Mr. & Mrs. Bluebeard

New York late to nineteen forty seven. She came to New York to meet the swarthy Hawaiian born man and worked out with him the details of a plan to meet other women through their club and take them for their money. Together, they went to Laureltown, Pennsylvania, where Fernandez met and married a forty year old widow. After three weeks, the widow left him, so they turned to Chicago. There, under another name, he married another woman and got four

thousand dollars from her. Eventually, after similar experiences in Vermont and Massachusetts, Fernandez and missus Beck met the woman identified as Janet Fay in Albany. McMahon quoted missus Beck as saying, we got three thousand dollars from her on January fourth, because she was jealous, the husky Missus Beck slugged Missus Fay over the head with a pipe. Fernandez then strangled her,

and they stuffed her body in a steamer trunk. Fernandez told the prosecutor the slaying took place in his apartment at Valley Stream on Long Island. They took the body to a house they rented near the Idlewild Airport on Long Island and buried it. The pair came to Grand Rapids January twenty third to meet the widowed Missus Downey. Her husband was killed in nineteen forty seven when a

truck he was driving was struck by train. After living for several weeks in Missus Downing's house, Fernandez induced her to sell the property and moved to California. Last Saturday, the widow began showing signs of suspicion, however, and the pair determined to silence her. First, they drugged her with sleeping pills. Then Fernandez shot her with a pistol that had belonged to her ex serviceman husband. Missus Downing was

buried in a shallow grave in the basement. They first thought of taking the child with them back to New York, but gave it up because they were afraid they couldn't explain to relatives where they got a child. To appease the little girl, they bought her a dog, but she still cried, We'll have to get rid of her. McMahon quoted Fernandez as telling missus Beck. Missus Beck, in her statement, related how she quote undressed the girl and holding her

by the feet. I put her head in one of the tubs of water we had bailed out of the mother's grave. The two poured concrete around the little girl's body, McMahon said, and went to a movie. When they returned about midnight, police were waiting for them. They had been

called in by a suspicious neighbor. Neighbors called the police because they hadn't seen missus Downing and the child since Saturday, and noted an unusual amount of activity in the house where Fernandez and missus Beck had lived with their victims since January twenty third. After finding four thousand dollars in cash on Fernandez, they searched the house and found the bodies.

True crime historian presents an Eye for an Eye a special edition of Yesterday's News, exploring the criminal justice system in its most extreme, inflicting the death penalty. Episode three hundred and sixty nine tells us the tragicomic tale of a romantic in business partnership that goes awry when a woman's jealousy overpowers her professional detachment. It's also a love story of a passion so profound that they take their

love all the way to the electric chair. I'm true crime historian Richard O. Jones, and for your horror and indignation, and I give you mister and missus Bluebeard, Martha Beck's Lonely Hearts Club. Mister Bluebeard's flirtations all began very quietly. Every day the Hawaiian born spaniard labored at his construction job. Every night, in his dingy little Brooklyn room, he wrote letters, letters, letters.

The women's names he scrawled on the envelopes came from a printed list of two hundred purchased for two dollars from a matrimonial agency. Then the postman began to stuff answers into mister Bluebeard's Brooklyn letterbox with cooy words. The writers admitted that they were fat, short, tall, thin, rich,

poor big town girls. Small town girls, arm girls. No matter what the age, each was a girl, Each was lonely, Each was eager to meet Ray Martin, Charles Martin, or Raymond Martin Fernandez, depending on the alias mister Bluebeard used when he wrote the letter, she was answering. During the two years following nineteen forty five, when he began writing letters, Ray Fernandez met only a few of his correspondents and realized no financial profit. He was only potentially, not actively dangerous.

This was his period of learning. Each month Fernandez discarded correspondence added new ones. In April nineteen forty seven, he wrote to a Missus Martha Beck, a registered nurse in Pensacola, Florida. Her chaste little answer prompted him to write her again. In the fall of nineteen forty seven, Fernandez came upon one of his New York correspondents, Missus Jane Wilson Thompson,

a jolly, plain faced dietitian in Manhattan's Presbyterian Hospital. Missus Thompson's frail seventy two year old mother, Missus Pearl Wilson, eyed her daughter's caller coldly and wondered where on earth Jane had met him. Fernandez, balding at thirty two and stoop shouldered in his ill fitting clothes, looked like a farm hand, startled by the roar of the city. When

he smiled, two front gold teeth gleamed unpleasantly. Then Fernandez spoke Missus Wilson, as well as Jane, the lonely heart, whose husband was in a mental institution, succumbed to the blandishments of this seemingly gentle man. In September nineteen forty seven, he moved into a room of his own in Missus Thompson's West one hundred and thirty ninth Street department. In October, he told Missus Wilson he was taking Jane to Spain to see the land of his father's. Missus Thompson giggled

and intimated honeymoon plans. Fernandez smiled, tenderly, patting the wallet in which he had just placed Jane's share of expenses. He kept his own counsel. Fernandez did take plane Jane to Spain. One can assume she never met the wife and four children he had abandoned there in nineteen forty five, the year he began writing letters in Brooklyn. Jane deluged friends people in the apartment house with cards saying she was having a wonderful time. Fernandez sent a cable to

Martha Beck. In December, mister Bluebeard returned to New York wearing his in his ill fitting suit and a face of sorrow. He went directly to the six room apartment, where missus Wilson awaited her daughter's return. Mother, I have bad news, the man began. Where's Jane. Where's my Jane? Demanded missus Wilson. Our Jane's dead. She died in a train accident near Cadiz. There were tears and comforting. Then the man got down to business with the trembling old lady.

He brought forth a document purportedly written by her daughter, which gave him possession of the apartment and its furnishings. Jane had some insurance, was Fernandez's tentative beginning. After missus Wilson's tears were stayed, she made me the beneficiary. The old lady wept again. I know, but I spent so much money on doctors when Jane had her heart attack. Missus Wilson exclaimed, I thought you said Jane died in a train accident. I did Fernandez lost none of his equanimity,

but she had a heart attack first. Such was the subsequent bitterness over Missus Thompson's insurance money. Missus Wilson told shocked friends she feared the quarreling would affect her heart. In the end, the insurance was halved. Fernandez a share was three hundred dollars. With this money, he went to Pensacola for a meeting more momentous than he realized. It was the inevitable union of mister and Missus Bluebeard quote.

When that man stepped down from the train and I saw him for the first time, I believe I was in love. A love so great had come to me. It would live as long as I did. That is what Martha Beck, then twenty seven, has said of her meeting with Raymond Martinez Fernandez. Mister Bluebeard never has said what he thought when he first saw Martha, a veritable amazon beside him. She stood six feet tall, weighed two hundred pounds, and was husky from her boxer like shoulders

to her knees. But her eyes were big and soft, her ankles and feet were delicate, and her fat face was sweet, and her voice was gentle. Missus Beck was coy, all female, all sex. Being much the intellectual superior of this hard to get professional lover, she knew how to woo him without being caught at it. Within a few hours, the New Yorker was trying to shake this dimple Dumpling's determination to return to Manhattan with him. All right, sugar,

you go do your work. I'll follow you in a few days, follow my sweety right to his apartment in West hundred and thirty ninth Street in little Old New York. Back in New York, Fernandez barely had time to hustle bewildered missus Wilson on to a train for Wilmington, North Carolina, where she had relatives before missus beck. Purring and puffing loomed in the doorway of the West one hundred and thirty ninth Street apartment, and that night Martha, no stranger

to love, discovered that Ray was a perfect lover. She made a vow to herself never to leave him. When Ray insisted that Martha returned to Pensacola, the clever woman seemed to acquiesce. At least she went to Florida. Then she telephoned them, I've lost my job, honey, and I've no one to turn to but you. Martha's explanation was glib,

sweet and untrue. Actually, missus Beck was well liked in Pensacola, where she was graduated from from a school of nursing, and she had many people to whom she could turn. For one, there was her widowed mother, Missus Julius Seabrook sixty eight, a matriarch who worried constantly about this daughter, the smartest of her five children and the only wayward one.

But the truth was not in Martha. With her illegitimate daughter Sue and her son Anthony Beck two, she came back to raise, bed and board in little Old New York. Fernandez felt a strong sexual attachment for this woman, but he didn't take too kindly to becoming a family man overnight. He told her so, little did he know, Martha. Martha said the children got on Fernandez's nerves, and he told her she would have to find a place for them,

but she could stay. Missus Beck said she decided to place the children for adoption, but I didn't tell them of my plan because I knew he would not allow me to do it. Inquiry disclosed adoption procedure would take a long time, so she went to a Salvation Army home in New York on January twenty fifth, nineteen forty eight, and asked for permission to remain overnight.

Kiss me, darling, we're alone. After several days of wallow in a sexual love, Fernandez laid it on the line. He told Martha how he intended to correspond with lonely hearts, how he intended to profit by their loneliness. When I bring them here, when I marry them, I'll introduce you as my sister, or maybe as my sister in law. You can take it or leave it. Fernandez delivered his ultimatum while he sat down before Jane Thompson's typewriter. Martha said she'd take it. She even helped him with his

voluminous correspondence. Time and again, Missus Bluebeard found herself rebelling at the role their way of life had forced her to play. When Ray brought home old women, she didn't mind too much. When he brought home women who were young and pretty, Martha couldn't stand it. Shortly before Valentine's Day nineteen forty eight, Ray announced that he was going to Royersford, Pennsylvania to meet Missus Esther Henny, a forty year old first grade teacher in the Penhurst State School.

He had been courting Missus Henny for several months and had learned that she had a substantial bank account. Now he was going to propose marriage. Almost sick with jealousy, Martha did as she was bid, readied her bridal chamber for another occupant. Fernandez and Esther sent word that they'd been married in Fairfax, Virginia. Martha, with a smile on her face and her fingernails biting into her clenched fists,

awaited their arrival. Her heart sank when she saw that her new sister in law was a pleasant, plump blonde and no hag. However, she played her role of sister well and masked her rage. When Ray and Esther retired for the night, perhaps Fernandez knew what was happening, so he managed to tiptoe to Martha's bed to give her a good night kiss and a whisper it's you I love. Four days after Esther's arrival at the West one hundred and thirty ninth Street department, Ray, so sweet and solicitous

during months of courtship, turned irritable. He demanded that Esther sign over her insurance policies to him. She refused, but she did give him five hundred dollars for rent and other bills he owed. Then he insisted that she signed papers making him beneficiary of her teacher's pension. She wouldn't, but she did give him one hundred and fifty dollars for a debt he said, he owed. Martha Ray gave the astonished Esther tongue lashing after tongue lashing. One day,

she found five hundred dollars missing. She kept silent because she didn't know whether to blame sullen Ray or moody Martha, who only the day before had made a noisy, bloody and vain attempt to slash her wrists from other residents in the apartment building, Esther learned ominous whispers of how Ray took a woman into Spain and she died there. Now terror clutched the bride from Pennsylvania. She spent day

after day with Martha, whose every glance was menacing. She spent night after night waiting alone in her bedroom for Ray, whose soft voice could be heard in Martha's room. When he finally did get to her bed, he was ugly and ready for sleep. When her two rings and her wristwatch disappeared, Esther, certain that something sinister was afoot, but unable to find the key to the mystery, decided to swallow her pride and return quietly to Royersford. Then she

couldn't find car. She rushed to Ray, my car's been stolen. Esther reported, I lost it in a poker game, he answered. A few days later, the frantic bride found her automobile parked on a side street. In the glove compartment, she found pawn tickets. Taking these to the pawnshop, she found her watch and rings and learned that they had been left by Fernandez. Redeeming them, Esther climbed into her car and sped toward Philadelphia.

of which Martha was unable to break him. Instinct told this odd pair that it was time to clear out of the West one hundred and thirty ninth Street place. They rented rooms in a bungalow on Washingtonaw Avenue in Chicago, and their landlady thought mister and missus Fernandez were a very nice couple, so quiet, so genteel. Ray found employment at a machinist's bench and bought himself atopay to cover his increasing baldness. Martha became a registered nurse at Saint

Luke's Hospital in July. She left the other nurses sorrowful when she took a leave of absence because of the masked death of her parents, her brother, and her child in an auto accident in Pensacola. Her mother was very much alive in caring for Martha's children. Her brother, Dudley was a Pensacola cop, and her father, a typesetter on the Milton Georgia Gazette, had been dead three years. Actually, Big Eyed Bluebeard was preparing to go about her lover's business,

and her gorge was rising. Ray had told her only that Ruby Mercer of Fayetteville, North Carolina was coming to Chicago in answer to his letters. The same old jealousy poisoned Martha until she saw Miss Mercer. From Martha's point of view, she had nothing to fear from this female. Questioning Miss Mercer deftly, Ray and Martha found the woman had no money in the bank at home and only seven dollars in a bus ticket in her purs They

persuaded the lady to go back to where she came from. Ray, who had taken a day off from work to meet Miss Mercer, went back to his job. Martha became a nurse in Holy Cross Hospital. Then one terrible weekend, mister Bluebeard left Martha alone. He was looking over a prospect in green Forest, Arkansas. The poor, unsuspecting soul was missus Myrtle Young, forty three years divorced and the mother of a son seventeen and a daughter twenty. Important item. She

owned a small hotel in green Forest. Ray returned to his love sick Martha, his eyes were shining, who was figuratively licking his chops. I told her to come up here. She thinks I'm Charles Martin. On August eleventh, Ray and Martha quit their jobs. That night, Martha had an attack of the same old sickness jealousy. She exhibited twenty sleeping pills she had stolen from the hospital. Ray persuaded her

not to take them. The next morning, Missus Young was met at a Chicago bus terminal by an extremely gentle Charles Martin and his nervous, smiling sister. In appearance, Martha found Myrtle very much like herself. Now, where was her four thousand dollars? Oh, she left that in her Green Forest bank. Wasn't that all right? Charles was so sweet to Myrtle that his sister wondered whether anyone ever died

of jealousy. On August fourteenth, with Martha as a furious matron of honor, Missus Young and Charles Martin took out a marriage license and were married at the Cook County Building. The three went next to Chicago's First National Bank. There, at her husband's urging, Myrtle asked to cash a check against her account in her Arkansas bank. The First National

was stuffy about it and refused her request. Myrtle might have let it go at that, but her bridegroom was so annoyed he made her sleep with her sister in law on their bridal night. Perplexed, Myrtle telephoned her hometown bank. The very next day, August fifteenth, her four thousand dollars was available at Chicago's First National. The three went to the bank. The newlyweds established a two thousand dollars joint

checking account for mister and missus Charles Martin. Myrtle put the remaining two thousand dollars in her wallet, but she brought it out soon. At an automobile agency, she spent seventeen hundred and fifty dollars for a nineteen forty one sedanette Charles wanted. He wanted to drive it right off, but Myrtle insisted on a new paint job. That night, Myrtle took them to dinner at a Loop restaurant, and later she took them to a movie. That was where

she fell ill. When they reached their Washtonaw Avenue rooms, nurse Martha gave her sister in law a bicarbonate of soda and put her to bed. Myrtle called archly to her bridegroom, who went to her. Martha worried on the Davenport, but not about Myrtle's health. At four a m. Fernandez came to his beloved, I don't know what's wrong with Myrtle. Take her to a hospital, he ordered, Crossly. Martha dressed

hastily and jerked Myrtle into her clothes. The two women started by bus for a hospital, with Myrtle muttering you've poisoned me. You've poisoned me. With her best hospital manners, Martha got Myrtle on a bus and sought to soothe her temporary rival. But Myrtle kept mumbling that her sister in law had poisoned her, that she feared the whole marriage venture, and that her life was in danger. Her

hysteria was rising. Suddenly, Myrtle leaped from her seat in the almost empty bus, ran to the driver and demanded a policeman. Martha lumbering after sought to shush her. Martha would not be quieted. The driver brought his bus to a halt. Okay, lady, He told Myrtle, there's the Brighton Park police station.

sergeant agreed, then, placatingly, lady, you go to a hospital. Tomorrow, you telephone and we'll send a policeman around. Thus, missus Bluebeard piloted her victim out into the Chicago night. Now we'll go to a hospital. Martha's voice was soft, syrupy, but the sick woman balked and stood under a street light, fumbling in her purse. My bank book's missing, Myrtle screamed, I'm not going back to a hospital. I'm going back to Charles and ask him about this. And back they

went to the bungalow on Washington Aw Avenue. While Myrtle searched frantically through her belongings for her bank book. Fernandez's eyes rested accusingly on his full lipped paramour. Martha's brown eyes watched him slyly. Each pair of eyes seemed to say that the other had robbed Myrtle. Now, honey, why

don't you look in your purse again? Martha suggested the sick woman dump the clutter of her handbag onto her bed, and there, in one of the compartments lay her bank book had it been stolen and returned, Neither Ray nor Martha has said. At any rate, the lost and found bank book proved the last straw for the sick woman. I've had enough. I'm going home. Martha glanced triumphantly at her lover, but neither spoke. Early the next morning, August sixteenth,

Fernandez and Martha took the distraught woman to the bus terminal. Myrtle, still ill, had just missed a southbound bus. There would be an hour's wait. Without a word or a glance. Mister and missus Bluebeard exchanged a single thought Myrtle might remember her money, and utilized that sixty minutes by hurrying to the First National Bank. Excusing himself, Fernandez went to the washroom hurriedley wrote a check for two thousand dollars

and slipped it to Martha. Martha needed no instruction. While Myrtles about to be abandoned husband sought to soothe her into a peaceful departure, Martha rushed to the bank. There she discovered, to her angry embarrassment that haste made waste her lover had made out the check to Ray Martin instead of Charles Martin. Naturally, the bank refused to honor the check, Martha dashed back to the bus terminal. By the time Martha arrived, Myrtle was already on her way

to Arkansas. The thought of her newly purchased car and of her joint checking account swept from her sick mind. Mister Missus Bluebeard made to the First National Fernandez using the name Charles Martin, wrote a check which emptied the joint account of its two thousand dollars. Then they hurried to the automobile agency to pick up Myrtle's car. They packed their belongings, dumped them into the new car, and

headed east. Meanwhile, at Springfield, Missouri, a dazed and seemingly very sick woman was taken from an Arkansas bound bus and hurried to a hospital. She kept insisting that she had been kept captive and beaten until she surrendered her money. Hospital doctors decided she had indeed been beaten about the head and that this beating may have caused her mental derangement. Papers in her bag identified the sick woman as missus

Myrtle Young of green Forest, Arkansas. Relatives hurried to her aid and placed her in a mental hospital in Little Roy. Then On August twenty first, several days after her marriage, Myrtle Young died. The death certificate read cerebral hemorrhage and liver inflammation. Only two people realized that the car for which Missus Young's money had paid was speeding mister and Missus Bluebeard on to New England to more daring crimes. Mister and Missus Bluebeard sped eastward in a car bought

with their last victim's money behind them. In a little Rock, Arkansas hospital, Missus Myrtle Young, forty had died of cerebral hemorrhage, insisting to the last that she had been held captive in Chicago by her bridegroom and his sister, who beat her until she surrendered her money ahead of them. In spring Field, Vermont, a boarding house keeper quivered over her prospective meeting with Raymond Martinez Fernandez, a lonely heart's penpal to whom she hoped soon.

make love to her. Fernandez's lips thinned to a harsh line, Martha, remember your promise not to be jealous and not to interfere. You're getting to be a business and social nuisance. Why don't you go back to Florida and let me be, because you're the only man who can make me happy. I'll never let you go. The car carried its bickering love birds to Springfield. It was late August nineteen forty eight, shortly after the death of the aforementioned Missus Young, that

Fernandez and Missus Beck arrived in New York. Fernandez's greedy eyes swept first over his prospective bride's property and then over Missus de la Pointe. He liked what he saw. Irene, in turn, was pleased with her matrimonial agency. Find what Fernandez lacked in beauty, He was stoop shouldered swarthy, gold toothed in hayseedy he made up for in charm. At least Irene he found him delightful when she could prime away from the devoted woman he'd introduced as his sister.

He seemed afraid even to pay Irene a compliment when pouting missus Beck was around. However, he managed a moment alone with Irene to propose marriage, and they did slip away for a few glorious hours, during which they took premarital blood tests. When they told Martha, she turned hysterical. Martha had disrupted each of Fernandez's marriage for profit plans since she had joined him eight months before. This one

was no exception. One night, her great eyes wide with excitement, she whispered dreadful details of Ray's past in Irene's car. The next morning, the Vermont widow, who never let her heart rule her head, sent the pair packing. Fernandez as was in a fury. Don't you talk to me like that, Martha shrieked, I can't stand it. Irene was pretty and you were falling in love. I'll kill myself. The car outbound from Springfield came to a halt. Martha dashed from

it and threw herself into the nearby Black River. Fernandez ran after hauled out her two hundred dripping pounds. He was not contrite. I've got a perfectly good racket, and you keep spoiling it with your jealousy, he scolded, We're through. You take the next bus south. Wiley, Martha knew better than to irritate her Hawaiian born spaniard too much. With tears in her eyes, she took a bus to the

North Carolina home of a married sister. Free at last of his mistress, Fernandez visited his sister, Missus frank Cano, in the Astorias section of New York. There he planned new conquests of lonely hearts. He wrote Missus de la Pointe, seeking a reconciliation with her. Irene answered, I only wish I had a way of looking deep down into your head and reading what is there true as you say, there would always be doubt between us after those hideous things.

Martha told me. She even implied you intended to do away with me as you did with Jane. After you succeeded in getting what I had, then you could go away and enjoy yourself with her, your only true love. You skunk, but I love you. Darn it well, Darling, so long and try to be good. Enjoy ad free listening at the safe house.

sleeping pills I stole from that Chicago hospital. I took six of them to kill myself, but I lived, and then I knew I wasn't supposed to die. Please take me back. And because there was a strong sexual tie between them, mister Bluebeard again took Missus Bluebeard into his arms. As mister and Missus Charles Martin. They leased the upper floor of a house in Adeline Place, Valley, stream Long Island.

They paid two hundred dollars for two months. Rent then moved in on December seventeenth, nineteen forty eight, and brought with them many religious objects and five radios. On December twenty sixth another letter came to Ray from his lonely heart in Albany. He told Martha about missus Fay and made her promise to behave no matter what happens. On December thirty first, Martha and Ray drove north. Martha remained in an Albany hotel. That New Year's Eve, Ray went

to see Janet in her one room, kitchenette apartment. He found missus Faye some twenty years older and some twenty pounds heavier than she had described herself. That did not make her less attractive, for she had desire in her heart and money in her bank. At ten thirty PM, when Ray left Janet, he promised to bring his sister to see her. Martha needed only one look that New Year's Day to see that Missus Fay was simply gaga

about Ray. Fernandez for the most part, behave circumspectly. That afternoon, Ray, Martha, and Missus Fay drove to Amsterdam, New York to visit missus Faye's stepdaughter and her husband, doctor and missus Alton Spencer. Returning to Albany, missus Faye asked her friends to spend the night with her. Don't you go to sleep until she does, Ray warned Martha. The next day was Sunday.

Mister and missus Bluebeard marked time until Monday so missus Fay could go to her banks bright and early that January third, Excited, Janet wrote one two thousand dollar check payable to her and another fifteen hundred dollar check payable to the First National Bank of New York. She also drew about thirty four hundred dollars in cash. Here, Charles, you keep these, missus Fay simpered as she handed suave mister Bluebeard checks and bank book. I'll feel safer if

you have them. It was nine p m. When the pair ushered their giggling victim into their Valley Stream apartment. Janet purred Missus Beck fixed food in the kitchen. Bluebeard tacked up pictures in the living room, carelessly leaving his hammer on a chair. Then he suggested that missus Fay use a un method of telling her all many friends of her impending marriage. How asked missus Fay. As Fernandez sent for paper and ink, Write surprise across here. His

finger went diagonally across the sheet. Then write your name here. His finger traveled horizontally along the bottom of the paper. Mary is a grig, missus Faye did as she was bid, commenting the while that she'd better get to Manhattan early on the morrow because she felt easy only winter money was banged. Mister Bluebeard suggested she endorse her checks at once. She did. I think I ought to call my late husband's sister and tell her I'm down here, the old

lady suggested. Happily, Martha's shadow fell across the doorway. It's too late, missus Beck objected. Janet looked through her couped to Fernandez, patted his strong hand and babbled on about her checks. Martha scolded, Oh, give the woman her money so she can go and we can get some rest. The dislike the two women felt for each other was plain. Since there was only one bed, Martha and Janet had

to occupy it together. From his place on the front room couchs, Fernandez could hear Janet telling Martha that once wed, she and Charles wouldn't want a sister around. It was late when Janet Weeping came to him. She was making such a fuss over something Martha had said. He feared the people downstairs would hear shushing. Janet Fernandez strode to Martha's bed, quiet that woman he ordered no matter how.

He waved his hand in the general direction of the hammer, saw Martha's face and used his paramour's own much worn plea, if you love me, you will. Then he went to the bathroom and stayed there ten or fifteen minutes. Martha glided to the living room. She says she saw old missus Fay lying nude on the couch. Her jealousy boiled over. She said. The next thing she knew, Ray was shaking

her by the shoulders and shouting what has happened. Testifying in his own defense the mail order, Romeo said the killing occurred during the five or ten minutes he was in the bathroom of the Valley Stream apartment he shared with Missus Beck. The door was closed, he said, calmly and quietly. I went back in the living room and Missus Beck was standing up over missus Fay. Missus Fay was crouched over the suitcase, her head was flattered with blood.

The suitcase was bloody, and on the floor there was a great, big puddle. I was confused. I rushed over and Missus Beck was standing over missus Fay, and I said, Martha, what happened. She came out of a daze, if it was a daze or a coma, and said, my god, what happened? Missus Faye groaned. Ray grabbed Martha's white scarf, wrapped it about the wrinkled throat, and using the hammer and the tourniquet, twisted and twisted and twisted. Silence filled

the room. I said, you should know, and I told her go to a hospital or call a doctor or something. She got down and she said, there's nothing you can do. She's dead. Then Ray laughed. Ray cried. Fernandez said he was thrown into hysterics by the sligh. I got upset and nervous. I got a bottle of whiskey and drank most of it. I sat on the couch crying. Missus Beck said, there's no sense getting that way. There's nothing we can do. We then decided to get rid of the body.

a new rug. They lifted missus Fay's body into the new trunk. They put down the new rug. They deposited the stained one in a garbage can well away from the house. Then they drove to Astoria with the heavy trunk and deposited it in the basement of Ray's sister's home. For ten days, they hunted a house with a basement. During that ten days, Martha stole time to open an account with one of missus Fay's checks. She cashed the other in Albany, saying missus Fay was buying a trailer

for a trip to Florida. Eradicating the words surprise from papers missus Fay had signed. Fernandez typed letters to her relatives and friends telling of her forthcoming marriage he took special care with the letter destined for Missus Fay's stepped down in her own handwriting. It was signed Janet J.

By that time, Missus Fay had indeed disappeared. Her body, wrapped in cloth, was secreted in a six foot hole dug and cemented over by the strong muscled mister Bluebeard and the basement of a house he had rented in South Ozone Park, Long Island. The very day Missus Spencer received the letter that alarmed her, Ray Fernandez received one that set him thinking. It was postmarked Grand Rapids, Michigan.

It was signed Delaphene Downing. Mister Bluebeard made no mention of this letter to Missus Bluebeard until January twenty third, after they had traveled from Ozone Park to Chicago. Martha thought Ray had driven west only to pick up a tupe on which he had paid twenty five dollars down many months before. Ray was dissatisfied with the color. Martha tried to die the tupe and spoiled it. He threw it away, so she was in no mood to hear him say, there's a cute little widow named I'm Deelaphine

downing up in Byron Center, just outside Grand Rapids. Her husband's been dead a year. She's got a two year old daughter and some property. You said, cute, Martha accused, How old is she? Twenty eight? Martha bristled, but she held her tongue an unpleasant restraint, which she continued throughout the three days she waited in a Grand Rapids hotel while Ray conducted his courtship in Byron Center, two miles southwest. At long last, Ray came for Delaphine's a nice girl.

She'll be glad to see you. I told her you were my sister from Chicago, and you could cook and take care of the kid, Fernandez told her. Martha sniffed, but she was sweet as chocolate pudding when she met her prospective sister in law, a cheerful, bespectacled girl in Missus Downing's five room cottage, and she managed to exhibit a jolly, if false humor, which she drove with ray Delaphine and Raynell to Palisade, Nebraska, to visit Missus Downing's parents,

mister and Missus Martin Price. Delaphine's relatives were given the impression that she was already married to this wealthy New Yorker Charles Martin, that he was an ex Secret serviceman and a civil engineer for a railroad, and that Delaphine met her second husband through his sister Martha quote who nursed me in the hospital when I had Raynell unquote. Mister Missus Bluebeard and their victims returned to Byron Center

on February fourteenth, nineteen forty nine. Missus Downing failed to greet her neighbors, Missus Newell D. Burt and mister Missus Lawrence Sullivan. Delaphine's changed, though, they said to each other, she hasn't bothered with us ever since since those nasty New Yorkers came to town. As a matter of fact, Missus Downing scarcely had time for her neighbors for with the aid of her house guests, she was liquidating her property. She sold her house and gave the down payment of

five hundred dollars to mister Bluebeard. She traded in her car plus one hundred and seventy five dollars for a new one. She established a joint checking account to which she contributed thirteen hundred dollars, and he two thousand, seven hundred dollars of Missus Fay's money. She was also busy arguing with Charles. She had sent her Missouri's sister eight hundred dollars for a business venture, and she was determined

to send her fifteen hundred dollars more. It's not fair, stormed Fernandez, both to Missus Downing and later to Martha. But to Martha he added, Delaphene's a really nice woman. What do you say we take her to California with us? Martha saw red and forgot her promised to behave. After that, things were rather unpleasant. On February twenty six, Fernandez went shopping in Grand Rapids. He came home with a new one hundred and four dollars two pay on his head.

Delaphine screamed, she didn't recognize him. Already suspicious of Martha, Delaphine hurled unpleasant charges at Fernandez. Then she had hysterics. Do you have enough of those sleeping pills to put her away for good? Ray whispered. Martha grinned and nodded. Trained as a nurse, Missus Beck persuaded Missus Downing to take the pills. Quote to call you, honey, unquote. Mister and Missus Bluebeard kept a death watch. Ray was nervous. Sugar, she may not die for a day or two. Martha warned,

she's gotta die. People may come. Mister Bluebeard wrapped a gun in two baby blankets and shot the sleeping woman. Then he ran to the yard to see if the shot had attracted attention. He returned from the garage with a rope. You tie her up. I can't bear it, he said, handing the rope to his mistress. Martha. Heaved and tugged at the body, at a blanket and at the rope, while Fernandez worked in the basement to gather. They took the body down. You can't put her in

that hole. There's too much water in it, Martha objected, peering into the grave. Fernandez had dug. Martha bailed two wash tubs full of muddy water out of the grave. Then they put Missus downing in her bloody pillow under her head. Mister Bluebeard filled up the hole, sealed it with old concrete, then looked at his watch. It was seven point thirty. The whole job had taken four hours. After that, they wakened sleeping Renell to get something to eat,

and took the baby to a movie. The next day, Sunday, Renell proved to be a problem. She cried constantly for her mother. Mister Missus Bluebeard took her for a ride. She cried. They spent twenty five dollars for a cocker spaniel puppy. The puppy scratched renew The baby howled louder, so they returned the dog and retrieved their money. Sunday night, the first night they'd had alone for love in many weeks, the child kept screaming. Monday morning, she was still shrieking.

We could put her down there with her mother. Martha suggested, you'll have to do it. I haven't the heart. Well, we'll see. The pair went into Grand Rapids withdrew all but five hundred dollars from the joint account, bought some fresh cement, and then returned to Missus Downing's cottage. Martha took the nude child to the basement, wrapped it in a blanket, and held its head down in one of the wash tubs of muddy grave water. The child struggled

so hard even Big Martha could hardly manage. She plunged the baby fully under water. Let her be, don't make her suffer anymore. Ray called, what's the matter? Taunted Missus Bluebeard, Why don't you come down? Fernandez did come down later. Put it there, Martha ordered, pointing to a green toolbox. Fernandez put the body in the box, cemented it, and

then re cemented Missus Downing's grave. Then the lovers went to a movie, oblivious that things had been happening in the world outside, that Missus Downing's puzzled neighbors had called her relatives and that they had called the police. Home from the movie, mister and Missus Bluebeard were preparing for bed when the police arrived. Missus Downing, oh, she and her daughter have gone to Detroit for a visit. Ray lied glibly, but the police warrant in hand pushed in

the police saw the packed bags. Searching Fernandez, they found his large wad of money in his list of a hundred and seventy lonely hearts with check marks after seventeen names. Then in the basement they found the wet patch of cement, and under it they found delaphene downing. Fernandez paled, you got me dead to rights, I might as well tell everything, he said. He told his story quietly to Michigan's Kent County Prosecutor Roger O. McMahon. Sometimes his big knuckled hands

writhed as he talked, Otherwise he showed no emotion. Then Husky Missus Beck was brought in. Her memory for detail was phenomenal. On the following June ninth, Indicted for the murder of Missus Fay, they went to trial in Bronx County Supreme Court before Justice Ferdinand Pecora. It took thirteen days to get twelve jurors. It took thirty more days

for prosecution and defense to present its case. It took the jurors approximately twelve hours to find both Martha Beck and Raymond Martinez Fernandez guilty of murder in the first degree. March ninth, nineteen fifty one and final statements issued through their lawyer, Herbert Rosenberg. Both Martha and Fernandez stressed their great love as if that were absolution. Martha said, I have sinned, and with that knowledge, I am paying my

debt to society. But Fernandez didn't even acknowledge his sin. Two hours before going to the chair, he told his lawyer he wanted to shout his love of Martha to the world. The news that she still loved him made him want to burst with joy, he said. The last day for the Lonely Heart's killers was one of frustration, but they put their all in to their last statements. What does it matter who is to blame? Asked Martha.

She went on, my story is a love story, but only those tortured by love can know what I mean. Then her vanity intruded. I was pictured as a fat, unfeeling woman. True, I am fat, But if that was a crime, how many of my sex would be guilty. I am not unfeeling, stupid or moronic. The prison and the death house have only strengthened my feelings for Raymond. And in the history of the world, how many crimes

can be attributed to love? My last words and my last thoughts are he who is without sin cast the first stone. Fernandez made no reference to his crimes. I'm going to die, as you know. That's something I've been prepared for since nineteen nine. I'm going to die like a man. Twice. Wednesday, lawyers for the lovers appealed to

state courts for postponement of the electrocution. Yesterday, the appeal was renewed in the federal court here and on the same grounds that Martha and her boyfriend weren't present when the state Court of Appeals sentenced them to death. Federal Judge John F. X mcgoie turned down the appeal too. Undaunted, defense lawyer William Richter went to Washington to appeal to the US Supreme Court. The condemned, as usual, were permitted to choose the menus for their last lunch and dinner.

Martha selected liver and onions for lunch, with spinach or broccoli, whichever the prison cook had on hand. She dined at about five pm on fried chicken, fringe, fried potatoes, and lettuce and tomato salad with dressing no dessert. Her sweetheart's lunch consisted of fried eggs, french fried potatoes, sliced tomatoes, ice cream, and coffee, topped by a box of candy and cigarettes. His evening meal was an onion omelet, sliced tomatoes, almond,

ice cream, fruit, and coffee. Martha did not have a last hour visitor, but Fernandez's brother, Anthony, accompanied by a woman he described as their sister, Catherine, drove to sing sing last night and spent ten minutes in the prison. Anthony refused to answer any questions on leaving, saying only

that he had found Raymond perfectly all right. At noon, with the sun shining rich with its promise of spring bright on the river that flows in view of the Graystone Deathhouse, authorities began their preparations for dispatching the killers to their deaths. Fernandez was bathed, shaved, and attired for the occasion and the light shirt and black trousers that make up what is called the death suit. They were then moved to pre execution cells near the quarter that

leads to the death chamber. Missus Beck, who changed to a house dress, remained in the woman's wing. At six pm, a small spot was shaved on the top of her head. The two lovers had not seen each other since they wound up in the death house August twenty second, nineteen forty nine, and did not meet again last night. Executioner Joseph FRANCEL, who lives in Cairo, New York, was to

receive one hundred and fifty dollars for each execution. Martha and Fernandez died specifically for the strangling and bludgeoning of Missus Janet Faye Wilson, sixty in Valley Stream. They buried her in a cellar in South Ozone Park, Queens in January nineteen forty nine. Fernandez had lured her from her

home in Albany through Lonely Hearts letters. But they also admitted the slaying of Missus Delphine Downing twenty eight, another lonely widow trapped by the Lonely Hearts letters, and Missus Downing's two year old daughter Raynell and Byron Center near Grand Rapids, Michigan. The baby was killed drowned in a bucket of water by Martha and buried with the mother simply because Fernandez and his mistress couldn't figure out what else to do with her. Michigan has no capital punishment

for murder. The state therefore waived prosecution so Fernandez and Martha could pay the ultimate penalty in New York. But the killers died in the megalomania of their love affair, the love they invoked, even after all Hope had died in the last unsuccessful moves to save them, The Lonely Heart's Killers, Fat Martha Beck and her lover Raymond Fernandez, died in the electric chair at Sing Sing last night

for one of their three admitted murders. They died phlegmatically, eyes open until the death masks were lowered over their faces. Martha smiled and winked. Fernandez, in a last foppish gesture, pulled up his trousers as if to preserve of the crease as he sat in the death chair. Fernandez went to his death before his mistress. As the weaker of the pair. He was led into the death chamber at eleven twelve o'clock, accompanied by the Catholic chaplain of the prison,

the Reverend Thomas Donovan. The killer stared around him without curiosity and took his place docilely. At eleven sixteen.

than two hundred pounds between the fatal arms. She didn't allow that to upset her composure. Her eyes drifted once around the room, and she glanced up as the death mask was lowered. At that moment, a ghostly smile played at the corner of her mouth. She looked to her left, where the matrons who had attended her during her long imprisonment were standing. The matrons, Missus Nellie Evans and Missus Bessy Irving, were near tears, fighting for control. Martha seemed

to sympathize. Her left eyelid dropped in an unmistakable wink. Then the mast came down and there was the hum of the current. At eleven twenty four, she too was dead. The lonely Heart's killers were given four shocks of electricity each to speed them to eternity. The slender Fernandez died quickly, but Martha struggled and her body strained against the straps as the first shock hit. Again at the second shock, she jerked forward. On the third and fourth, she was inerted.

She was accompanied to the chair by the Protestant chaplain of sing Sing, the Reverend Luther Hannam, but she did not turn to him as he stood murmuring a prayer, nor did she give more than a cursory glance to the thirty two official witnesses, eight more than the law requires, who overflowed the chapel like pew of the death chamber

and were ranged along the walls. All the witnesses but two were reporters representing twenty nine newspapers, and all were searched for cameras before being allowed to enter the death chamber, and keeping with the regulations laid down after the electrocution of Ruth Snyder, the Sashwayed husband killer back in the nineteen twenties. The two non reporters were the Michigan sheriff

deputies who arrested the lonely Heart's pair. The witnesses badly strained the capacity of the box like death chamber, but none of the doomed killers seemed aware of it. The killers entered through the famous green door, directly facing the death chair. In the small room, the lower walls of dark green bordered with black, and the upper walls and ceiling a pale yellow. There was little else for them

to see. To the left of the death chair stood the screen behind which the official executioner manipulated the switches, and a few feet from the screen the door to the autopsy chamber. It was in this autopsy chamber the doctor Howard Kipp, chief surgeon at Sing Sing, pronounced his finding, This man is dead, and for only in the thirteenth time in the history of New York State, the formula was altered.

hih at Third Street Music Media Management. And original graphics for all new episodes by Sean Miller Jones. And as for me, well you heard it. Stoop shouldered in his ill fitting clothes, looked like a farm hand, startled by the roar of the city. I'm true crime historian Richard O. Jones signing off for now.