SERIAL KILLERS Date Added Raymond Fernandez & Martha Beck September 2002   Bio   Full Name Raymond Fernandez   Date of  Birth 17 December 1914   Known Also As Charles Martin The Lonely Hearts Killers   Hit Count 7 Bio Full Name Martha Beck Date of  Birth 1920 Known Also As The Lonely Hearts Killers Hit Count 7 Information & Pictures It was a head injury that turned Raymond Fernandez into a maniac. At sea in December 1945, a falling hatch struck him on the head with such force that it dented his skull. His brain tissue was scarred. The 31 year old Fernandez, an American citizen, spent ten weeks in hospital. Before that, he had been a mild character, hard-working and faithful to his wife in Spain. The accident transformed him into a criminal. Fernandez now found himself possessed by an overwhelming sexual urge. It made no difference whether women were young and attractive, or elderly and overweight. Anything female aroused his lust. Over the next two years, by his own account, Fernandez seduced more than one hundred women. But first he spent time in jail for a baffling offence committed soon after leaving hospital on 15th March 1946. In Mobile, Alabama, Fernandez tried to walk through customs with a huge package of soiled linen, marked as government property. [ Encarnacion Fernandez ] Encarnacion (Spanish for 'incarnation') was Fernandez's wife in Spain. He married her in 1934, leaving her in 1945 when he went to America. In late 1947, he visited Encarnacion with Lucilla Thompson. On 4th April 1946, Fernandez pleaded guilty to attempted theft. 'I couldn't seem to stop. I don't know why,' he said before being sentenced to a year in prison in Tallahassee, Florida. There were large numbers of West Indians in the jail, and much talk of voodoo and black magic. Fernandez was fascinated, particularly in tales of hypnotism. He became convinced that he possessed magical powers. To test them, he wrote to the judge who had sentenced him, complaining that his punishment had been too severe. Then he spent days trying to influence the judge by hypnosis. The powers seemed to work. Court officials advised the judge that there was room for leniency, and the sentence was halved. To Fernandez, this was a revelation. If he could influence people at long range, nothing was impossible. He could become rich and famous or, better still, have all the women that he wanted. Back in New York City, in December 1946, Fernandez stayed with relatives who found the formerly shy young man with impeccable manners changed into a hollow cheeked, balding maniac who ranted about magic and hypnotism. 'Raymond kept telling me he could make love to a woman from a distance,' one neighbour reported. Early in 1947, Fernandez decided to put his powers into operation. According to the legends of voodoo, he needed only some small item, belonging to a woman - a lock of hair, even a letter - to ensnare her. New York City was full of lonely, middle-aged women yearning for romance. Many belonged to 'Lonely Hearts' clubs which advertised in cheap magazines. From one of these, Mother Dinene's Friendly Club, Fernandez obtained a list of addresses. [ Raymond Fernandez ] Gushingly sentimental replies soon poured in. 'Did you ever hear such mush?' Fernandez asked, but he had the gifts to fulfill the women's longings. The child of Spanish parents, he had an old-world courtesy combined with charm and self-assurance. He was tall and thin, with a gaunt face and dark eyes. The scar left on his forehead by the accident at sea was hidden by a toupee. Soon, Fernandez was in contact with several women at the same time. Most fell in love with him at first sight and many - even respectable matrons - allowed him to make love to them at their first encounter. Fernandez attributed his success to his hypnotic gaze. Where a woman proved reluctant, he performed occult rituals, such as scattering a 'magic' powder (bought at a Jamaican store in the city) onto his letters. Few women resisted for long. Fernandez was soon having affairs with a dozen women at a time. He felt compelled to prove something, but he also discovered concealed benefits. Many of his women were quite wealthy, and keen to press money on him. It seemed absurd to refuse it. [ Lucilla Thompson ] Mrs Lucilla Thompson was a middle aged teacher of home economics and cookery. She was intellectually superior to Fernandez's other women, but she paid a high price for her naivety. In the spring of 1947, Fernandez met a middle-aged cook named Jane Lucilla Wilson Thompson, who lived with her mother in a large apartment on West 139th Street. She took boarders, and Fernandez soon moved in. Lucilla Thompson, as she called herself, was married but separated. By August, she and Fernandez had planned a holiday in Spain. They sailed in October, travelling as husband and wife, and visited the Spain capital, Madrid, and the Andalusian cities of Granada and Malaga. Driven by the strange irrationality that had made him steal the soiled linen, Fernandez took Mrs Thompson to meet his real wife, Encarnacion, and their four children, living in La Linea de la Concepcion, a town in southern Andalusia. The family lived in a squalid single room in a run-down hostel. The two women were polite to each other for several days, but a point came where Lucilla Thompson felt she was sharing her 'husband'. On the evening of 7th November 1947, Lucilla Thompson exploded with rage, threatening to return to America alone. The next morning, Mrs Thompson was found dead in her room at the Hotel Sevilla. A local doctor diagnosed a heart attack brought on by gastroenteritis. There seems to be no suspicious circumstances and Fernandez was allowed to leave town. On the following day, 29th November, he sailed for New York City. However, in the early part of 1948, an English woman named Mrs White told the US Consulate in La Linea of her suspicion that Mrs Thompson has been murdered. The two women had met on the passage to Spain and kept in touch by letter. Mrs White had noticed that her friend's 'husband' was many years her junior and had tried to prevent her from talking to other passengers. Through Mrs White's persistence, the police in La Linea discovered that Fernandez had purchased a bottle of the drug digitalis from the hotel pharmacy two days before Mrs Thompson's death. This would have caused the symptoms similar to those of a heart attack. But Mrs Thompson's body proved to be too decomposed for an autopsy. [ Mrs Pearl Wilson ] In New York, Raymond Fernandez told Lucilla Thompson's mother, Mrs Pearl Wilson that Lucilla had died in a train accident in Spain. He then cheated Mrs Wilson of money and property, and took over her flat. Fernandez, meanwhile, had returned to Mrs Thompson's apartment in New York in early December 1947 and presented her mother Mrs Pearl Wilson, with a document naming him as sole heir to her daughter's property. The elderly lady was too distraught to challenge the document. Close examination would have exposed it as a forgery. Fernandez had simply obtained Lucilla Thompson's signature on two sheets of paper, then filled them in to make himself the legatee. Fernandez returned to corresponding to lonely women. One twenty six year old seemed interesting. She was the superintendent of a disabled children's home in Florida, and had her own apartment. Her name was Martha Seabrook Beck. Just before Christmas 1947, Fernandez sent her a telegram informing her of his imminent arrival. [ Martha Beck ]   Fernandez's first sight of Martha Beck, at the Pensacola bus station, was something of a shock. She was positively gross. But she might also be rich, so, showing no lack of enthusiasm, he accompanied her back to her apartment. Fernandez betrayed no alarm when she told him that she had been married twice and had two children. At the apartment, he played with her youngsters, and enjoyed the meal Martha had prepared. When they retired to bed, the plump nurse responded with immediate passion, discovering a number of erotic practices she had no idea existed. It was a night full of sexual gratification. Yet alarm bells were ringing. Martha was madly in love, certain that he good fairy had at last provided her heart's desire, a truly romantic lover. As she assured him of her undying devotion, Fernandez inwardly cringed. Moreover, Martha was obviously poor. After two days in Florida, he made a flowery and regretful farewell speech and fled back to New York. Martha sent off a series of adoring letters to her new love, but early in January 1948, shattering news arrived. Fernandez had written to say that she had mistaken his feelings, which were of deep respect rather than passion. They must never see each other again. [ Martha Beck ]   Martha took her children to a neighbour's house, returned home, and put her head in the gas oven. The neighbour, worried by her distraught state, went to investigate, smelt gas and called the police.  A farewell note to Fernandez lay beside Martha Beck. A few days later, he received it in the post with a description of the suicide attempt. Out of remorse, or the need to avoid a scandal, Fernandez wrote her an affectionate reply, inviting her to New York (he was staying at the flat belonging to Lucilla Thompson's mother). Martha took a two week leave of absence and caught the next train. In New York, Martha found bliss. Their love life was as passionate as ever. But, insatiable as he was, Fernandez did not want to be tied down. When Martha returned south, he waved goodbye to the train with a sigh of relief. Back in Florida, Martha found that her employer, the Pensacola Crippled Children's home, had fired her. No reasons were given, but, in a community that small, news of the torrid liaison had embroiled Martha in a fresh scandal. Martha tried to rally the local newspapers to her cause, but the publicity backfired, guaranteeing that she would find no other work as a nurse in Florida. On 18th January 1948, a shocked Fernandez found Martha Beck and her children on his doorsteps in New York. He told her sternly that he could not accept the children, so Martha arranged for her mother in Florida to take them in. Previously a devoted mother, Martha never saw them again, nor showed any inclination to do so. [ Martha Beck ]   After moving in with Fernandez, Martha wasted no time in forcing Lucilla Thompson's mother to leave the apartment. Once they were alone, Fernandez decided to play for all or nothing. He told Martha frankly that he could not marry her because he made his living by seducing lonely women. Martha was stunned. But she decided not to try to halt his career. Instead, she would take part in it. [ Mrs Esther Henne ] Although Mrs Esther Henne had fled from Fernandez in terror of her life after only four days of fraudulent marriage, she received a peculiar note of affection from him nearly six months later, in August 1948. Though graceless the letter seems to be a rare example of how the real man expressed himself.   The next victim was Mrs Esther Henne, a widow and retired school teacher from Pennsylvania. After the briefest of courtships, Fernandez arrived at her home with a proposal of marriage. Yet even on this delicate mission, Martha was too jealous to let him go alone. She was introduced as Fernandez's sister-in-law. The three drove in Mrs Henne's car to Fairfax, Virginia, where she and Fernandez were married on 28th February 1948. Mrs Henne was unaware that Fernandez was already married and committing bigamy. Back at the New York apartment on West 139th Street, Fernandez applied himself to separating Mrs Henne from her money and her property. She proved cautious. 'He became irritable and gave me tongue-lashings because I wouldn't sign over my insurance policies and my teacher's pension fund to him,' Miss Henne was to say. After hearing rumours from other tenants about Mrs Thompson's somewhat suspicious death, Miss Henne hurried back to Pennsylvania. Through legal proceedings, she recovered her car and $300. [ Myrtle Young ] Myrtle Young, a forty year old widow from Green Forest, Arkansas, eagerly grasped Fernandez's offer of marriage. However, their honeymoon in Chicago ended quickly - she was sent home by bus, but died en route.   Fernandez was finding life complex. One of his mistresses was pregnant and wanted to marry him. He decided to sell the apartment while searching for fresh dupes. One of these, supplied by Mother Dinene's Friendly Club, was a woman named Myrtle Young of Green Forest, northern Arkansas. When Fernandez arrived with his 'sister-in-law', Mrs Young was swept off her feet. Fernandez became a bigamist for a second time at a civil service in Cook County, Illinois, on 14th August 1948. But during the honeymoon - in a cheap Chicago rooming house - Mrs Young became increasingly impatient as Fernandez failed to consummate their marriage. The deliberate disruption and the commotion caused by Martha did not help matters. On the third day, Mrs Young declared that if Martha did not leave, she would. The outcome was a screaming row. It ended with Fernandez or Martha giving her a heavy draught of barbiturates. Mrs Young fell into a 24-hour sleep. Fernandez and Beck, who had managed to obtain $4000 of her money, had no further use for Myrtle Young. They put her on a bus for Arkansas in a state of near-collapse. During the journey, Mrs Young collapsed. She died shortly afterwards in a hospital at Little Rock of a 'cerebral haemorrhage'. [ Janet Fay ] Aged sixty six, Mrs Fay was a widow living in Albany, New York State. She had two main interests; religion and lonely hearts clubs. She was hammered to death by Martha Beck.   Christmas 1948 was gloomy. The money that Beck and Fernandez had swindled out of Myrtle Young was almost finished, but at least there was a new quarry lined up. She was Mrs Janet Fay, a sixty six year old widow from Albany, in upstate New York. Mrs Fay was a devout Roman Catholic. When a correspondent names 'Charles Martin' wrote that he shared her spiritual beliefs, a lively religious discussion began through their letters. Mrs Fay warmly welcomed his request to visit her. On New Years day 1949, 'Charles Martin' arrived at Mrs Fay's apartment with a large woman whom he introduced as his sister. He explained that he had lost his wallet during the New Year's Eve celebrations, and asked if he and his sister could stay until more money arrived. In fact, Beck and Fernandez were penniless.  Mrs Fay was bewitched by her religious pen pal. On 2nd January, she agreed to marry Fernandez and, the next day, she withdrew $2,500 from her accounts. The trio drove to a new apartment rented by Beck and Fernandez in the suburb of Valley Stream, Long Island. Fernandez won Mrs Fay's complete trust. Almost on arrival at the apartment, she endorsed two cheques, worth a total of $3,500, to Fernandez. That night, however, she began to suspect that her trust was misplaced. Mrs Fay and Martha slept in the same bed, and the widow plied her future 'sister-in-law' with questions about her fiancé's childhood. Martha grew quite. Finally, Mrs Fay lost her temper, shouting, 'Even if you are Charles's sister, when we're married I won't allow you to live with us. You're the most brazen bitch I've ever seen.' [ Raymond Fernandez ]   Mrs Fay stormed out of the bedroom and woke 'Charles' to explain her grievances. Martha followed and, without much ado, knocked Mrs Fay unconscious with a single blow of a hammer to the temple. She never regained consciousness. Fernandez was thrown into such a panic that he suggested calling the police. Martha knelt down by Mrs Fay and announced, 'She's dead.' Numb with shock, Fernandez helped Martha clean up the blood on the floor, and bind a towel around Mrs Fay's head. Martha admitted she had struck her in sheer jealousy. The next day, 4th January 1949, they brought a large trunk, placing the body of Mrs Fay inside. Seven days later they concealed the trunk under a layer of concrete in the cellar of a house they rented in South Ozone Park, in Queens. [ Martha Beck and Raymond Fernandez ]   On the same day that Mrs Fay was murdered, he received a letter from a forty one year old widow, Delphine Downing, who lived in Grand Rapids, Michigan, with her two year old daughter, Rainelle. 'Charles Marin' arrived with the usual overtures and 'sister-in-law', suggesting that they move in. Within days, he was sleeping with Mrs Downing while Martha did her best to hide her misery and rage. There are shadowy accounts of what happened next. All that seems fairly certain is that on Sunday, 27th February 1949, Martha offered her rival some pills to bring about an abortion. The pills were actually sleeping tablets. Then, when Mrs Downing was just emerging from her stupor, Fernandez wrapped a blanket around her head, and shot her with her late husband's revolver. As soon as he had done so, his nerve broke. He was sickened and demoralised by what he had done. It was Martha, the efficient nurse, who had so often laid out corpses, who took charge. The body was buried in Mrs Downing's cellar, and the grave cemented over. By now, Fernandez was close to collapse. 'What shall we do?' he kept asking Martha. For two days, they toyed with various plans for ridding themselves of Rainelle Downing. The little girl shied away from them, refusing to eat. They knew she would attract attention if placed in a shelter or taken to a children's home. Fernandez finally ordered Martha to kill her. After a bout of weeping, she took the child to the basement and drowned her in the washtub. Fernandez helped her bury the child beside her mother. A few minutes later, two suspicious neighbours knocked at the door. Making innocent small-talk, Beck and Fernandez fobbed them off, and went to a drive in movie. Soon after arriving back, there was another knock at the door. It was two police officers. Beck and Fernandez were finally under arrest.  At Kent County jail, Fernandez immediately confessed, recounting every episode of his criminal partnership with Martha Beck, who also made a confession though it differed in some details. Headlines across the country the next morning announced 'The Lonely Heart Killers'. The victims were exhumed and the police at La Linea in Spain were once again moved to re-open the inquiry into Lucilla Thompson's death. The story of how the child Rainelle Downing had died particularly shocked America. Michigan, which did not carry the death penalty, was actually moved to send Beck and Fernandez to New York, where convicted killers could be executed, to face trial for the murder of Janet Fay. 'I don't want to go back to New York,' Martha wept in her cell. 'I'm afraid of the electric chair.' [ Julia Seabrook ] Martha Beck had a powerful love-hate relationship with her mother, Mrs Julia Seabrook, who showed little affection for her daughters. Still, she offered to look after Martha's rejected children   Fernandez seemed chastened by arrest, and his manner changed. His belief in his magical powers gone, he became more the quiet, self-effacing man he had been before his head injury. 'They ought to kill me,' he said. 'I've done terrible things, but I'm not afraid of the electric chair.' In June 1949, Beck and Fernandez went on trial at the Bronx County Courthouse for the murder of Janet Fay. They pleaded not guilty. Their defences were hardly convincing. Their attorney, Herbert Rosenberg, argued that Beck was insane and that Fernandez had no foreknowledge that she would kill Mrs Fay. Soon, Fernandez's defence was abandoned and he changed his plea to not guilty by reason of insanity. Much sensational evidence about their sex lives was heard to support their pleas of insanity, but to no avail. On 17th July 1949, Beck and Fernandez were found guilty and sentenced to die in the electric chair. On 8th March 1951, after two years of appeals, they were executed in Sing Sing Prison, New York. [ 'Charles Martin's' Example Letter ] The type of letter written by Fernandez  - alias Charles Martin - to the women on the list provided by Mother Dinene's Friendly  Club. In the letter to Martha, he talked about a 'psychic power' bringing them together.   In the autumn of 1951, one of the defense psychiatrists, Dr Richard Hoffman, published an article that challenged the accepted version of shared responsibility for the Lonely Hearts murders. Dr Hoffman claimed that Raymond Fernandez had become a sadist while fighting for the Fascist forces during the Spanish Civil War of 1936, and that the head injury at sea was not the cause of his criminality. Dr Hoffman said that Martha Beck was not responsible for the deaths, but had been too terrified of Fernandez's hypnotic powers to deny his version of the events. Hoffman was to claim that Fernandez had insisted that if he was to be executed, then they both must be. Dr Hoffman's account has been strongly criticized by many students of the Lonely Hearts case, but the uncertainty over the exact roles played by Beck and Fernandez still exists BACK TO TOP

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