Love And Lies

Murder Exposes The Secret Lives Of A Suburban Couple

(CBS) 
After months of repeated questioning by investigators, Wilson had finally broken. He confessed to giving his good friend Bart a gun, just four days before Jennifer died.

In a statement videotaped by police, Richard Wilson told investigators that Bart Corbin had contacted him. "He said that he thought his wife was fooling around on him and he thought he needed a gun to protect himself, he knew I had guns and asked me if I had one. So he came down here and got it."

And the gun Wilson gave him was the same gun used to shoot and kill Jennifer.

Porter says “I about fainted” when he heard Wilson had confessed. “We had the murder weapon in Barton Corbin's hands four days before the killing," he says.

When Porter broke the news to Bart’s attorneys, they immediately realized their case was mortally wounded. "We go from 'I'm ready for trial. We're gonna kick your ass in both jurisdictions. Let's rock and roll,' to, 'Can I save this guy's life?'” Bruce Harvey remembers.

To spare Jennifer and Dolly’s families the agony of two trials, Porter approached the defense team with a plea deal. Bart would be spared death in exchange for confessing to the murders of both women.

The families waited for a response. "I was very uptight. I was emotionally just wound up. I knew it was the most important moment in this whole 16 years," recalls Barbara Hearn.

That moment came on Sept. 15, 2006, when the man who thought he could get away with two perfectly planned murders took the deal.

Corbin had to face the two families he had lied to, and admit to killing Jennifer and Dolly. In court, Corbin confessed to killing his wife.

"There was no reaction. There was no emotion. It's just sorta like looking into the eyes of a shark and there's nothin' there," Porter recalls.

Corbin gave his second confession to Danny Craig, the district attorney handling Dolly Hearn's case.

The victims’ families finally got their chance to face Bart Corbin in court. Jennifer’s father, Max Barber, was first.

"First of all, Bart, what you're doing today is the right thing to do. Admitting the murder of Jennifer and Dorothy," Barber said. "God might forgive you. I never will. I speak for my family when I say I just virtually hope you burn in hell. That's all I have to say."

Dolly’s older brother, Carlton Hearn, Jr., spoke for the Hearn family. "Bart Corbin stole from me. He stole from my family. He stole from the world. He deserves no place in society. "

Dolly Hearn’s mother, Barbara, says she never got the answer to the one question on everyone’s mind: why? “Why did it have to be like this? Why couldn’t you just walk away?”

Bart's brother Bob didn’t have any answers either. "We chose to back the guy we believed in. And we turned out to back the liar," he says. "Had I known he had done it, they would a got him. It's that simple. He took a mother from her kids, took somebody's daughter."

Jennifer’s sister Heather, who is raising Dalton and Dillon with her husband Doug, says it is time to look ahead.

"We are not going to let this destroy our family," she says. "We'll move on but we will never forget. And we will never - I don’t think we’ll ever be able to forgive."

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Bart Corbin was given two life sentences to be served concurrently. He could be eligible for parole in 2020.

In April, Dolly Hearn was awarded a posthumous degree in dentistry from the Medical College of Georgia.