The Lonely Hearts Killers: Martha Beck And Raymond Fernandez

She was lonely, not attractive and a hopeless romantic, and she was his new target, until he realized that she can be from much greater use. Martha Beck had no idea that she stepped in something way different than she could have ever imagined when she had posted her Lonely Heart ad. This paper shows how the serial killer couple Martha Beck and Raymond Fernandez, known as “The lonely Hearts Killers”, managed to make their own strange love story until their deaths. It will also provide an insight into their relationship and their attitudes towards each other and their victims.

The term “Lonely Hearts Killer” is a journalistic term to describe a murderer who first contacts his or her victim through “Lonely Hearts” advertisements. According to

“Awesomely Interesting Facts, Images & Videos”, “the American serial killer couple Martha Beck (1920-1951) and Raymond Fernandez (1914-1951) are believed to have killed as many as 20 women between 1947 and 1949”. During their trial, they became known as “The Lonely Hearts Killers”; both got executed 1951 in New York. Today, there are a number of films and TV shows based on their story.
Raymond Martinez Fernandez was born in December 1914, in Hawaii to Spanish parents.

Although he had an uneasy childhood with parents who have been disappointed in him, he developed into a handsome man with gentle manners and moved to Spain, where he married a local woman and had four children with her. Later, he served in the merchant marine during World War II. Aboard of a ship, a disastrous accident happened: “A steel hatch fell on top of him, fracturing his skull and injuring his frontal lobe. This may have affected his social and sexual behavior” (“Awesomely Interesting Facts, Images & Videos”), which let him go through a personality transformation. He stole cloth from a ship for no reason and got arrested. In prison, his cell mate taught him the practice of Voodoo rituals. Soon, Fernandez thought he had a secret power over women. When he got out of prison, he began to answer Lonely Hearts ads. He soon perfect his system: Once he had gained the trust of his female victims, he stole their personal things and “most of the women were too embarrassed” to contact the police (“Murderpedia”). He travelled to Spain with one of the ladies to introduce her to his real wife. Later, the girl was found dead in their hotel room, people reported, that they have seen Fernandez running out of the hotel late at night. He took possession over his victim’s apartment and lived from then on in New York, where he continued to write to “Lonely Hearts”. One of them was Martha

Beck.
Martha Jule Seabrook was born in May 1920, in Florida. She had, like Fernandez, a difficult childhood because of her being overweight, an overbearing mother and her brother who, according to “Murderpedia”, “sexually molested her” when she was ten years old. She became older and became pregnant (not from her brother), her boyfriend tried to commit suicide, he failed, but she has never seen him again anyway. She married Alfred Beck and had a child with him before he divorced her. Because of her being overweight, she had difficulties to find a job, although she studied nursing. She began living in a dream world and was “desperate for love and admiration” (“Murderpedia”). When she wrote a Lonely Hearts ad, she got a response from a man, named Raymond Fernandez with whom she fell immediately in love. According to “Law Library - American Law and Legal Information”, “he was the Latin lover of her dreams”.
He controlled and manipulated her because she was an easy target and believed everything he said. He even made her give her children away, so that he could visit her. He left after only a few days, lying that he would return soon, but he never did, instead he wrote a letter in which he explained that she might have misinterpreted his feelings for her. Subsequently, she attempted suicide, but before she could kill herself, he let her visit him in New York. Later, he told her about all the Lonely Hearts letters, the lady he murdered and his wife in Spain. Instead of being shocked, Beck saw it as her duty to help him. They made plans for their next victims, the tactic was always the same: first Fernandez married the women or at least said that he would marry them and Beck acted as his sister. Then they stole all the money from their victims, but even after succeeding with their method, they still had money problems until they met Janet Fay, a rich, old widow. Fernandez married her and Beck acted again as his sister, but soon she became jealous of Fay, couldn’t control her temper and killed her with a hammer. They wrote letters as Janet Fay to her family to let them know that everything is fine. These letters were written on a typewriter, but Fay’s family knew, she never owned one, whereupon they called the police. But they never caught Beck and Fernandez, who have been already on their way to Grand Rapids, Michigan.
Their next victim was Delphine Downing, who had a young child, and the duo continued with the same method as before. One time Downing saw Fernandez without his toupee and she saw the big scar on his head, he was not a handsome man anymore after the accident had happened. She got so mad that Fernandez had to give her sleeping pills. When the child started crying, the annoyed Beck injured her. This threw Fernandez into panic and he shot Downing, telling Beck to get rid of the child that was still alive. At first Beck refused, but his power over her was so strong that she finally drowned Downing’s daughter. They buried the bodies, but neighbors, who got alarmed by the noises, had already called the police. It was too late to run away.
On February 28 in 1949 Beck and Fernandez were arrested and questioned at the Kent County District Attorney's office.

They answered all the questions, believing that they would not be executed, since Michigan had no death penalty. They were wrong, and soon were turned over to New York’s police. Although they were only convicted of Janet Fay’s murder, both of them were sentenced to death. On March 8, 1951, Fernandez and Beck were executed by the electric chair at Sing-Sing Prison in New York. Even when Fernandez always dominated Beck, in the end he expressed his feelings to her, "I wanna shout it out; I love Martha! What does the public know about love?" (“Murderpedia”). Beck’s last words were, "My story is a love story. But only those tortured by love can know what I mean [...] Imprisonment in the Death House has only strengthened my feeling for Raymond...."

(“Murderpedia”).
The Lonely Hearts Killers are definitely an interesting duo with an even more interesting story and a success as film material as well, as we can see already in “The Honeymoon Killers (1969), Deep Crimson (1996), Lonely Hearts (2006) and Alleluia (2014)“ (“Awesomely Interesting Facts, Images & Videos”). Now that I know more about this couple, I feel a bit sorry for them; especially for Beck, who just wanted to find her one true love and did everything she could to please him. Even after they were arrested, she still wanted to help Fernandez, as an author of the Martha Beck Trial stated: “Defense attorney Herbert Rosenberg, contending that Beck had killed Fay in a fit of insanity inspired by jealousy, tried to prove that Fernandez had no part in the crime” (Ryan). Fernandez was the dominant character in their relationship and Beck the one who obeyed. The climax of their whole story would be, when Fernandez told Beck to kill the child and Beck did what she was told to. This symbolized, that he has finally broken her completely. On the other hand, I’m very sorry for all the ladies that were murdered. It seems like this whole thing was more a sick game for Fernandez, if it would be only because of the money, I’m sure there are more effective methods than stealing from single women. One thing that I still don’t understand after all that research is, why and how they became a duo. Why didn’t Fernandez use Beck like he did it with all the other women before? All articles made it clear that Fernandez wasn’t interested in Beck in the beginning: “After two days, however, Raymond had learned what was to him the most important fact about Beck: she had no money. He headed back to New York, where he wrote a "Dear Martha" letter that told her he just didn't love her after all” (“Law Library - American Law and Legal Information”).
The funny thing about them is, that the last part of their murderous spree happened virtually right on our doorsteps here in Kent County, and still everybody that I asked either doesn’t know much about them or doesn’t know them at all.
When it comes to the point to ask, if it was fair to execute them, I would agree with that because even when they would have got a second chance, they would have had no normal life in the public because everybody hated them for what they had done. So maybe it was better for their own good. Clear is, that two souls found themselves at the end and although they both had a strong personality disorder (Fernandez wanted to dominate and Beck was willing to obey), they made up a famous serial killer duo as they came together.