Too Late to Say Goodbye: A True Story of Murder and Betrayal (19 page)

Corbin: Yeah, I’ve got a lot to do for several days.

Gray: So you just went by there to just, generally talk to her. Right?

Corbin: Right. ’Cause, I mean, I had found out that morning that a patient of mine—one of the patients I was gonna use—this is sort of hard to explain without you being a dentist or something, you know. I mean the lesion they had wasn’t gonna work out the way I had planned it, and so I was sorta desperate for patients. I had been to Dolly’s before and the last couple of days I came to knock on doors and see if these people would come by just for me to take a look at then, and, ’cause—um—it—you know, it was almost like going up to a stranger, and she knew them at least, and that was the main reason I was coming up.

The two detectives noted that Corbin was nervous, stuttering and stammering, and still failed to show any sadness that the woman he had hoped to marry had been shot to death two days before. He was laboring over why he had been at her apartment, alternating between reasons. He denied going upstairs while he was there, and said he hadn’t taken a shower there.

Gray: You’re positive?

Corbin: I’m positive.

Gray: So did y’all come to some kind of agreement whether that y’all were gonna go out together?

Corbin: That night?

Gray: Yeah.

Corbin: No. She didn’t know if she wanted to go to that one party and I didn’t remember until later that I’d forgotten we had that dean’s [Dean Wallace Edwards] party to go to.

Gray: Did anybody call while you were there?

Corbin: I can’t remember if somebody called or not. It’s possible that maybe one person called—I can’t remember.

Gray: Do you remember what you were wearing?

Corbin: I don’t remember. I thought it was jeans and a T-shirt that time.

He had described two different outfits during his interview the day before. Still, Bart was doing a fairly good job of weaving this new version—where he admitted to being at Dolly’s apartment in the early afternoon—into his perambulations around the campus of MCG and Augusta. The message on Dolly’s answering machine supported his contention that they had talked about going to a party, although Bart continued to be very vague about whose party it was.

Corbin: I called Dolly because after we talked about that party, I remembered that I was supposed to be taking this other girl out to this other thing. And I called her [Dolly] back up to tell her I didn’t think we were gonna be able to hop over to this other party, but that I’d try to catch up with her later that night.

John Gray reminded Bart that he had phoned someone else on the afternoon that Dolly was shot, but he said he didn’t remember who that was.

Gray: Let me kind of refresh your memory. Did you call the hairdresser—to get your hair cut?

Corbin: Yeah, when I was at the school. I thought you meant when I went back to school.

Gray: All right. And you decided to get your hair cut?

Corbin: Right. She said she could fit me in, probably around 3:15 so I left at, like, three o’clock.

Gray: I need to ask you this. You were already up there where you were supposed to be to get your hair cut. Why did you drive all the way back and then decide to get your hair cut?

Corbin: Because I originally didn’t have an appointment at that time. I didn’t think I had time to get my hair cut because—or even—as I was driving back there, I was supposed to be working out at 3:30 with Scott. And—um—when I got, like I said, back to the house and took a shower to come back to the school, there was a message on my phone saying “I can’t make the appointment.” Because I had a patient show up the next day, so I had to take care of her. She was long distance. So I decided to call and see if maybe I could just get my hair appointment moved to that day. If she had space because she originally told me that she could fit me in like 1:15 or something like that, and at that time I didn’t think there was any way I was gonna be able to make it, because I was running over on some work.

The rest of Bart’s story about the time between 4 and 10
P.M
. was the same as he recalled in his first interview. He had worked out, gone to Dean Edwards’ party, and then gone to Vicky and Tony’s house.

Corbin: They live over by the Sweetheart Cup factory. I went to pick up some things they were keeping for me, and while I was sitting there, Tony was having a conversation with his momma, so I was hanging around just to see how it would come out. Vicky wanted me to go up to Eric Rader’s house.

Bart avoided telling Gray that he had gone to Vicky and Tony’s house to pick up his guns. Gray skipped over that and the moment Bart learned that Dolly had been shot to death. Instead, he asked if Bart had ever been to counseling—and, if he had, why? Bart acknowledged that he had, explaining that it was because he was stressed, both because of his studies, and about his relationship with Dolly.

Gray was puzzled. Corbin had clearly been intensely fixated on Dolly Hearn, but now his affect was flat—almost unconcerned—as he spoke of the last days of their being together.

Gray: I’m gonna ask you again, and we brought it up and I know it’s a long night, and I’m not trying to continue—we’re gonna cut it off very shortly. The situation with you and Dolly was, if I understand correctly—it was gonna come to an end?

Corbin: Yes, sir.

Gray: And when was that?

Corbin: When was the end gonna be?

Gray: Yeah.

Corbin: We didn’t ever set a date as far as I was concerned. It—the ending, I mean—if you’re talking in any kind of permanent sense. It was over. It had been over, really, for a while. It was just sort of a hanging on kind of thing. But, I mean, it was over for a few weeks. By this time, we had broke up off and on, off and on, so much [that] it was sort of nonchalant this time around.

Detective Ron Peebles cut in, saying to John Gray, “I know you interviewed him earlier, and he mentioned he had not been around the apartments up there [on Parrish Road]. For the record, I’d like to hear him state why he lied or failed to tell the truth the first time with you, John.”

Bart had a quick answer for that.

Corbin: I failed to tell the truth because, back in January, Dolly’s father was under the impression that I had done certain things to her, which she had told him, and he made, in so many words, verbal threats to me back in—it was probably the second week in January, which I cannot prove because I was the only person there, and I was alone that day. And I did not want to be connected in any form with any kind of thing that might have went on or had any influence on it because of fear for myself.

It was a truly rambling explanation. This tall, healthy, and muscular young man appeared to be terrified of Dr. Carlton Hearn, a slender man thirty years his senior, or so he wanted to imply. Dolly’s father had, they understood, warned Corbin not to hurt his daughter, but he hardly seemed to be a man who would act violently toward anyone.

Gray continued his questioning implacably.

Gray: Would it also be fair to say that this part of the story was not completed for reasons that you were possibly fearful that the authorities would be looking at the circumstances in a suspicious manner?

Corbin: I guess, subconsciously, but that wasn’t my main concern.

Gray: Your concern about the whole thing was the fact that you thought her daddy would hold you responsible. Is that correct?

Corbin: And I still do.

The interview was coming to an end, but when John Gray asked Bart if he had anything to add, he said he wanted to mention other men that might have been dangerous to Dolly.

Corbin: You asked me earlier if I knew if she was seeing anyone else. I don’t know if she was, but I know this boy—this Jeff kid—he’s some high school boy and he went out with her, but he’s just little bitty old thing. He’s a waiter over at the Steak & Ale, ’cause that’s where they used to work together. She told me about that. That’s been about a week or so.

Gray [incredulously]: Did they date?

Corbin: They did before I ever started dating her.

Gray: How old is he—how old is Jeff?

Corbin: He’s probably eighteen or something now.

Gray paused. That made no sense at all to him. According to Bart’s reckoning, he had been with Dolly for two years, and if “Jeff” was eighteen now, he would have been fifteen or sixteen when Dolly first dated him! Gray suspected Corbin was trying to plant a red herring into this investigation.

Gray asked Corbin when Dolly had seen this “Jeff” last.

Corbin: She didn’t see him. She hasn’t seen him in years. She told me about the note the guy had left one night when she went to bed early. He knocked on the door, and she didn’t answer. Because she doesn’t answer the door late at night when she’s home alone. And, ahhh—she didn’t see him that night, either. That’s what she told me. I don’t know. I wasn’t there.

T
HE NEXT DAY
, Dr. Bart Corbin graduated from dental school at the Medical College of Georgia. He was grinning broadly as he received his diploma. Those who had known and loved Dolly Hearn were stunned to see how carefree he appeared; it was almost as if he had never known her, never loved her. On June 10, he attended the wedding of Drs. Tony Gacita and Vicky Martin, seeming to enjoy himself at the ceremony and reception.

Bart was on his way to a career as a dentist. There would never be a “Dr. Dolly” now, but already he appeared to have moved on, without so much as a backward glance.

Detectives Gray and Peebles read over the transcripts of Bart Corbin’s two conflicting interviews. On the day that Dolly died, he had been a very busy man indeed. He had traveled back and forth to the dental college, sterilized and packed instruments and unneeded items in his office, gone out to lunch, picked up denture teeth at a dental supply company, taken a shower, stopped by Dolly’s apartment, knocked on doors to find dental subjects for his state Boards, made numerous phone calls, left messages, changed clothes three times, gotten a haircut, worked out at a gym, attended the dean’s party, attempted to pick up his guns at Vicky and Tony’s house, and then learned that his longtime girlfriend had died suddenly of a gunshot wound.

And he remembered every minute of that day.

And Dolly? Had her actions been those of a woman about to commit suicide? She was packing for a trip to the beach with her family, preparing to make muffins and spaghetti sauce, working on her landlord’s business ledgers, watching her favorite soap operas, and designing invitations for a party that she planned to celebrate her own birthday in a month, on July 6. Angela had shown the investigators a number of different invitations, all of them written in Dolly’s distinctive, almost joyous, swoops and swirls of ink.

According to close friends, Dolly had not broken up with Bart Corbin but was looking forward to spending time with him during her two-week vacation between semesters.

No one could talk to Dolly about her recall of June 6, of course, so detectives would have to reconstruct her day and attempt to find physical evidence that would support their suspicions about Bart Corbin. They could hardly cite probable cause to obtain an arrest warrant just because his demeanor appeared oddly cheerful rather then grief-stricken or at least saddened.

Barbara and Carlton Hearn Sr., and Dolly’s brothers—Gil and Carlton Jr.—fully expected that Dolly’s cause of death would be changed to “malice murder” (according to Georgia statute definition) as the probe went on, and that Bart Corbin would be charged with the crime.

That, however, was not to be. The Richmond County Sheriff’s Office had no blood spatter experts in 1990. The gun used to shoot Dolly had been moved before any photos were taken, making it almost impossible to reconstruct her shooting. And Dolly’s case was officially closed, leaving “Suicide” as the method of her death espoused by the Richmond County Sheriff’s Office, and “Undetermined” by Medical Examiner Dr. Sharon Daspit.

Dolly’s parents nevertheless hired a private investigator, Sarah Mims, to continue the investigation into her death. And Mims located a number of people who had heard Bart Corbin talk about killing Dolly. She talked to Dolly’s neighbors and to Dennis Stanfield’s secretary—who had seen Dolly twice on June 6. In the end, the information that Mims gleaned would prove invaluable.

The Hearns buried Dolly in an historic cemetery in Washington, Georgia. She would rest forever just a few minutes’ drive from home. Her beloved grandparents, GoGo Pop and Mama Buns, would soon lie in the graves next to her. They were very old when they died, but Dolly’s life had only just begun.

C
HAPTER
E
IGHTEEN

1990–1997

T
HERE HAS NEVER BEEN
any indication that Jenn Barber Corbin ever heard Dolly Hearn’s name, or knew anything at all about her. Eight years of separation at their ages might as well have been twenty or thirty for women as young as they were. Nonetheless, Dolly Hearn and Jenn Barber had many things in common. Like Dolly, Jenn was interested in sports in high school, and she loved animals, too. Jenn was always as concerned as Dolly that other people were happy. Each came from loving, stable families with traditional values. They both prepared for careers that would benefit others. On the day she died, Dolly was one year away from becoming a dentist; Jenn planned at one time to be a nurse, and she was working as a teacher when she was killed. Perhaps they would have liked each other if they had ever met.

S
HORTLY AFTER HIS GRADUATION
Bart packed up his belongings in Augusta and returned to Gwinnett County. Although he had told the Richmond County detectives that he hoped to practice dentistry in another state, he remained in Georgia. He substituted for vacationing dentists for a while, and then worked for Dr. Huey’s dental clinic until he could afford to open his own practice.