American serial killer who, along with his lover Martha Beck, formed a duo known as “The Lonely Hearts Killers”, so named because they met their unsuspecting victims through lonely hearts ads. Fernandez and Beck were convicted of one murder, are known to have committed two more, and were suspected of having killed up to 20 victims during a spree between 1947 and 1949. After their arrest and trial for serial murder in 1949, they were sentenced to death, and executed in 1951. A number of films and television shows are based on this case.
Shortly after Fernandez’s birth in Hawaii, he moved with his parents to Bridgeport, Connecticut. As a teenager, he went to work on his uncle’s farm in Spain, married a local woman in Spain, named Encarnación Robles, at the age of 20, and had four children, all of whom he abandoned later in life.
After serving in Spain’s Merchant Marine and then British Intelligence during World War II, Fernandez decided to seek work. Shortly after boarding a ship bound for the United States, a steel hatch fell on him, fracturing his skull and injuring his frontal lobe. The damage caused by this injury may well have affected his social and sexual behaviour. Upon his release from a hospital, Fernandez stole some clothing and was subsequently imprisoned for a year, during which time his cellmate converted him to a belief in voodoo and black magic. He later claimed black magic gave him irresistible power and charm over women.
In 1947, Martha Beck placed a lonely hearts ad which Fernandez answered. Fernandez visited Beck in Florida and stayed for a short time; she told everyone they were to be married. He returned to New York City while she made preparations in Milton, Florida, where she lived. When she was abruptly fired from her job, she packed up and arrived on his doorstep in New York.
Fernandez enjoyed the way she catered to his every whim, and when he learned she had left her children for him, he thought it was a sign of an unconditional love. He confessed his criminal enterprises to Beck, who quickly sent her children to the Salvation Army in order to assist Fernandez without hindrances.
She posed as Fernandez’s sister, giving him an air of respectability. Their victims, feeling more secure knowing there was another woman in the house, often agreed to stay with the pair. Beck was extremely jealous and went to great lengths to make sure Fernandez and his “intended” never consummated their relationship. When he did have sex with a woman, Beck subjected both to her violent temper.
In 1949, the pair committed the three murders for which they later were convicted. Janet Fay, 66, became engaged to Fernandez and went to stay at his Long Island apartment. When Beck caught her in bed with Fernandez, she brutally attacked Fay’s head with a hammer in a murderous rage. Fernandez then strangled Fay. Fay’s family became suspicious when she disappeared, and Fernandez and Beck fled.
Beck and Fernandez travelled to Byron Center Road in Wyoming Township, Michigan, a suburb of Grand Rapids, where they met and stayed with Delphine Downing, a 28-year-old widow with a two-year-old daughter. On February 28, Downing became agitated, and Fernandez gave her sleeping pills to calm her. The daughter witnessed Downing’s resulting stupor and began to cry, which enraged Beck. Panicked, Beck choked the child but didn’t kill her. Fernandez thought Downing would become suspicious if she saw her bruised daughter, so he shot the unconscious woman. The couple then stayed for several days in Downing’s house. Again enraged by the daughter’s crying, Beck drowned her in a basin of water. They buried the bodies in the basement, but suspicious neighbours reported the Downings’ disappearances, leading the police to arrive at the door on 1 March 1949 and arrest Beck and Fernandez.
Fernandez quickly confessed. The pair vehemently denied committing 17 murders that were attributed to them, and Fernandez tried to retract his confession, saying he made it only to protect Beck.
Their trial was sensationalized, with lurid tales of sexual perversity. Fernandez and Beck were convicted of Janet Fay’s murder—the only one for which they were tried—and sentenced to death. They were executed in New York at Sing Sing prison in Ossining on 8 March 1951 in the electric chair, Fernandez at 11:16 PM and Beck at 11:24 PM.
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