12 Morbidly Fascinating Details About the Lonely Hearts Killers

Raymond Martinez Fernandez and Martha Jule Beck, also known as the Lonely Hearts Killers, were prolific serial murderers in the late 1940s. Like the Toy Box Killer and the Green River Killer, they preyed on women, luring them in with "lonely hearts" ads placed in newspapers. They started their murderous spree together, making them one of the few serial killer couples in existence. Raymond Martinez Fernandez and Martha Jule Beck were convicted of their crimes and sentenced to death. Both were executed at Sing Sing Prison on March 8, 1951. 

Beck and Fernandez placed a series of ads in a romance magazine, and joined a "lonely hearts club." The club was designed for single people throughout the United States, giving them a place to connect and hopefully fall in love. The duo took advantage of this, using the ads and letters to lure in victims whom they would then rob and kill. 

Though she encouraged Fernandez to keep preying on lonely women, Beck was known for her violent temper. She insisted that Fernandez never have sex with any of his targets. (At the time, Beck was posing as Fernandez's sister.) When Beck found Fernandez in bed with Janet Fay, a 66-year-old woman whom he was conning, Beck hit Fay in the head several times will a ball peen hammer. When that didn't kill her, Fernandez joined in and strangled Fay.  

The Lonely Hearts Killers were charged with 20 murders, but only convicted of three: the deaths of Delphine and Rainell Downing, and of Janet Fay. While on the stand, Raymond Martinez Fernandez claimed that he and Beck killed 17 other women, but then retracted his statement, saying that he was trying to protect Beck and prevent them both from being sentenced to death. He had hoped that claiming more deaths in other states would allow them to be extradited and serve prison time in Michigan, which didn't have a death penalty at the time. The actual number of people that Fernandez and Beck killed remains unknown. 

After leaving the military, Fernandez was in an industrial accident that left the frontal lobe of his brain damaged. He became a different person, and started burglarizing stores and homes. He spent a year in prison after being convicted of these crimes. While there, Fernandez learned black magic and voodoo from one of his cell mates. He continued this practice after his release from prison, conducting voodoo rituals on the women he met through personal ads. Beck was one of these women, and before meeting him in person, she mailed him a lock of her hair. 

Fernandez placed ads in a romance magazine aimed at single people, called "lonely hearts," that was delivered around the country. His goal was to attract wealthy women that he could then rob. However, everything changed when Beck responded to his ad. He met her in person in Florida and they hit it off.  He returned to New York while she prepared for the them to wed; however, she was fired from her job shortly after, so she took her children and followed him to New York. Fernandez enjoyed being doted on by her and quickly filled her in on his devious plans to defraud lonely women - and she decided that it was her duty to join in. She even gave her children away so she could devote herself to Fernandez full-time.

After they killed Janet Fay, Fernandez and Beck fled to Michigan, where they stayed with the young widow Delphine Downing and her two-year-old daughter, Rainell. Downing believed that Fernandez was a fellow lonely heart by the name of Charles Martin, and she invited him and his "sister" to stay with her. Downing sensed something was fishy from the start, and she balked at signing over all her money to Fernandez.

Beck forced Downing to take sleeping pills, and then, when Rainell began crying, tried to strangle the girl. Fearing that Downing would wake up and see the bruises on her daughter's neck, Fernandez shot the mother to death in front of her daughter. Then, in order to dispose of Rainell, Beck drowned her in a tub of water. 

In order for their schemes to work, Beck claimed to be Fernandez's sister. This put their victims more at ease, since she served as a sort of chaperone during the first few dates they went on with Fernandez. Of course, Beck was actually sleeping with Fernandez, but they kept that under wraps in order to pull off their schemes. 

Beck had two children out of wedlock before she met Fernandez. Her first child was a girl. Beck tried to convince the child's father to marry her, but when she was rejected by him, she moved to Florida. Not long after she gave birth to her daughter, Beck began dating a bus driver. She became pregnant again, and this time married the man, Alfred Beck, adopting his last name as her own. (Her maiden name was Seabrook.) She and Alfred divorced before their son was born. 

Several years later, after Beck met Fernandez and he convinced her to stay in New York with him, she abandoned the children at a local Salvation Army. Their names, dates of birth, and other identifying details have never been made public. 

Prior to meeting Beck, Fernandez lured in wealthy women with "lonely hearts" ads placed in a romance magazine. He would seduce the women and then rob them. One of his victims - Jane Thompson - traveled with him to Spain. He talked her into changing her will, making him the sole beneficiary. She then died under mysterious circumstances. He told one person that she had a heart attack, then told another, Thompson's mother, that she died in a train accident. Whatever happened, Fernandez wound up with her money. 

In Martha Jule Beck's final statement to the press, she maintained that she committed her crimes out of love:

What does it matter who is to blame? My story is a love story... but only those tortured with love can understand what I mean. I was pictured as a fat, unfeeling woman. I am not unfeeling, stupid, or moronic. In the history of the world, how many crimes have been attributed to love?