Until the trial, I had a bit of sympathy for him, because I visualized that he had walked into the crime scene, and tried to cover for his daughter by claiming involvement - not realizing that the crime scene would say "over kill". But when I saw his arrogance along with the evidence that he must have been actively assaulting Jason while J was close to death, then I lost my sympathy. There is a huge gulf between swinging a bat once or twice in self defense and standing alongside someone else to batter an unconscious man.
I saw a photograph in our local paper yesterday of an elderly couple walking hand in hand into court to "support their adopted son" who is appealing his murder sentence. This couple are supporting him by ensuring he has the legal resources he needs, and by showing up in court to hear the case - they are not supporting what he did. This couple looked absolutely shattered and devastated. I wanted to give them a hug and tell them they didn't need to feel any shame for what their son did. It is possible to support a family member who has done the wrong thing, without jumping up and down and insisting they are innocent.
Leaving out murder itself (sounds ridiculous, I know), my reasons for disliking Tom Martens are:
1: There is no doubt that he's an arrogant man who both felt superior to, and disliked Jason (and yet was williing to take his money towards the wedding).
2: He took rent from Keith Maginn even while the latter was caring for his ill daughter.
3: His story about what the 'uneducated' Mr Fitzpatrick was supposed to have said to him.
In defence of Tom Martens:
With regard to point 1, Jason wouldn't be the first son-in-law to fail to measure up to what a father felt his daughter deserved. Perhaps he was willing to take money from Jason because he'd be giving that back to Molly one way or another, anyway. So if the marriage was good then it would be no loss to the couple.
On point 2, it may have been what the straitlaced Mr Martens felt was keeping the landlord/tenant relationship on a 'correct' basis.
As for point 3, he needed a backstory for the jury to forgive the overkill, so he invented the encounter with Mr Fitzpatrick. By describing the man as uneducated and difficult to understand he was making the lie slightly less bad, overall, because he was allowing for the interpretation that he had misheard the man. So although Mr Fitzpatrick had never said it, Tom had thought that he might have. And in fairness, he didn't make any claims about having had any suspicions that Molly was being abused before that night.
We don't know if Tom was a neglectful father or not but if he was innocent of murder and yet prepared to put his freedom on the line to help
his daughter then that must count for something. It's far from pure considering the lies involved, not least the implication that Jason was a brutal man, but still...
However the bottom line is, did Tom hit Jason or not?
Could the blood spatter on him just be from coming upon Molly hitting Jason?
Why did he wipe the bat if it would not have had her prints on it?
If Tom did hit Jason then, clearly he's serving the sentence he deserves.
Are we really certain he did though?
