She was extremely jealous and went to great lengths to make sure Fernandez and his "intended" never consummated their relationship. Beck also convinced some victims that she lived alone and that her "brother" was only a guest. Their victims, feeling more secure knowing there was another woman in the house, often agreed to stay with the pair. He confessed his criminal enterprises to Beck, who quickly sent her children to the Salvation Army in order to devote herself to Fernandez without any distractions.īeck posed as Fernandez's sister, giving him an air of respectability. Fernandez enjoyed the way she catered to his every whim, and when he learned she had left her children for him, he thought it was a sign of an unconditional love. When she was abruptly fired from her job, Beck packed her belongings and arrived on Fernandez' doorstep in New York. He returned to New York City while she made preparations in Florida. Murders įernandez visited Beck and stayed for a short time she told everyone they were to be married. She placed a lonely hearts ad in 1947, which Raymond Fernandez answered. In 1946, she found employment at the Pensacola Hospital for Children. Unemployed and the single mother of two young children, Beck escaped into a fantasy world, buying romance magazines and novels, and watching romantic movies. They married quickly and divorced six months thereafter. Shortly after her daughter was born, she became pregnant again by a Pensacola bus driver named Alfred Beck. The town mourned her loss and the story was published in the local newspaper. īeck claimed that her child's father had been killed in the Pacific Campaign. Single and pregnant, at a time when a social stigma existed concerning out of wedlock childbirth, Beck returned to Florida. While living in California she eventually became pregnant, but the father of the baby refused to marry her. She soon quit that job and moved to California, where she worked in a United States Army hospital as a nurse. She initially became an undertaker's assistant and prepared female bodies for burial. As a teen, Beck ran away from home to join a traveling circus writer Truman Capote later claimed to have briefly toured with Beck when he was ten years old.Īfter finishing school, Beck studied nursing but had trouble finding a job due to her weight. At her trial, she claimed to have been raped by her brother and subsequently beaten by her mother, blaming Beck for the incident. Allegedly due to a glandular problem (then a common explanation for obesity), Beck was overweight and underwent puberty prematurely. Martha Beck was born Martha Jule Seabrook on in Milton, Florida. Fernandez later claimed black magic gave him irresistible power and charm over women. Upon his release from a hospital, Fernandez stole some clothing and was subsequently imprisoned for a year, during which time his cellmate converted him to a belief in voodoo and black magic. The damage caused by this injury may well have affected his social and sexual behavior. Shortly after boarding a ship bound for the U.S., a steel hatch fell on him, fracturing his skull and injuring his frontal lobe. As a teenager, Fernandez went to work on his uncle's farm in Spain, married a young local woman named Encarnación Robles and had four children, all of whom he abandoned later in life.Īfter serving in the Spanish merchant navy and with British intelligence services during World War II, Fernandez decided to seek a job. Shortly thereafter, the family moved to Bridgeport, Connecticut. Raymond Martinez Fernandez was born in the Territory of Hawaii to Spanish parents on December 17, 1914. ![]() A number of films and television shows are based on this case.īefore the murders Raymond Fernandez ![]() They were convicted of one murder, are known to have committed two more, and were suspected of having killed up to twenty victims during a spree between 19.Īfter their arrest and trial for serial murder in 1949, Fernandez and Beck became known as the Lonely Hearts Killers for meeting their unsuspecting victims through personal ads, posted in newspaper lonely hearts columns. Raymond Martinez Fernandez (Decem– March 8, 1951) and Martha Jule Beck (– March 8, 1951) were an American serial killer couple.
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