Martha Beck
Martha Beck
mug shot
Murderer Martha Beck sitting in a Michigan courthouse in 1949
following her arraignment
with murderer
Raymond Martinez Fernandez in the "lonely hearts" slaying of Janet
Fay.
(Bettmann / Corbis)
Martha Beck
Martha Beck with Kent County prosecutor Roger McMahon.
(Bettmann / Corbis)
Martha's mother: Julia Seabrook
Martha Beck's sisters.
Exterior of the home of Delphine Downing and her daughter, who were
murdered
by Martha Beck
and Raymond Fernandez, the infamous lonely heart killers.
(Bettmann
/ Corbis)
Exterior of the home of Delphine Downing and her daughter.
Evidence
Evidence
Wilmington, NJ: Shown above is picture of Mrs. Jane Thompson when
she was Jane Wilson,
a high school
home econmics teacher. She was living with her mother at 565 West
139th
Street, New York, when
Raymond Fernandez, confessed "lonely hearts" killer rented a
room in
their apartment.
Later she
went on a trip to Spain with Fernandez, and died there. Fernandez
said that
she died of an acute
heart attack. To Mrs. Pearl Wilson, mother of the woman, he
said
that she had been killed
in a train wreck.
(Bettmann / Corbis)
On February 28, 1948, Esther Henne
and Raymond Fernandez were married in a brief
ceremony at the
County Clerk’s Office in Fairfax, Virginia.
She later told
reporters: “For four days he was very polite to me.
Then he gave me tongue
lashings when I wouldn’t sign over my
insurance policies and my teacher’s
pension fund
to him.” Things went downhill after that. “I began to
hear stories about how he went to
Spain with a woman and she died,” she said. Shortly afterwards, the
new Mrs. Fernandez
left the
apartment minus her car and hundreds of dollars which Raymond stole
from her.
On August 14, 1948, Fernandez and
Myrtle Young were married in Cook County, Illinois.
Martha posed
as Raymond’s sister this time and did everything she could to make
sure that the marriage was
never consummated.
Raymond gave her a heavy
dose of
drugs which caused her death.
Janet Fay rented a spacious apartment
in the downtown part of the city and, more
importantly, had money in the bank. She had a habit of writing letters to lonely
hearts clubs and
despite warnings from her friends
and family, she continued
the practice.
She was bludgeoned into unconsciousness with a ball-peen
hammer
and then garroted using a scarf as a tourniquet around her neck.
