Hello! I'm Koelle. And I'm Kenna. Welcome back to another episode of Diagnosing a Killer.
Killer.
I'm excited for this one because I've been semi-researching it for the better part of like a week or two.
I'm excited about it because it is our first...well, depending on what was her name with the pickaxe.
Oh, uh...
His name was like Jerry and her name was...
Yeah, Carla I think.
Carla. Carla Faye Tucker.
Yeah, Carla Faye Tucker.
Besides them, for the most part, this is gonna be like our first killer couple.
Ooh!
Yes.
And what's even more interesting is that it happened in the 1940s.
This is the 1940s.
It is the 1940s.
So we are gonna start out by talking about Raymond Fernandez.
He was born on the big island of the territory of Hawaii and it's this territory of Hawaii at this point because this is December 17th, 1914.
So it was before it was a state.
Although I think that the US owned the territory of Hawaii.
Yeah.
Both of his parents were of Spanish origin.
They were from Spain and they had pretty traditional values growing up.
And soon after Raymond had turned three, the family decided to actually move to the states and they moved to Bridgeport, Connecticut.
Unfortunately, though, Raymond's father was really resentful of his son and I did try looking to see if there was something in their past as to why he disliked his son.
But the only thing I could really find was that Raymond was just kind of this thin, meek child and his father really believed in working really hard, like physical labor and things like that.
So his dad would work construction or as a handyman and he would always make Raymond do the worst of the things.
Like, if it meant getting dirtier than him, he would make Raymond do it or if it was more heavy lifting, he would make Raymond do it.
He was pretty much like trying to pretend like he was this four-man kind of guy, but he really wasn't.
Yeah.
He was just a jerk.
So when Raymond was kind of growing up, he would oftentimes leave home, not necessarily like a runaway, but he would try to stay out of the house as much as possible because he didn't like being around his dad.
So when he was younger, he would get like, even as an adolescent at 11 or 12, he was getting into things like vandalism or destroying property around town.
And in 1932, when Raymond was 16, Raymond and a few friends were actually caught stealing chickens from a local property.
They were just fuck-off teenagers, right?
Yeah.
But like two or three of them plus Raymond.
Two of the boys had actually been bailed out by their parents. Raymond's father left Raymond in the jail for two months to serve a sentence.
At like a 12-year-old?
No, at 16.
Still?
But still, yeah. He was like, no, you're going to sit there and you're going to serve your sentence, essentially. Like, he wasn't going to bail him out.
I mean, mom always told us growing up, if you get yourself in jail, good luck getting yourself out because I'm not bailing you out.
I've never had to experience that option.
After serving his first stint in jail, the whole family actually moved back to Spain.
During this time, his father would actually become mayor of, I want to say it's Orgiva, Granada, Spain.
And yeah, so he became the mayor where they lived locally.
And again, I tried to find information about Raymond's father. It never once gave me a name, but I think he's just so...
Old?
Like, no, he's so dead now. But I tried to look up for Mayor Fernandez or something like that in Granada, Spain, and I couldn't really find anything.
So I'm wondering if...
I don't know, like...
He changed his name when he came over.
Yeah, or he didn't want to... or it's like a shameful thing now because, I mean, we'll learn a little bit more about Raymond.
Everybody loves Raymond.
So he must have distanced himself quite a bit. So at 20, Raymond moved away from the family to Gibraltar.
And this is where he became an ice cream vendor, which I think is really cute.
Okay.
So he would actually work on his uncle's farm around this time as well for extra income.
And Raymond actually met a local woman. Her name was Incarnación Robles.
No.
Yes, Incarnación.
Incarnación.
I like those.
My favorite animals is puppies.
Oh, that's hilarious.
So they would actually get married and together they would have two children.
The people of the town described Raymond around this time as calm and well-mannered.
And when World War II struck, Raymond actually wanted to help in any way that he could.
So he volunteered to serve the Spain Merchant Marines and he became an intelligence officer for the British, which I thought was also really cool.
That is cool.
So he seems to be doing well, you know.
Where's the poop?
So in December of 1945, Raymond would actually make plans to travel to the U.S. to make more money for the family.
While on this trip, unfortunately, Raymond would have an accident that would change his life for forever.
While on the trip to the U.S., a giant steel hatch actually fell onto Raymond's head.
He was like climbing out of a thing and it hit him in the head.
It actually fractured his skull and damaged his frontal lobe permanently.
And you know, the frontal lobe is very important.
Exactly.
For impulse control and decision-making and rationality.
And we talked about that in our CTE episode as well.
And also, I feel like there's been a lot of cases with people that have been mass murderers and the worst of the worst that have had damage to their frontal lobe after they've passed, they've figured it out.
Yeah.
So he would actually be hospitalized for three months recovering, but he would never fully recover due to the severity of the accident.
God, that sucks.
At this point, Raymond would become impulsive and he actually became addicted to sexual perversions.
Doesn't surprise me.
Just in the following year in 1946, Raymond began to live in Mobile, Alabama.
He would actually be arrested for trying to steal clothing from a ship that was docked.
And he just tried to take the clothing off the ship, but he was caught.
Okay.
Which is ridiculous because he even said he didn't know why he did it.
It was just like, well, I'm just going to steal this now.
Like I need money or something.
Very bizarre.
So Raymond would actually be sentenced to serve a year long term in prison for stealing clothing.
I don't know why.
That linen face just shacked Rippa.
So he actually served his prison sentence in Tallahassee, Florida.
So during this time, Raymond actually became very attached to a prisonmate and he began listening to the Haitian man's stories of voodoo and black magic.
Oh, God, here we go.
Straight up.
So he began to practice black magic to himself and he focused on learning the art of seduction.
Raymond believed that he had become irresistible to women.
Ew, that makes me want to throw up.
Yes.
So once released from prison, Raymond would move to New York City and there he became obsessed with responding to lonely heart club columns in local newspapers.
Oh, what the fuck ever.
Not even joking.
So Raymond at this point now looked physically meek.
He was bald and at one point he was handsome, but he became a recluse at this point.
But he's irresistible to women.
In his mind.
Therefore he would reach out to hundreds of women seeking love or companionship by writing letters and meeting with any woman that was willing to meet up.
He would often put powders inside of the envelopes and then included in the letters were requests for personal items like a hair or like a ring or an earring.
And then when he would get the response letter back, he would perform voodoo on it and then, yeah, to make the women fall in love with him.
Did it work?
Wait, wait, wait, wait.
You think that it wouldn't?
Did his wife leave him?
No.
She's in Spain with two kids.
Wait, what happened to his wife?
She's in Spain with two kids.
His children.
Oh no.
So once Raymond received him, like I said, he would perform these little voodoo spells on him.
And Raymond would eventually insist on meeting up with the women and then he would try to gain their trust and schmooze with them and all this stuff.
And then he would rob women.
Like he would say, let's meet up at a park or let's meet up at wherever. So he would meet them and he would rob them.
And sometimes, I mean, he would use aliases and stuff like that.
You also have to keep in mind this is the 1940s.
Yeah, it's like really hard.
You literally could have, you know, the letter didn't need to come to your house.
It could go to the post office.
So yeah, and a lot of the times these crimes weren't reported because the women were embarrassed that they were a part of like a, you know, women seeking men, you know, a pen pal situation.
It reminds me of Mean Girls, whatever you said that he would like do voodoo on their stuff when Regina George is like, she said she's going to do some weird African voodoo on your tissue to make you like on the tissue.
She collects your tissues.
So creepy.
So in 1947, Raymond was corresponding in length with a woman named Jane Thompson.
Jane was a former chef and she seemed to be doing pretty well on her own.
She was actually taking care of her elderly mother full time who lived with her at this time.
So throughout their conversation and meetings, Raymond had convinced Jane to purchase two cruise ship tickets to Spain.
Okay.
The two arrived in Spain and Raymond was able to convince Jane to check them into a local hotel under the guise of them being husband and wife.
This is like no joke.
Like they were talking in length, I say length, but it was probably a few weeks, like three, four weeks.
But I mean, during this time, he's also responding to other women as well.
Yeah, of course.
And what is this Jane lady getting out of this?
Like just like a companion ship.
Yeah, yeah, companionship.
So I mean, it's to Jane at first, they were actually staying at a local town where Raymond's wife lived with their two children.
Who saw that one coming.
In the mess, yeah.
Raymond would actually split time between his wife and Jane throughout the duration of the trip, right?
So they were supposed to only can.
Yeah, they were supposed to be there for like maybe a week, but I think they ended up staying like two.
After a while, Raymond eventually just took the leap and introduced Jane to Ignacio.
No, not even kidding.
So I'm assuming that she's like saying like, oh, this is my friend Jane or this is I don't know, or maybe this is my ex-wife and these are my kids.
And that's like either way he tried to like, but again, his impulsivity like he doesn't, he thinks it's just.
Yeah, and he can't rationalize anything.
So he thinks that everyone's just going to go along with what he's saying.
Right, exactly.
And he's irresistible. Don't forget.
Oh, he's totally irresistible.
Yeah, they're just going to go with it.
He probably thinks this is going to be like a threesome deal.
Yeah.
So in any case, of course, it eventually comes out the true nature of each relationship to each women.
In Carnation and Jane fought one night and the whole situation was too much for Raymond to handle.
Jane was actually found dead the morning of November 8th, 1947 in their hotel room.
Hold the phone. That was a 180.
Witnesses claim that they heard fighting in the night and even saw Raymond storming out of the hotel room slamming the door as he left.
Jane's body was removed from the scene and the local ME determined that the cause of death was from unknown causes.
And Jane was buried without an autopsy.
What?
Yeah. Well, this is 1947.
As long as you still work there when the cops arrived, you can get away with it.
I guess. It was like, holy shit.
Either way, the night of the 7th or the morning of the 8th before Jane was found, Raymond boarded a ship once again leaving his wife and children in Spain and headed back for New York.
Wait, so did Raymond killer or did in Carnation killer?
Because nobody knows.
Nobody knows.
Nobody knows?
Nobody knows.
Oh, that sucks.
Or Jane?
When Raymond got back to New York, he actually gained access to Jane's apartment because he had taken all of her possessions.
He had stolen money off of her and everything and her keys.
What the hell?
So he went back to Jane's apartment and he obtained her last will and testament.
No.
He changed her beneficiary recipient to himself, including her car and her apartment.
What a fucking cock.
And since her elderly mother lived with Jane.
What? What? She was there?
So remember at the beginning when I said that she had a really good job as a chef and like also she was taking care of her elderly mother.
Well now that he has the apartment to himself, he actually kicks Jane's mother out on her ass.
And does Jane's mom know that she's dead?
I don't know. I don't know. I don't think so. I mean, I don't know. She's just like missing.
Your daughter's dead. Get out.
I don't know how old she is. She's probably pretty old.
But that's really fucked up.
That is fucked up.
So all the while Raymond is still, I was going to say ramen. All the while ramen.
Ramen noodles.
All the while Raymond was still continuing to correspond with other women.
And in the same year, Raymond would meet one Martha Beck.
Oh no.
Martha Beck, maiden name Seabrook, was born May 6, 1920 in Milton, Florida.
Due to a quote unquote glandular issue, glandular issue, which I guess is like an old in term for like,
I don't know, like your pituitary gland or whatever it like a glandular issue, which I guess was a common term.
Martha had actually begun to gain weight at a very young age, like a lot of weight.
Her mother would actually berate her about her size for as long as she could remember.
She was teased and taunted by her classmates and she began to actually develop at an early age too.
It probably was pituitary.
I think yeah, I was going to say that sounds like pituitary.
So by the time she was like in middle school, she had a lot of physical features of like a young woman.
But because of the pituitary issue, she actually began to notice boys at an uncommon age as well.
So she was like 10 or 9 or 10 when she started noticing boys.
Well at 10 years old, she claimed that she was actually sexually assaulted by her biological brother.
This was never confirmed, but this is what she claimed later in life.
She was actually berated by her mother.
Her mother blamed her and beat her saying that she was overly sexualized and that she was the one that was harassing the brother and that's why it happened.
Because that's her fault.
Yeah, apparently.
Oh that's awful.
And this is what Martha said.
We don't have Mrs. Seabrook around any longer.
So as she grew older, she pined for a relationship just like any other teenager, but again because of her weight, she was often rejected.
Either way, Martha was a really smart girl and she actually graduated top of her class in 1942.
She wanted to become a nurse because she really wanted to help people, but due to her appearance, and keep in mind this is sexist 1942,
because of her appearance, she couldn't get hired as a nurse.
She wasn't attractive enough.
So she, of course, needing a job and wanting to be helpful to people, she actually got a job at a funeral home where she did women's hair and makeup, like for deceased women, which is noble work for sure.
Yeah.
But being a loner, she poured herself into work, so she found comfort in just preparing people for burial.
She did that for some time, but within a year, she wanted a fresh start.
So she relocated to California and she started working as a nurse for the army.
So during the day, she would work as a nurse, but at night, she would frequent bars and usually take a soldier home, like every night or every other night.
So she tried to navigate what she thought adult relationships looked like, because she didn't really have a good model.
So one instance, she actually became pregnant by one of those soldiers after a one night stand.
The man was completely uninterested in Martha, as was, this was a one night stand and he was very, very drunk.
He was so appalled by the thought of being with Martha, who had suggested that they get married, that he'd tried to commit suicide by throwing himself off of a pier into a bay.
Okay, then why did you have sex with her?
Because he was, you know, drunk.
That's not what he said.
No, no, it's not. It's not at all, but that's, it's to give you a broader idea of how people were, yeah, and how she felt like she was repulsive to people, you know?
That's really sad.
It's really sad.
He did survive and after essentially ghosting Martha, she decided to move back to Florida from California.
And did she keep the baby?
Knowing that her family and what acquaintances she did have might judge her for being pregnant out of wedlock. She actually purchased a fake wedding ring and claimed that the father was a Navy man who was currently enlisted overseas fighting in the Pacific.
So that they had fallen for each other immediately after meeting and that they had gotten married.
So she gloated about town, about her husband and he was this incredibly handsome, you know, war man and like, you know, he's this Navy man and they're just, you know, they fell in love so swiftly they just had to get married and everybody believed it.
She just couldn't wait for him to be home so they could live happily ever after, right?
So how long do you think this lie went on?
I was gonna say, I mean, it could essentially go on forever if she could say he'd die overseas.
Well, wouldn't you know it one day she actually received a letter in the mail that said that her beloved husband was killed in combat.
What? How?
I'm sure she just made that up.
She sent it to herself.
I don't even know if there was a letter.
Either way, everybody about town was like devastated because of the news. It was even featured in the local paper.
And she had completely made it up.
How do you do that and then not feel like a piece of shit afterwards for lying about all that stuff?
She was really excited about it though because she began to like receive all this attention and stuff.
Yeah, of course.
So in 1994, yeah, 1994, she's a vampire.
In 1944, she gave birth to her first child, a daughter named Willa Dean.
That's kinda cute.
Willa?
Willa? Yeah.
I think that's kinda cute. W-I-L-L-A.
I like Willow.
I like Willow too.
So just a few short months after her daughter was born, Martha actually met a bus driver named Alfred Beck, which, you know, of course.
She very quickly became pregnant and Alfred was a pretty sweet man, although he was kind of a bland man.
But as soon as they found out about the pregnancy, he did the right thing and he married Martha.
Hmm.
Martha was really excited to be married so she couldn't wait to change her name to Beck, so she's Martha Beck.
They would wed, but about six months into their marriage, they actually filed for divorce.
What?
Yeah.
Martha, at this point, is now jobless with two young children.
She became incredibly depressed.
She isolated and began to obsess over romance novels and magazines.
She dreamed of a man who would devote himself to her and her in return to just live a fairy tale lifestyle.
Yeah.
She began to pull herself up and eventually found work at a children's hospital in 1946.
She once again poured herself into work like she normally does and she was known to be very good and dedicated to her job.
She was good at what she did.
Martha said about her passion for helping others, quote,
I chose this profession without the thought of self and I want to prepare myself for this profession,
not for material gains, but for the purpose of aiding humanity and rendering services to others.
Okay, that's sweet.
End quote.
Yeah.
That also sounds like me.
Yeah.
It was a pretty professional quote.
That's my cover letter.
I sent it in the application.
It's my cover letter.
That's my summary.
So she would quickly excel in her job and she would become a superintendent of all of the nursing staff the year that she began her employment at the hospital.
So she moved up very quickly.
Her coworkers knew her as a helpless romantic and one day as a joke,
her coworkers actually gave her an ad for a lonely hearts club.
Oh no.
Uh-huh.
Martha, however, considered this to be a great idea.
She was like, oh my gosh, no, that's perfect because she's really self-conscious about her weight and the fact that she is too kid.
She's divorced, things like that.
And this is like a waiver order kind of control what goes out there.
Yeah.
After her ad was published, Martha waited day after day for a letter to appear in her mailbox.
She would check every day and sometimes twice a day.
She waited for her prince charming to respond and around December of 1947,
Martha would receive a letter that would change the course of her life forever.
Oh no.
Hatch falls on her head.
Oh God.
Oh, I feel okay.
So Raymond, posing as a successful but lonely businessman,
wrote a letter to the desperate Martha Beck.
He described his lavish lifestyle and claimed that the only thing missing in his life was someone to share it all with.
Oh shut up.
This is after he killed Jan.
Yes.
And he still has a wife.
Sweet Jan.
Was it Jan?
No, Jane.
Oh my God.
So Martha was absolutely floored.
She carried the letter around her all about town telling locals about her fairy tale man who spoke eloquently.
Dude, like just shut up.
She loves the attention.
She wants everyone to know that there's a dude involved.
She wrote back immediately and then the two wrote back and forth within the course of two or three weeks with each other.
Within this time that they were chatting, Raymond offered pictures of himself and Martha felt pressured to respond in kind.
Oh no.
Instead she sent a picture of her with a group of coworkers that she had.
So like she was kind of covered by her coworkers.
Yeah.
Although of course Raymond didn't care what she fucking looked like because all he cared was whether or not she was successful.
Even since she showed a picture of her on this nursing staff, she's a super intensive nurse, he thinks she has money.
So Raymond's of course voodoo black magic stuff that they're corresponding with.
Can I have a locket of your hair?
All this stuff which she thought was very romantic.
Another reason that Raymond really liked Martha is because Martha's maiden name is Seabrook.
And that is Raymond's favorite voodoo and black magic author's last name.
Oh my gosh.
So in his mind he was like, this is a connection.
Like this is meant to be somehow, right?
Whatever.
He's like, I did this.
I did this.
I created this.
Yeah, I invited this person in.
So they agreed to meet within a few weeks.
Raymond took a train a few days after Christmas to meet up with Martha.
So just so I'm clear, he's in New York and she's in Florida.
Yes.
Florida.
So she picked him up from the train station and took him immediately to her place to meet up with her children.
What?
Like straight up.
Like I have these two little kids.
As soon as you get off the train, I'm going to take you to my place.
Yeah, meet the stranger.
Yes.
He's going to stay with us.
Right.
Raymond and Martha were intimate the very first night and Martha said that she had never felt so loved and fulfilled before.
Well, probably because, well, he thinks he's like this god to women.
He probably does all the things.
He probably does.
But it was the first time that it wasn't like missionary.
Let me run my bald head against you.
So what I thought you were going to say.
My balls all over you.
My ball.
So unfortunately for Martha, Raymond was only staying the next few nights to weed out whether or not she had money.
Yeah, of course.
So he was trying to, of course, like get to know her, get to know her, quote unquote.
Martha, on the other hand, had confessed her unyielding love for him by the end of the week, asking him to marry her.
So within this week, Raymond would claim he had an emergency business trip and he had to get back to New York as soon as possible.
Oh my god.
He was just like, oh yeah, so tell me about your life.
Like how much money do you make?
Where's your bank account?
It's like all this stuff, you know?
And she's like, I love you.
I love you so much.
Marry me, man.
Meet.
And he's like, I have a business trip.
I gotta go.
So he hopped back on a train, but she was really insistent.
She was just like, when are you going to marry me?
Whenever you're going to get married, all this stuff.
And since he wanted to scam her still and keep contact with her, he insisted that he was going to go back to New York because he had to,
but that he was going to send her money to move from Florida to New York to kind of like make sure she wasn't like suspicious, I guess.
Yeah.
And to kind of calm her, which worked.
So he totally thought this was going to, she totally thought this was going to be a thing.
She thought that this is her dream dude.
So again, Martha had no problem going around town yet again saying that she was to be married to her now fiance.
Oh my god.
This lady.
This guy was like this amazing wealthy businessman.
So friends and family would actually throw Martha a bridal shower in celebration of the news.
I can't.
That's how convincing she is though too.
You know what I mean?
Like she's that convincing that people thought, oh my god, good for you.
That was amazing.
And he's in New York and he's this wealthy businessman and he's going to like pay for me to go out there and me and my kids and we'll live happily ever after.
On the day of the shower, Martha received a letter from Raymond saying that his feelings for her were clearly misunderstood by Martha and that he would not be coming back to Florida nor sending her any money to travel to New York.
Oh my god.
This poor woman.
But also not.
First of all, this is like snail mail.
So it's just like hilarious and it happened to get there the same day as the bridal shower.
Oh my god.
How embarrassing.
I mean, I'm sure she didn't show anyone.
She was like, oh, that's him.
Oh, he died.
Actually, he died.
Actually, he died again.
There's another one that died.
This time it was a bald eagle that came by and I don't know.
He's the bald eagle.
So Martha was actually really persistent in continuing to contact Raymond after this. She just would not let it go because she was so devastated.
She pleaded with Raymond to come back to Florida.
Raymond reluctantly agreed to have Martha come visit him in New York.
Why?
Because I think he thinks that he's, it's not really clear whether or not he's getting a lot of money out of this.
But I think for him, it's just kind of like this ego feeder.
Yeah.
And he's just pining over him. Like, so yeah.
Which doesn't help because he's like already thinks that he's God's gift to women and then he finds the one woman who's like obsessed with him.
She can't help it. It's the voodoo.
It's the voodoo. What have I done?
So Martha had actually left her kiddos with some relatives and she took a train. She stayed in New York for like two weeks.
Martha's trip in her mind was completely blissful, but almost as soon as it came, she also had to leave.
And so she was really disappointed that it wasn't for longer.
Upon returning back to town, Martha had learned that she had actually been fired from her job because she just took an impromptu trip.
Well, yeah. I mean, that's how it works.
Yeah. Right.
She'd pretty much been let go. I mean, that's what I'm assuming it was for.
So on January 18th, 1948, Raymond actually received a knock on his door.
He opened the door to find Martha and her two small children on his doorstep.
Over the course of the next six days, although being taken care of by Martha was really rewarding,
Raymond couldn't very well carry out his dirty deeds with the kids around.
Of course.
So on January 25th, 1948, Martha would actually travel to a Salvation Army where she dropped off her two small children, abandoning them.
Okay. I thought you were going to say that he killed them. So I guess that's a little bit better.
But still is fucked.
That is fucked up.
So she was just like, oh, I just, I can't stay like, I can just see her in my head like, oh no, I've lost my job and my two small children.
I'm just going to have to go to New York to be with my fiance because, you know, I just don't know what else to do.
I just can't live this life anymore.
It's ridiculous.
And then just knock on the door and just like, I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry. I just, I just can't out.
I can't stay there anymore. I couldn't, not for one more second, you know, just like dramatic.
Five children.
So she arrives on the 18th and that's what?
Like not even a week later.
Like a week later, she drops her kids off because he was insistent that he just wouldn't have kids around.
It is really sad because that's more important than your children.
Right.
As a final test to Martha's devotion, Raymond actually confessed to her that he was not in fact a businessman, but a car artist.
That he would manipulate women just like her and then rob them.
And then in fact, he was still married to a woman in Spain who had two of his own children.
Martha, instead of turning away, scooping her children back up and fleeing back to Florida, she just like accepted this and was like, I love you.
I know matter what, like she's going to stay by his side.
All right. I don't feel bad for her.
It's so awful. It's awful.
So within a short amount of time, Martha actually became involved with looking through Lonely Hearts Club letters with Raymond.
Eventually the two would settle on their new victim.
It's just bizarre and wild to me that she is so desperate for love.
She's going to do whatever it takes to...
I don't care. I don't care. I just want to be with someone. I don't care. I don't care at this point.
Yeah.
It's love obsessed.
It's baffling. I don't know.
Yeah.
It's definitely not common.
I mean, maybe it's common because you think about crimes of passion and stuff like that, but this isn't a crime.
This is just like, like, like, unyielding dedication to someone that you really don't even know, honestly.
But you also think about people like Aunty and Clyde, for example.
Like, they actually were in love with each other.
They both like doing things together. These people aren't in love with each other.
He doesn't love her at all.
She loves him.
They both have mental illnesses, honestly.
So they turn their attention to retired school teacher Esther Hen of Pennsylvania.
Under the guise that Martha was his sister-in-law, the two traveled to meet Esther for the first time in February 1948.
Within a week, the couple was able to convince Esther to marry Raymond.
A week.
What?
A week.
He had also convinced her to move in with him, or at least to stay with him for some time until they figured out where their marital house would be.
Shortly after the papers were signed, Raymond began to demand Esther to sign over her life insurance to him, as well as her teacher's pension.
Yeah.
And what'd she say?
Esther said about the situation, quote,
For four days, he was very polite to me.
Then he gave me tongue-lashings when I wouldn't sign over my insurance policy and my teacher's pension's fund to him.
I would then begin to hear stories about how he had gone to Spain with a woman and that she had died.
End quote.
Yeah.
Jesus.
So by the time she decided to leave, she was actually out of a car and a few hundred dollars.
Even during this time, Raymond was corresponding with other women.
Soon after Esther led, he had made plans to meet with a myrtle young of Arkansas.
So just one right after the other.
Yeah.
Not only that, but he's like marrying people one way or the other, which is awful.
And it doesn't matter back then because there's no paper trail of this kind of marriage.
There's no paper trail.
I'm assuming there's really, throughout the duration of this story, I'm sure they used aliases
for certain crimes that they committed, but there's only ever like one case where it actually kind of comes out that he was using an alias.
So Martha poses as Raymond's sister this time and all three of them meet up.
So this is now Myrtle, Raymond, and Martha.
They all meet up in Illinois in August of that same year.
And this is where Raymond sweeps Myrtle off her feet and then marries her.
However, this time Martha's jealousy is like in full swing.
Oh no.
She's very insistent on Raymond not having sex with Myrtle to the point to where Martha sweeps on the floor of the rooms that Raymond and Myrtle share or sometimes even in the bed that they share.
What?
And this is supposed to be a sister.
Okay.
This is supposed to be a sister.
It's so weird.
And they're like in their thirties.
So it's not like, I don't know.
I just, it's very weird.
So this is like to ensure they don't consummate this marriage, right?
So after Myrtle becomes impatient and honestly a little freaked out that this dude is sharing a bed with his sister,
Raymond realizes that there's little time left in this con.
Like he's like, this is going to run out one day.
So Raymond and Martha actually drug Myrtle.
They rob her of $4,000 in 19-
That's a lot of money.
What, in 1948?
That's a lot of money.
And they put her on a bus back to Arkansas from Illinois.
They just throw rats on the bus.
They put her ass on a fucking bus and they flee to New York.
By the time that the bus arrives in Little Rock, Myrtle is barely alive and she would actually succumb to the drugs.
No.
And she would die a few days later.
Oh no.
Isn't that awful?
It's awful.
They just abandoned her.
I was getting ready to say, well at least they didn't kill her, but...
It's awful.
And they don't have any way of knowing that she's dead.
They just think that they just sent her on a water bus, you know?
They think that they just drugged her and that, you know, it was harmless or whatever.
Although clearly Raymond has killed before, but not with Martha at this point.
So making their way back to New York, Martha and Raymond rob women along the way to make it back to New York.
Because they're just broke asses, by the way.
They're just like, they're always broke.
Neither of them have a job.
They don't really find a long term scam, which is really what they needed, again, because they're not working.
So once back in New York, a correspondence letter was received by them from Janet Fay.
She's 66 years old and she's from Albany, New York.
Janet was a devout Christian and she would attend church every Sunday.
Her friends were always concerned about Janet using types of communication, like lonely hearts clubs, for her safety.
But she had always assured her friends that she was very careful in communicating with these men.
Raymond reached out to Janet under the name Charles Martin.
And through weeks of reassurance that he was a genuine guy, Martha and Raymond both traveled to Albany
and arrived on the day of December 30th, 1948.
They checked into a hotel and Raymond would show up that very same day with a bouquet of flowers in hand on Janet's doorstep.
Raymond would treat Janet so well and then, you know, of course, introduce him to his sister.
They were touring Albany.
They would enjoy fancy dinners, all this stuff, right?
Janet was so impressed that in order to save Raymond and his sister a little bit of money,
she actually offered for them to stay with her for the remainder of the trip.
So the following week, Raymond would ask Janet to marry him.
Oh my gosh.
To which she said yes.
In an effort to isolate Janet from her friends and family, Martha had actually found an apartment in Long Island
and was like, I found this great apartment.
This would be an amazing, like, newlywed place for, like, all three of us to live, ha ha.
And Janet's like, okay.
So she starts going around to, like, banks and stuff and closing out her accounts
that, like, Raymond and Martha had convinced her, like, just close her bank accounts.
And then when we get to Long Island, you just open an account there.
So she was closing out all of this stuff, right?
Like, all these checks, all this money.
It was close to $6,000.
So on January 4th, 1949, this is, like, five days later,
the threesome traveled from Albany, New York to Valley Stream Long Island.
That night, they all ate and they began to relax for the night.
And at some point, Raymond and Janet went to bed.
Martha had actually come into the bedroom to find that, although they were asleep, Janet was naked.
Martha then flew into a rage.
She said about that night, quote, I was just burning up with jealousy and anger.
Janet was naked with her arm around Raymond, end quote.
And she would wake up the couple and then it starts screaming at Janet, saying, quote,
I won't allow you to live with us.
You're the most brazen bitch I've ever seen, end quote.
Oh, my God.
Like, she straight was just like, I mean, can you imagine, though, that, like, everything's hunky-dory,
everything's fine for the most part.
Yeah.
You think that you're sharing a bed with your now soon-to-be husband.
Yeah.
And that sister is just in the other room.
And then you get woken up when you're, like, naked and, like, screamed at like that.
Yeah.
Like, you're a brazen bitch, like, what?
Who are you?
What is going on?
I'd be so confused.
The last thing that Martha remembers of the night was Raymond saying to her, quote,
just keep the woman quiet.
I don't care what you do.
Just keep her quiet, end quote.
Speaking about Janet.
Oh, no.
The next thing Martha remembers is Raymond grabbing her by the shoulders and shaking her.
Martha had blacked out, and she hadn't remembered a thing of the severe attack that Janet had just gone through.
Bullshit.
Janet had suffered a bludgeoning with a ball-peen hammer.
First of all, you just moved into this apartment, you'd got a ball-peen hammer laying around somewhere.
Yeah, I don't think so.
She had also been strangled with her own scarf, and she had passed during the savage attack.
The couple would then clean up the apartment as best they could, stuff Janet's body into the bedroom closet, and then proceed to fall back asleep.
No one else can see me but you, my mouth is, like, on the floor.
Savage, bro.
What?
The next morning they removed Janet's body from the closet and put her into, like, a trunk or a chest.
How do you sleep knowing there is a dead body in the closet?
I don't know.
This is what I'm thinking, is like, Martha has to be very, like, unattached, because this is now her first crime that she's witnessed, like, a murder, apparently.
And I will say this, what I'm naming off are the things that they have talked about.
There's apparently a lot of other stuff in between that we apparently don't know about.
I don't believe that she blocked out.
I don't believe that either, and then to, like, wake up and she described that there was, like, blood all over the room, blood all over herself.
And she's just cool with it?
And you just clean it up and go to bed?
Like, that's not, that's not someone that's sane.
No, I don't think, I don't think it is.
So they took Janet's body, they took it out of the closet, they put it in this chest or, like, a big trunk, and they put it in the trunk of their car.
They then drove to Raymond's sister, which as best I can tell is somewhere on the East Coast, because remember they were living in Connecticut when he was younger.
So she might live around there somewhere on the East Coast.
His real sister.
His biological sister.
His real sister.
She was really reluctant to have him even be on the property, let alone store anything at her house.
So she reluctantly let him store this chest in her basement.
And she didn't ask, like, what's in it or anything like that?
He probably evaded that.
But clearly it was not something that was normal, because the sister was very reluctant.
In the meantime, Martha and Raymond had began to cash Janet's checks.
They eventually rented out a house in Queens, where they would ultimately bury the chest after retrieving it from Raymond's sister's house.
And they put it in the basement and they poured cement, they buried it and they poured cement over it.
Imagine finding out, like, so many years later, that there was a body in that chest and it was just in your basement for like a little amount of time.
Oh, that's happened.
That has absolutely happened.
Where they're like, what is this? What is that?
I remember there was one with the girls in the barrel.
I know it sounds like the Dexter episode, but it really was, like, a woman that was in a barrel in someone's basement.
And they didn't, and he moved out all of his shit, but didn't think to take the fucking barrel.
Idiot.
Or he was like, somebody else's problem, no.
Yeah, literally.
It was horrible.
I think it was like his nanny or like a nanny.
Or like the kid's nanny that he fell in love with or something like that.
I remember she was from the Philippines though, which made me really sad.
People are so awful.
Because she was alone.
It's awful.
So anyways, so anyways, Janet's body was in the basement.
And of course, like I said, poured cement all over it.
So Martha and Raymond took it even further.
They actually typed out letters in an effort to conceal handwriting discrepancies between, from Janet's friends and family.
They actually wrote to her family saying how happy she was to be Mrs. Martin.
And that she was so excited her fairy tale could begin.
That's so dumb.
Just don't fucking send anything.
Her family then took the letters immediately to police, finally missing persons report.
As Janet did not know how to type nor owned a typewriter.
Oh my, exactly.
Fucking idiots.
This is 1948.
Not everybody got a typewriter.
I'm just saying.
That is so dumb.
Like you could have just not sent anything in the family, but it probably would have been like, okay, like whatever.
She'd be really happy, you know.
Raymond, now posing as Charles Martin for some time at this, at this point, he had also been corresponding with Delphine Downing all throughout the relationship that he shared with Janet.
Delphine was 41 years old and she was a widow.
She quickly fell for Charles, whom she thought was a successful businessman who yearned to have children of his own.
Oh my God.
And since he had met, he had yet to meet the right person to settle down with, he didn't have any children, but that's something that he desperately wanted.
Fuck you.
Delphine loved this because her herself was a single mother of a two year old child.
Her daughter's name was Raynell, which I love.
That's cute.
After exchanging letters for quite some time, Charles said that he was coming in to visit Delphine, seemingly all of a sudden.
So this is, and with his sister, of course, at this point, he's actually just trying to escape the area that Janet's death kind of surrounded.
So that's why it seems so sudden for him to message Delphine and say, you know, I write, not message.
He's just texting.
Carrier pigeon.
Delphine allowed both Charles and his sister to stay with her.
Charles was immediately accepted by Delphine as Charles was actually wonderful with Raynell.
His sister, on the other hand, was very cold to her and her daughter.
And I think what it was was that because Raymond was so wonderful with Raynell, that Martha was jealous because she had taken her own two children to the Salvation Army.
So of course, Martha is just getting more and more infuriated with this because it's just, it's frustrating to her.
So a physical relationship would soon start between Charles and Delphine, which of course, of course, Martha hated.
Delphine seemed mostly happy with the situation.
However, within a few weeks, Charles, or Raymond, began asking Delphine for money.
Soon this would turn into him asking for access to her bank accounts.
This was not something that Delphine would be okay with. In fact, she would deny Raymond every single time he would ask.
One day, Delphine walked in on Charles in the bathroom without his toupee, which apparently he had been wearing a toupee.
Hilarious.
And mostly I think it's because, and I haven't really brought this up before just because we didn't, we talked about his physicality at the beginning of the episode, but
at this point, of course, we know that he's bald and he's not that great looking. And so I'm like, I wonder why these women want to sleep with them.
But apparently he's just been wearing a toupee this whole time, but he has a massive scar on his head from the accident.
And so Delphine was really creeped out by that.
She thought that that was, that maybe he's wearing the toupee to cover it or something, whatever it was.
But it was mostly because like, why would you not let me know? Like, you're supposed to marry me, you love me, you know, all this stuff, right?
So a lot of things are becoming very suspicious to Delphine. Delphine confronted Charles, Charles, and accused him of being a fraud.
Raymond kept the facade going as best he could, but ultimately the damage had been done.
Yeah.
She is very, very cautious about him.
So as the tension rose in the house, Martha was becoming more and more frustrated with the situation as well.
On February 28th of 1949, you know it, you know it, y'all. When you hear a date, it's important.
Martha convinced Delphine to swallow sleeping pills. I'm not sure how or why maybe either she poisoned her or something, but this is all Martha's account.
Yeah.
So, yeah. So she convinced her somehow to swallow these sleeping pills.
Maybe she was like, well, this is like a really stressful situation. Like, you know, I'm sorry that you know, you had to find out about this.
Maybe you're not sleeping well.
And you're not sleeping well. Just try to relax. I'll take care of your kids.
Yeah, exactly.
Once Delphine fell asleep, Martha began to strangle the little girl who had been crying since her mother had fallen asleep because it was induced.
I don't think it was her intention to actually kill Raynel, or if it was, something stopped her halfway through, but Raynel did suffer marks on her neck.
The paranoia from both Martha and Raymond had set it at this point, and they feared once Delphine saw the bruises, they would be forced to leave with nothing in hand.
Yeah.
Raymond found a gun in Delphine's closet, and while she slept, Raymond shot the single mom, killing her instantly.
And this is in front of Raynel.
Oh my god, that's so awful.
Raymond and Martha then took Delphine's lifeless body down into the basement where they buried her and eventually would cover her in cement, into her own basement.
Now responsible for another male to feed, Raymond and Martha tried to survive off of what little valuable Delphine had in the house, because they didn't have access to her banks.
This is also very little in whatever checks she had laying around as well.
Raynel was absolutely traumatized after witnessing the murder of her mother, and she actually refused to eat.
She would rarely sleep, and she cried constantly for the love of her mom.
And, I mean, at this point, honestly, the love of a stranger.
Yeah.
Anything is better than being with those two people.
This is the state for about two days, when Raymond ultimately decided that they couldn't care for Raynel.
Oh no.
However, they couldn't leave her with family, neighbors, or even an orphanage because it would raise suspicion of where Delphine was.
So at that point, Raymond had decided that they needed to kill Raynel.
Martha was actually heartbroken at the thought because she had already given up two children of her own.
Oh, but she fucking strangled her like three days before this.
Yeah.
So heartbroken my ass.
Right.
But that's what she said, that she was like, okay, well, I gave away two kids, and then now I thought we were going to be able to keep Raynel,
and now Raymond's telling me that we can't.
Content warning.
Martha had went into the basement, and she filled up a metal pail with water in the basement,
and she actually drowned Raynel on March 1st.
She drowned her in the pail.
Raymond and Martha then dug up a grave next to Delphine's body and placed a little girl next to her mother,
pouring additional cement over Raynel.
These people just keep you guessing.
You would think that their next course of action would be like, okay, let's get out of here.
Two dead bodies.
There's nothing to take.
No, they went to the movies.
What the fuck?
They went to the movies.
They had a great night out.
Raymond and Martha returned to Delphine's house to turn in for the night.
However, just 10 minutes later, they received a knock at the door.
And it was the Grand Rapids Police Department.
Well, yeah, I mean, there was a gunshot that happened at that house two days prior.
Yeah.
So the police had actually received tips from neighbors who thought that it was odd they hadn't seen or heard from Delphine in a few days.
That's how close her neighbors were to her.
They noticed two strange people coming and going from her place as well.
Raymond Fernandez and Martha Beck were booked on charges of murder after their visit from police
because they proceeded to tell them the entire truth.
What?
Immediately.
Absolutely confessed to every crime they had committed.
Well, the ones that they could remember because apparently there was a lot more.
Oh my gosh.
Neither of them asked for an attorney and each of them signed a 73-page confession letter.
However, the couple did this with the promise of not being returned to New York to face charges there.
They knew that Grand Rapids Police did not, like in Michigan, they don't have the death penalty.
Oh my god.
They didn't even get extradited to New York to face charges for Janet's murder.
Yeah.
They'd rather stay in Grand Rapids and be tried for Delphine's murder.
And right now.
Yeah, and right now.
Very quickly, the local media absolutely went nuts.
It became national news as well.
They called Martha things like fat unattractive, the 200 pounds of wrath, among other very, very ugly things.
I mean, it's not incorrect.
Well, I'm sorry.
I don't feel bad for her now.
I'm not saying you can feel bad for her.
I'm just saying, like, it's just, it's just, it's back to that whole thing.
It's like she lived this fantasy with Raymond for so long where she was loved and beautiful and all this stuff.
And it's like, oh, nope, back to reality.
Yeah.
And it snacks you hard, you know.
But they seriously played up the ugliness of the couple.
And it's like Raymond Fernandez with his bald head and his gold teeth and his big, like, yeah.
Which he did look a little weasley, man.
Do you remember the, like, Tex Avery cartoons or it's like the wolf who's like, it's like a wolf.
It's a Tex Avery cartoon where he's like the wolf and he's like, oh, like, and like, at women.
He's always kind of dressed like a, like a pimp.
No.
That's what I, that's what I imagine when I think of Raymond, Raymond Fernandez.
So yeah, they seriously played up the ugliness.
So although the deal was struck with Michigan, New York actually really wanted their hands on the couple.
So Michigan waived the charges for Delfine and Raynell's murder so that they could be extradited for Janet Faye's murder because they wanted the electric chair.
So this was specifically, so the death penalty would be on the table.
Yeah.
The trial would start June 28th, 1949 with Fernandez taking the stand on July 11th.
While on the stand, Fernandez would deny killing anyone and he claimed that the only reason he confessed so boldly was to cover for the love of his life, Martha.
That since he was a man, he knew that he could do the time instead of her being in prison because it wouldn't be as easy for her.
He said that the murders were committed for Martha or because of Martha or however the prosecution, you know, they actually brought up though, they were like, oh, this is all because of Martha.
Martha was the one to do all this.
Martha manipulated you.
Martha, Martha, Martha.
They're like, what about Jane Thompson in Spain?
Oh.
Because at this point, he had confessed to everything because he thought he was only going to get tried for one.
Dipshit.
Yeah, so he was like, they were like, oh, oh, oh, because that was before you even talked to Martha.
No, Martha.
Yeah, that's funny.
So in all, Fernandez and Beck were actually accused of or attempted to be prosecuted for 17 deaths.
What?
Although they would only be convicted for one, which was Janet.
I know.
So that's what I'm saying.
Like they were like, well, this is the M.O., these are the crimes, like they confessed to X amount of killings and X amount of robberies.
But these are all the ones that we think are also connected.
So they assumed that if you look at their bio, it says five to 17 because they don't know.
But these are the ones that they had confessed to, essentially.
So the jury would return with a guilty verdict on August 22nd of 1949 and both were sentenced to death by electric chair.
Wow.
On March 8th of 1951, each ate their last meals.
You want to know what they ate?
Yep.
Martha's food consisted of fried chicken and french fries.
Raymond's consisted of chocolate and a Cuban cigar.
That's his last meal.
That's fucking intense.
I mean, he had other things, but those were the most notable things.
Like, it was just like, mmm, that's a little weird.
Cuban cigar.
Raymond's last words were, quote,
I want to shout it out.
I love Martha.
What does the public know about love?
End quote.
He did not love her.
That's the thing.
Maybe?
I mean, I don't know.
Maybe he did at the end.
When Martha's time came, she was quoted as saying, quote,
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'm not unfeeling, stupid or moronic.
In the history of the world, how many crimes have been attributed to love?
End quote.
I mean, I don't know, man.
She gave away her kids.
I don't think that's very lovable of her.
Right?
Like, just because like you, I mean, maybe she wasn't a stupid woman, but I don't know.
Like, it's just, well, I didn't know that case.
That's very interesting.
It was intense.
It was an intense one, especially that poor little girl.
That's awful.
I'm going to give a shout out to Rob Dyke because original YouTube name, Rob Dyke, I prefer it,
but he was the one that actually covered a little bit of that case, and that's kind of
what inspired me.
So shout out to him.
Yes, I love you.
Shout out.
Well, that was intense.
Yeah.
That was a...
It's definitely weird.
It's definitely strange.
It's I, I clearly like CTE is a factor.
Clearly.
Yeah.
But in Martha's case, I mean, borderline personality disorder, for sure.
I agree, yeah, borderline.
But it's, it's like, it's almost like a compulsive nature to be obsessed with someone like that,
you know?
I think she was, I think she of course had borderline personality disorder, and it was
also coupled with like her like needing to be loved and be, have attention towards her
the entire life, she didn't have someone giving her that attention, and as soon as she found
it, she was going to do whatever it took to not let it go again.
Sounds like Kristen Gilbert.
Kristen Gilbert was like that too.
Yeah.
A little bit.
Yeah.
She insisted she swallowed glass.
That sounds awful.
Yeah.
And I think he, he definitely had, it was a, I think it had everything to do actually
with that hidden jury of his.
I don't think that, I mean, he seemed like he was going on a good track before that,
and then it seems like that was the turning point.
Yeah.
I feel bad for her in Garnassian.
I know.
Wherever she is.
Hey, at least she's, I mean, not alive anymore, but at least she was free.
She was free.
She was free and she didn't die, yeah.
And then I also think about like Myrtle, who she escaped before, and then worse could
happen to her.
I mean, God forbid he could have decided to kill Martha's kids, you know?
And then that would have been.
That's true.
If she was insistent on keeping the kids.
But again, we don't know what those conversations looked like.
Yeah.
We don't know what those conversations looked like.
And then we had a lot of documentation.
So he could have said, you need to get your kids out of here before I kill them or something,
you know?
Yeah, that's true.
Well, good case.
It was intense.
It was a one parter too.
It was.
It was a second part.
We have a couple, a couple of things in the works.
I think we're still going to try to make a TikTok potentially start getting some, some
more viewers and content out there.
Of course, we have another mental breakdown coming up after this.
And that'll be mine and we have a new patron, J. Will is a now a patron.
Thanks J. Will.
He was talking to me about the most recent case.
I know he's going to be like one of the first ones to list for this.
So I appreciate the support.
In the meantime, if you guys again have any suggestions or you want us to cover a specific
mental breakdown, you can email us at diagnosingakiller.com.
We have Twitter at killer diagnosis, Instagram at diagnosingakiller.
And then the patron is patreon.com slash diagnosingakiller.
And we'll be giving you the info for TikTok soon, hopefully.
Yeah.
All right, until next time.
Love you.
Bye.