With perfectly applied make-up and wearing a smart fedora, the convicted killer looks as if the only thing worrying her pretty little head is getting the best angle for her profile shot.
The glamorous portrait marks Molly Martens's return to Facebook after a long hiatus. This time out, she is using the handle 'Molly Belle', which apparently is a tribute to Belle from Beauty And The Beast, 42-year-old Martens's favourite Disney princess.
Between that piece of mind-boggling juvenilia and the portrait's heavy symbolism, Molly's intention to get on with the deluded fairytale existence she began as a kid in Knoxville, Tennessee, as if the catastrophe of 2015 never occurred, is clear.
Perhaps the only puzzle is why it took her this long to relaunch her identity as the original Homecoming Queen, who only had to click her fingers for Prince Charming to come running.
After all, Molly has been footloose and fancy-free since last summer when she finished her parole period, after serving a total of just over four years in prison for killing her husband so brutally.
That would have been the perfect time to capitalise on the wave of fascination surrounding her, created by the Netflix show "A Deadly American Marriage", which recounted the tragic death of Jason Corbett, who had moved to North Carolina from Limerick with Molly and his two children, Jack and Sarah in 2011.
Molly and Tom Martens.
While many convicts might prefer a low profile as they return to society and pick up the pieces of their lives, Molly is not of that ilk. Her social media relaunch suggests that she craves public approval, if not adulation, and perhaps even nurses the dream of cashing in on her notoriety as an influencer. Stranger things have happened in the Wild West of the internet.
As the Netflix documentary showed, Molly's conscience is clear about killing Jason. She insists that she was just trying to defend herself against a violent monster who made her life a misery.
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No wonder she can't see any reason why she wouldn't get free holidays to exotic destinations all over the globe, clothes from top designers and finally enjoy the fairytale existence she always believed was her entitlement.
As the pretty only daughter of an affluent and respectable family, Molly had big dreams, and aged 24, she became an au pair to two young children in Limerick who had just lost their mother.
Nothing odd about that. But what's a commonplace rite of passage for many young women, a stepping stone on the road to maturity, became an unhinged psychodrama in Molly's hands. She became too attached to her two charges and so single-mindedly obsessed with becoming their mother that she resorted to gaslighting, mental abuse and manipulation to get her way.
Jason Corbett.
Her unfortunate husband Jason is dead more than ten years now after being set upon by Molly and her former FBI agent dad Tom, beaten to death with a brick and a metal baseball bat.
His now grown-up children, collateral damage in the domestic tragedy, have shown remarkable resilience. They're pursuing their dreams in Limerick - Jack, who has turned 21, is studying music, while Sarah also a student, has written an award-winning memoir about growing up with her volatile stepmother.
Both are pulling off a tricky balancing act of acknowledging the toxic legacy of their stepmother's emotional abuse while at the same time not allowing it to define them.
As Molly clings to her story about being the real victim, something her critics and doubtless the Corbett family denounce as nothing more than a self-serving lie, her belief in her innocence will fortify her against the criticism and vitriol that will inevitably rain down on her.
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While her new Facebook picture has attracted fawning comments from her brother Connor and her pals, it may only be a matter of time until the online mood turns ugly. Strict moderation may be necessary to stem the tide of vicious comments and pile-ons that might destroy Molly's pitch at the lucrative branding companies or, indeed, the dating market.
Despite her criminal past, erratic behaviour, daft ideas and mental health problems, there is every chance that Molly will catch the eye not just of a commercial sponsor but also of an eligible suitor to hand her a second stab at family life and happiness.
For those who have suffered so much at her hands and who believe that Molly deserves to spend the rest of her life in prison, that will be a bitter pill to swallow. It's beyond tragic that when Molly realised that her future with Jason Corbett was hopeless, she didn't just move on, but rather set upon such a revolting campaign of violent destruction and revenge.
She and her father inflicted so many blows to Jason's head that the pathologist couldn't count them. She deprived the children she claimed to love more than anything in the world of their dad and unforgivably brainwashed them into lying about him in court. How much better would it have been for everyone, including Molly, had she relaunched herself on Facebook in 2015 as things soured between her and her husband, rather than a few weeks ago, after so much bloodshed, betrayal and heartbreak?
* This article was originally published on Evoke.ie.
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