Free Deadly Divorces by Tammy Cohen Page B

the world existed only so far as he himself there was really no choice.
    On Friday, 15 September Barton Corbin faced a judge and the two families whose lives he’d destroyed and listened impassively as the details of the murders were outlined by the District Attorney. Then it was his turn to speak, which he did in a voice devoid of emotion.
    ‘I’m Barton Thomas Corbin. 12.22.63 is my date of birth. I’m 42 years old.’
    ‘Do you fully understand all of the charges against you in the case?’ He was asked. ‘Yes,’ he replied.
    ‘Has anyone used force or threats against you to plead guilty against your will?’
    ‘No,’ was his curt response.
    Then came the exchange everyone had come to hear: ‘Did you in fact commit the offence of malice murder to which you are now pleading guilty as it is outlined in the indictment?’
    This was the moment the families had been waiting for – the Barbers for 2 years, the Hearns for 16 – but would he actually go through with it? Would this arch manipulator and most calculating game player finally put an end to their torment or would he change his mind and drag it out, even if it meant risking his own life in the pursuit of ruining theirs? Their answer came in just one short glorious word.
    ‘Yes.’
    It was over. The sentence was to be two life terms served concurrently.
    Asked in the courtroom whether he had anything to say, Corbin declined but his victims’ families took the chance to address the court and the world’s media that had become engrossed in this case. ‘Bart Corbin has disgraced his profession and has stolen from mankind,’ said Dolly’s brother Carlton Jnr. ‘16 years of silence, 16 years of pain.’
    Jennifer Corbin’s father Max Barber clearly struggled with conflicting emotions as he faced the man who had robbed him of his daughter yet would be forever linked to the family as the father of his two small grandsons and the son-in-law he’d once loved. ‘The broken hearts of the Barber family, the Hearn family and the Corbin familycan’t be measured,’ he told Bart. ‘The hearts are going to mend. I can’t speak about your heart… what’s going to happen to you. God might forgive you – I never will. I speak for my family when I say I just virtually hope you burn in hell.’
    * * * * *
    On Bogan Gates Drive nestling between two houses there now stands a small park where children play and their mothers sometimes picnic on hot summer days. The granite marker in one corner of the park reads ‘Dedicated in loving memory of our friend and neighbour Jennifer Barber Corbin’.
    Are the dead really gone when so much of them remains in all they leave behind – in the laughter of their children, in the hearts of their families, in the very grass of the park that now bears their name? Barton Corbin hated the thought of divorce because he loathed the idea of losing anything he considered ‘his’. The irony is that in seeking to exercise the ultimate control over his wife, he ended up setting her spirit free while he himself faces the rest of his life locked up in a cell, a prisoner of his own ruthless ego. It is, after all, some kind of justice.

CHAPTER THREE
CROCODILE TEARS
    W ith his large, tortoise-shell framed glasses, dark suit, crisp white shirt and solemn demeanour, 44- year-old Garry Malone looked every inch the anxious husband as he made an impassioned television appeal for information regarding his missing wife, Sharon. His voice cracked with emotion as he entreated Sharon to get in touch, if not for his sake at least for their two young sons. ‘The boys are asking for Mum,’ he said, looking directly into the television cameras. ‘Please contact the police or your Dad and put our minds at rest.’
    It was December 1999 and 28-year-old Sharon – a trainee teacher – had disappeared from the family home in Cranborne Crescent, Potters Bar one month before. Noone had heard from her since. No wonder Garry was frantic with worry. His eyes