by Ray Black
THE LETTER
Martha checked her mailbox everyday to see if she had any answers to her advert, but each day she was disappointed. That is until just before Christmas in 1947, when she received her first and only reply. The letter was from a man named Raymond Fernandez who lived in New York City. He told her that he was a respectable businessman who made his money importing and exporting goods. Longing for a life of romance she read with relish the words: ‘. . . here in this apartment much too large for a bachelor but I hope someday to share it with a wife.’ It was just too much for the love-struck Martha and she cherished every single word in that letter. She wrote back and for two weeks they corresponded, she was concerned what he would think when he eventually met this overweight young woman, but what she didn’t realize was that he didn’t actually care what his women looked like as his only interest was their assets.
After several letters being exchanged Raymond asked Martha for a lock of her hair so that he could perform his voodoo ritual. He believed that this would make Martha succumb to his sexual charms. Martha was thrilled that someone should care enough that they should want a lock of her hair, and she dreamt of her lover taking her away from her life of drudge.
They eventually met on December 28, 1947, in Pensacola, Florida. Although initially Raymond may have been shocked at her size, he showed no signs of any disapproval. Martha was thrilled when she saw him and couldn’t believe that she could have a date with such a handsome man. She took him back to her home, introduced him to her children, gave him a nice meal and then put the children to bed. Raymond quickly made his move and for once in her life Martha achieved sexual fulfilment.
They spent the next day and night together and Martha swore undying love to her newfound man friend. Martha tried to convince him to stay with her but Raymond told her that it was essential he return to New York. To keep her happy he told her that he would send some money so that she could join him and Martha misread this as some kind of proposal.
Once back at home she told all her friends that she was about to get married again. Then she received a letter from Raymond saying that she had totally misinterpreted his feelings and that he would not be coming back to see her. She was totally devastated and attempted to take her own life. On hearing this Fernandez weakened and allowed Martha to come and visit him in New York. She stayed for two blissful weeks and then returned to her job in Florida. For some reason, on her return, she was fired without being given any explanation. Realising how much she missed Raymond, she packed her bags, dressed her two children, said goodbye to her friends and boarded the next bus to New York.
When Raymond saw them standing at his door on the morning of January 18, 1948, he realized that this could be a major obstacle in his career of theft and deception. Soon he realized that he liked the mothering nature of Martha and felt comfortable with her around pampering his every whim. But the children were a different matter and he insisted that they had to go. Martha reluctantly decided that if that was the price to pay to keep her beloved Raymond, then she would give up her own children. On January 25 she dropped them off at the Salvation Army and abandoned them without a second thought.
So here we have a very dangerous combination of two people with already insecure characters, who together became totally lethal. Posing as brother and sister they managed to gain the confidence of their victims.
THE LONELY HEARTS CLUB
Now they were totally on their own with no children to get in the way, Raymond showed Martha all his lonely hearts letters. He told her everything about how he befriended and robbed women, about his wife in Spain and several other wives as well. Although Martha was initially upset she knew it was too late to turn back and told him that it was her duty to help him.
They chose their next victim, Miss Esther Henne from the many photographs and then made arrangements to travel to Pennsylvania. Martha posed as Raymond’s sister-in-law and within one week Raymond and Miss Henne were married. She later reported to the police that for the first few days he was the model husband, but after that the insults started when she wouldn’t sign over her insurance policies and teacher’s pension fund. Things went from bad to worse and eventually the new Mrs. Fernandez left the apartment without her car and several hundred dollars which he had already embezzled out of her.
Several other women followed in quick succession but things went steeply downhill when they met up with Myrtle Young from Arkansas. She agreed after some persuasion to marry Robert and the ceremony took place on August 14, 1948 in Cook County, Illinois. This time Martha posed as his sister and did everything she could to prevent the marriage from being consummated. She even resorted to sleeping with Myrtle herself until the poor woman complained so much she was given a heavy dose of drugs which rendered her unconscious. With Martha’s help, they carried her onto a bus and sent her back to Little Rock, Arkansas, where she came from. Before they dumped her the couple had robbed the poor woman of four thousand dollars. Myrtle Young died the very next day in a Little Rock hospital.
Back in New York, with their money gradually dwindling away, Martha and Robert were once more scouring the lonely hearts adverts for possible victims. They located Janet Fey, a sixty-six-year-old widow who lived in Albany, New York. Raymond wrote her a letter and their little game started all over again.
Robert gradually gained her trust, despite the fact that Janet Fey’s friends had warned her of the dangers, until eventually she agreed they could meet. Martha and Robert arrived in downtown Albany on December 30, 1948, and checked into a hotel as Mr. and Mrs. Fernandez. The following day Fernandez arrived at Janet Fey’s door with a bouquet of flowers. They met several times over the next few days and Martha often accompanied them on their dates, being introduced as his sister. Soon Raymond proposed marriage, to which Janet readily accepted and they made plans to move to an apartment on Long Island. Janet, urged by Raymond, cleared out her bank accounts and she collected over $6,000 in cash and cheques. On January 4, 1949, Raymond, Martha and Janet left Albany and drove to Long Island.
Once at Long Island the real problems started. They spent a nice evening having a meal and talking but then it came to bedtime and Martha’s insatiable jealousy took over. Fernandez had fallen asleep which left the two women together and exactly what happened next is pure conjecture. Martha who was already upset because her beloved had been showing Janet too much attention, bludgeoned the poor woman into unconsciousness with a ball-peen hammer and then strangled her using a scarf as a tourniquet.
When Raymond woke and found what Martha had done, he acted calmly and the couple cleared up the room. Next the wrapped the body in towels and a sheet and pushed into in a cupboard.
The next day they bought a large trunk and dumped the body inside and then took it over to Raymond’s sister’s house. They asked her to store the trunk in her basement for a few days. Raymond collected the trunk eleven days later and on January 15 buried it in the cellar of a rented house.
Their next victim was Mrs. Delphine Downing, a young widow with a two-year-old daughter. For several weeks Fernandez corresponded with the unsuspecting Delphine. He had told her that he was a successful businessman and that his name was Charles Martin. He arranged a visit to Byron Center, a suburb of Grand Rapids, Michigan, and Delphine seemed quite happy about the fact that he was bringing his sister along with him. Delphine seemed very impressed when she met ‘Charles’. She liked his polite manner and his attitude towards her young daughter. Very soon they became lovers which left Martha seething with rage. However, Delphine’s happiness was short-lived for one morning she spotted her lover in the bathroom without his toupee and seeing the bald head and ugly scar she immediately accused him of fraud and deception. Martha remained calm and convinced Delphine to take some sleeping pills hoping the situation would resolve itself. The child, Rainelle, began to cry, seeing her mother was not her normal self, and Martha grabbed the baby and started to choke her into unconsciousness leaving bruises on her neck. Fernandez was an
gry and said that if Delphine woke up and saw the baby she would report them to the police. Martha told him to do something about it, and Fernandez responded by going to get a handgun from the next room, wrapping it in a blanket and shooting Mrs. Downing in the head from very close range.
Between them they wrapped the body in sheets and carried it to the basement of the house. There they dug a large hole and buried the body. Fernandez covered the grave with cement, while Martha dutifully cleared up the murder scene.
For the next couple of days they made plans to escape, but they still had the problem of the child who refused to eat and constantly cried. They talked about what they should do, but neither of them could agree, until finally Fernandez told Martha to get rid of her. Although Martha pleaded that she couldn’t do it, she knew she was already too heavily implicated and subsequently in an act of complete callous depravity, she held the baby’s head under water until she was dead. A little while later there was an even smaller grave next to her mother’s.
Although they were now free to leave town, the couple chose to wait until the next day and decided to go to the cinema. Later, when they were back at the apartment packing their bags, there was a knock at the front door. When they opened the door they found two stern-looking policeman who had been called to the apartment by some suspicious neighbours.
Beck and Fernandez were arrested and extradited to New York because Michigan could not issue the death penalty. Both prisoners confessed to the Fay and Downing murders, but denied any connection with a string of seventeen other deaths which the police felt were connected. The trial itself became headline news, not so much because of the murders, but because Martha kept writing to them telling about her sexual exploits with her lover Raymond Fernandez. Although serious doubts were expressed as to the sanity of Fernandez he was judged to be sane and found guilty on the charges of murder. Right up to the end they expressed undying love for each other and they were both executed by electric chair at Sing Sing prison on March 8, 1951.
Charles Starkweather And Caril Ann Fugate
Charles Starkweather, together with his companion Caril Ann Fugate, embarked on a murder spree in 1957 to 1958 which sent a shockwave over the entire United States. This scary rebel twosome killed eleven people before they were finally apprehended.
Charlie Starkweather was born on November 24, 1938 in Lincoln Nebraska. He was the third of seven children and he was raised in a poor, uneducated but hardworking family environment. Although the family were not well off they never went without food and Charlie had happy memories of his childhood. Although he was happy at home Charlie found school rather traumatic due to a minor speech impediment and his bow legs. He got teased by his classmates and preferred the security of his home. Another thing that made it hard for him during his lessons was that he had a condition called myopia, which went undetected until he was fifteen. This meant that he wasn’t able to read anything that was written on the blackboard and consequently he got left behind in his studies. One thing he did excel at, however, was gymnastics and in this class he was strong and well co-ordinated. The only problem was that he used this strength to fight with his fellow classmates on several occasions.
When he was in ninth grade Charlie made friends with a boy named Bob Van Busch. Bob later described his friend as a two-sided coin, and said that on the one hand he was kind and great fun to be around, but on the other he could be as mean as hell. They were both James Dean fanatics and loved to watch all of his movies.
CARIL ANN
Charlie’s closest friend, Bob, started to date a young girl named Barbara Fugate in 1956. Barbara had a younger sister named Caril, who had only just turned thirteen, and Charlie turned his attentions on her. Caril was a pretty girl with dark brown hair, but she too had a streak of rebellion in her. The four of them used to go out on double dates, despite Caril’s age, and gradually Charlie became totally obsessed with his child sweetheart.
Charlie left school when he was sixteen and went to work at the Western Newspaper Union unloading and loading their trucks. The factory was near Caril’s school which meant that Charlie was able to see her every day. He taught her how to drive but this caused a rift with his parents as they borrowed his father’s car and they were involved in a minor accident. This caused a huge argument and Charlie was forced to move to the same house as his friends Bob and Barbara Fugate. Caril became the centre of Charlie’s life, and he began telling people that they were getting married and that she was expecting his baby. This lie backfired when Caril’s parents found out. Charlie gave up his job at the paper company and started working as a garbage man, purely so that he could be around when Caril came out of school. His wages were extremely poor and he got behind with his rent. He became depressed as he saw himself always being poor and never having enough money to support himself and his beloved Caril. He started to fantasize about robbing a bank or doing something dramatic to earn some extra cash to get himself out of the mess he was in.
THE VIOLENCE STARTS
Charlie Starkweather’s reign of violence started on December 1, 1957 at a petrol station in Nebraska. It was a bitterly cold day and Charlie was carrying a 12-gauge shotgun. Charlie had a score to settle with the young man who worked at the station, twenty-year-old Robert Colvert. The day before Charlie had wanted to buy a soft toy for his girlfriend Caril, but he had no money and so he asked Robert if he could buy it on credit. The young lad refused and Charlie left vowing that he would get his revenge.
Charlie parked round the corner from the garage and put on his disguise which comprised of a bandana which covered much of his face and a hat to cover his very distinguishing red hair. Colvert was working on the engine of a car and didn’t realize anyone was behind him until he felt the gun poked into his back. Charlie made the young man go back to the office and open up the cash drawer. Charlie scooped out the money and put it into a canvas bag that he was carrying. Then he demanded that Colvert opened the safe, but he said he wasn’t allowed to know the combination and that only his boss could do that. Charlie seemed to believe him but that wasn’t to be the end he forced Colvert to drive him out to the house owned by ‘Bloody Mary’. Bloody Mary was a crazy old woman who would shoot anyone who trespassed on her property, using a shotgun full of rock salt. When they arrived at the house he made Colvert get out of the car and shot him directly in the head.
For a while Charlie felt elated by the fact that he had some money to spend, albeit only $100. He told Caril about the robbery but said that someone else must have killed the garage attendant. Caril was not fooled but someone the killing had formed an even stronger bond between the two of them. After a few days the euphoria wore off and Charlie realized that he no longer had a job, he had nowhere to live, it appeared as though Caril were really pregnant, and he had no chance of making her his wife as he had no prospects. Caril’s parents were completely against the relationship and did everything possible to try and get their daughter to stop seeing Charlie.
Almost two months after the garage incident, on January 21, 1958, Charlie called round to Caril’s parents’ house. It was nothing fancy, in fact they lived in rather squalid conditions. Charlie had borrowed a .22 rifle and some ammunition, and armed with this he knocked on the back door. It was Velda, Caril’s mother, who answered the door. Caril’s stepfather, Marion, was also in the house along with their two-and-half-year-old daughter, Betty Jean. A loud argument broke out between Velda and Charlie, because she told him point blank that she did not want him to see their daughter any more. Charlie stormed out of the house allegedly leaving the gun behind. When he came back for it just a short while later, Marion literally kicked him back out of the door.
Charlie then waited near the house for Caril to get home from school. When she arrived he told her what had happened and what her parents had said. Caril was angry and the pair went back inside the house, where an argument broke out between Caril and her mother. Velda started hitting out at Charlie and shouting at him for making her daughter
pregnant and then everything got totally out of hand. Charlie ended up by murdering Marion, Velda and Caril’s baby sister. No one is quite sure what part Caril took in this massacre, because they were the only two left alive. However, what happened after the murder is totally unbelievable.
Velda’s body was dragged to the old outhouse and pushed into the toilet opening, Caril’s baby sister was shoved in a box and was also taken out to the outhouse, while the body of Marion was just dumped on the floor of the chicken coop. Charlie and Caril then went back inside the house, cleaned up the mess and sat down and had supper. They lived in the house, just a few yards away from the decomposing bodies, for nearly a whole week. They bought milk and bread from the milkman and Charlie went down to the local grocery store for any other essentials they needed. The couple turned any visitors away on the pretence that everyone was ill and Caril even put a sign on the front door ‘Stay away Every Body is sick with the Flue’.
Gradually Caril’s relatives became suspicious because they had heard nothing from the family, and eventually it was Caril’s grandmother who called the police. When they arrived at the house Charlie and Caril had already fled, but a search of the house and its outbuildings soon confirmed their worst fears.