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At approximately 3.15 a.m. on 2 August 2015, eight-year-old Irish girl Sarah Corbett Lynch was lifted from her bed by a Davidson County police officer and carried downstairs, shielded from the chaos that had broken out around her.
Hours passed before Sarah learned that her beloved father Jason was dead. And the people who killed him were Sarah’s stepmother Molly Martens and her father Tom.
Now Sarah tells her story for the first time and reveals the startling truth of life behind closed doors in her family’s suburban North Carolina home.
Sarah recalls the weeks and months leading up to that night in August, and the use of manipulation and gaslighting by Molly Martens – the only mother she had ever known. She describes the traumatic years after her father’s death as she and her brother Jack fought for justice from the safety of their new loving home in Limerick, Ireland, with Jason’s family.
A Time for Truth is a unique testimony of devastation, survival and hope, against the odds.
Sarah is an award-winning bereaved children and victims’ rights campaigner and one of the youngest authors in Irish history. Born in Ireland, her mother died tragically when she was twelve weeks old and later, when Sarah was four, her family moved to the US when her father remarried.
Sarah and her older brother Jack were left orphaned when their father, Jason Corbett, was killed by their stepmother, Molly Martens, and her father, Tom Martens, in August 2015. Sarah and Jack then returned to Ireland to be raised by Jason’s sister, Tracey, and her husband, Dave. This tragic loss instilled in Sarah a burning desire to campaign for other bereaved children and for victims’ rights and to help others impacted by violent crime, which she has actively done in the US and Ireland in the years since.
At just 13 years old, Sarah wrote an illustrated book, Noodle Loses Dad, to help children cope with bereavement and loss. Her book was later adopted by children’s rights groups, professionals, counselling services, and schools as a valuable teaching aid. For her work, Sarah received a special National Garda Síochána award and a Limerick Young Person tribute.
A native of Limerick, now living in County Clare, Sarah is also an accomplished singer, actor, and dancer. A qualified swim teacher and lifeguard, she loves to snorkel surf, and sea swim, and she recently qualified as a commercial diver with An Bord Iascaigh Mhara.