fixate on a framed photograph she kept by her bed.