The Lonely Hearts Killers are executed

On March 8, 1951 - The Lonely Hearts Killers – Raymond Fernandez and Martha Beck were executed

Between 1947 and 1949 they are believed to have killed as many as twenty women. The 1970 movie The Honeymoon Killers, the 1996 movie Deep Crimson, the 2006 movie Lonely Hearts, and an episode of the TV series Cold Case were all based on this case. 

Raymond Fernandez was born on December 17, 1914 in Hawaii. Shortly thereafter, they moved to Connecticut. As an adult, he moved to Spain, married, and had four children, all of whom he abandoned later on in life. After serving in Spain's Merchant Marine and then the British Intelligence service during World War II, Fernandez decided to seek work. Shortly after boarding a ship bound for America, a steel hatch fell on top of him, fracturing his skull, and injuring his frontal lobe. The damage left by this injury may well have affected his social and sexual behavior. Upon his release from a hospital, Fernandez stole some clothing, and was imprisoned for a year, during which time his cellmate taught him voodoo and black magic. He later claimed black magic gave him irresistible power and charm over women. After having served his sentence, Fernandez moved to New York and began answering personal ads by lonely women. He would wine and dine them, then steal their money and possessions. Most were too embarrassed to report the crimes. In one case, he traveled with a woman to Spain, where he visited his wife and introduced the two women. His female traveling companion then died under suspicious circumstances, and he took possession of her property with a forged will. In 1947, he answered a personal ad placed by Martha Beck.

Martha Beck was born Martha Jule Seabrook on May 6, 1920 in Milton, Florida. At her trial, she claimed to have been sexually assaulted by her brother. When she told her mother about what happened, her mother beat her, claiming she was responsible. After she finished school, she studied nursing, but had trouble finding a job due to her weight. She initially became an undertaker’s assistant and prepared female bodies for burial. She quit her job and moved to California where she worked in an Army hospital as a nurse. She engaged in sexually promiscuous behavior, and eventually became pregnant. She tried to convince the father to marry her but he refused. Single and pregnant, she returned to Florida. Unemployed and a single mother, Beck escaped into a fantasy world, buying romance magazines and novels. In 1946, she found employment at the Pensacola Hospital for Children. She placed a lonely-hearts ad in 1947, which Raymond Fernandez then answered.  

Fernandez visited Beck and stayed for a short time, and she told everyone that they were to be married. He returned to New York while she made preparations in Florida, where she lived. Abruptly, she was fired from her job, likely because of rumors about her and Fernandez. She then packed up and arrived on his doorstep in New York. Fernandez enjoyed the way she catered to his every whim, and he confessed his criminal enterprises. Beck quickly became a willing participant, and sent her children to the Salvation Army. She posed as Fernandez' sister, giving him an air of respectability. Their victims often stayed with them, or with her. She was extremely jealous and would go to great lengths to make sure he and his "intended" never consummated their relationship. When he did have sex with a woman, both were subjected to Beck's violent temper. 

In 1949, the pair committed the three murders for which they would later be convicted. Janet Fay, 66, became engaged to Fernandez and went to stay at his Long Island apartment. When Beck saw her and Fernandez in bed together, she smashed Fay's head in with a hammer in a murderous rage, and then Fernandez strangled her. Fay's family became suspicious, and the couple moved on to a new victim.

They traveled to Wyoming Township, Michigan, a suburb of Grand Rapids, to meet Delphine Downing, a young widow with a two-year-old daughter. While they stayed with Downing, she became agitated, and Fernandez gave her sleeping pills. Enraged by Downing's crying daughter, Beck strangled her, though not killing 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 neighbors reported the Downing’s disappearances, and police arrived at the door on February 28, 1949. 

Fernandez quickly confessed, with the understanding that they would not be extradited to New York; Michigan had no death penalty, but New York did. They were, however, extradited. They vehemently denied seventeen murders that were attributed to them, and Fernandez tried to retract his confession, saying he only did it to protect Beck. Their trial was sensationalized, with lurid tales of sexual perversity. Beck was so upset about the media's comments about her appearance that she wrote protesting letters to the editors. Fernandez and Beck were convicted of the three murders and sentenced to death. On March 8, 1951, both were executed by electric chair at Sing Sing Prison. Despite their tumultuous arguments and relationship problems, they often professed their love to each other, as demonstrated by their official last words:  

"I wanna shout it out; I love Martha! What do the public know about love?" - Raymond Fernandez.  

"My story is a love story. But only those tortured by love can know what I mean [...] Imprisonment in the Death House has only strengthened my feeling for Raymond...." - Martha Beck.

Andrea Yates - Trial

The Defense Rests -

On March 7, 2002, the defense rested in the trial of Andrea Yates, a 37-year-old Texas woman who confessed to killing her five young children by drowning them in a bathtub. Less than a week later, on March 13, 2002, Yates was convicted and sentenced to life in prison; however, her conviction was later reversed.

Andrea Pia Kennedy was born July 2, 1964, in Houston, Texas, and married Russell Yates on April 17, 1993. The couple's first child, Noah, was born in February 1994. Three more boys followed, in 1995, 1997 and February 1999. Later that year, Yates attempted suicide twice and was diagnosed with psychosis and postpartum depression. She was also advised not to have any more children; however, in November 2000, she gave birth to a daughter. Several months later, she had another breakdown and was hospitalized. 

After her husband, a NASA employee, left for work on the morning of June 20, 2001, Andrea Yates drowned her five children in the bathtub of the family's suburban Houston home. Afterward, she called 911 and then phoned her husband to tell him he needed to return home immediately. Police found the body of the Yates' oldest son Noah, age 7, face-down in the tub. Yates had placed the bodies of her four younger children—John, 5, Luke, 3, Paul, 2, and Mary, 6 months—next to each other on a bed and covered them with a sheet. She confessed her actions to police and later made statements that she heard voices and believed she was saving her children's souls by killing them.

At her 2002 trial, Yates' attorneys argued that she was insane, while the prosecution charged she failed to meet Texas's definition of insanity because she was able to tell right from wrong. After deliberating for less than four hours, a jury found Yates guilty, rejecting her insanity defense, and she was sentenced to life in prison. In 2005, a Texas appeals court reversed the conviction and granted Yates a new trial after it was learned that prosecution witness Dr. Park Dietz, a forensic psychiatrist, gave erroneous testimony that had influenced the jury. On July 26, 2006, a jury found Yates not guilty by reason of insanity. Since that time, she has been committed to a state mental hospital in Texas. 

Russell Yates was supportive of his wife in the aftermath of the murders, blaming her behavior on severe mental illness and also criticizing her doctors for failing to properly treat her condition. In turn, he was criticized for being controlling and for leaving his wife unsupervised at the time she killed their children, when he had been advised not to do so. Russell Yates filed for divorce in 2004 and remarried two years later.

The Smuttynose Murders

On the late winter night of March 6, 1873, Louis Wagner travelled to Smuttynose, an island about ten miles off of the coast of Portsmouth, New Hampshire. He was searching for $600 he thought was being saved by residents to buy a schooner. Wagner stole a rowboat and made his way to Smuttynose, arriving around 11 p.m. He broke into the home of Karen Anne Christensen and Anethe Christensen in hopes of robbing them of their money but found nothing.

In a fit of rage he hacked the sisters to death with an axe. Arrested the next night by Boston police on a description provided by Portsmouth authorities, Wagner was publicly derided and even stoned when he returned to Portsmouth the next morning. During his trial in Alfred, Maine, the most damning piece of evidence was a white button belonging to Karen that was in Wagner's possession when he was arrested. The jury took only 55 minutes and returned a verdict of guilty for first degree murder. A series of reprieves followed, but Wagner joined another convicted murderer on the gallows at Thomaston State Prison June 25, 1875. He professed his innocence up to the moment he died, and many had come to believe him. No positive evidence has been uncovered to support Wagner's contention. The murders have been the subject of many books and poems. They include, The Weight Of Water by Anita Shreve, Ballad Of Louis Wagner by John Parrault, and A Memorable Murder by Celia Thaxter. There is also a movie in the works by director Oliver Stone.

John Schrank and the failed assassination of Theodore Roosevelt and John Adams the last surviving mutineer of the HMS Bounty

John Schrank and the failed assassination of Theordore Roosevelt

During a stop in Milwaukee on his 1912 "Bull Moose" campaign for the presidency, former President Theodore Roosevelt was shot at close range by John Schrank (was born on March 5, 1876 in Germany), a psychotic New York saloonkeeper. Schrank had his .38 caliber pistol aimed at Roosevelt's head, but a bystander saw the gun and deflected Schrank's arm just as the trigger was pulled. Roosevelt did not realize he was hit until someone noticed a hole in his overcoat. When Roosevelt reached inside his coat, he found blood on his fingers. Roosevelt was extremely lucky. He had the manuscript of a speech in his coat pocket, folded in two, and the bullet was slowed as it passed through it. He also had a steel spectacle case in his pocket, and the bullet deflected off of it, before entering Roosevelt's chest.  

Roosevelt was examined in a Milwaukee hospital, and then observed for 8 days in a Chicago hospital. He was discharged on October 23, 1912, only a few days before the election. The bullet had effectively stopped Roosevelt's campaign. He finished second to Woodrow Wilson, but ahead of the incumbent President, William Howard Taft. The bullet was never removed, and caused no difficulty after the wound healed.  

Schrank, who had stalked Roosevelt all over the country, was never tried for the assault. He said he was motivated to shoot Roosevelt after a dream: I saw President McKinley sit up in his coffin pointing at a man in monk's attire in whom I recognized Theodore Roosevelt. The dead president said, "This is my murderer, avenge my death." Schrank was committed to the Central State Mental Hospital in Waupun, Wisconsin, where he remained until his death on September 15, 1943. In more than 30 years of confinement, he never received a visitor or a letter and his body was donated to Marquette University for medical study.

John Adams and the HMS Bounty Mutiny

John Adams was born on December 4, 1767 and was the last survivor of the HMS Bounty mutineers. The mutineers of Bounty settled on the Tahitian island of Pitcairn and set fire to the Bounty. Although the settlers were able to survive by farming and fishing, the initial period of settlement was marked by serious tensions among the settlers. Alcoholism, murder, disease and other ills had taken the lives of most of the mutineers and Tahitian men. He died on March 3, 1829.

The Death of Hattie Carroll

"The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll" was a song written by Bob Dylan and released on his 1964 album, TheTimes They are a-changin’ and gives a generally factual account of the killing of 51-year-old barmaid Hattie Carroll on February 9, 1963 (she was born on March 3, 1911) by Billy Zantzinger (whom the song calls "William Zanzinger"), and his subsequent sentence to six months in a county jail. The lyrics are a commentary on the racism of the 1960s. In 1963 when Hattie Carroll was killed, Charles County was still strictly segregated by race in public facilities such as restaurants, churches, theaters, doctor's offices, buses, and the county fair. The schools of Charles County were not integrated until 1967.

The main incident of the song took place in the early hours at the Spinsters' Ball at the Emerson Hotel in Baltimore, Maryland. Already drunk before he got to the Emerson Hotel that night, Zantzinger, assaulted numerous employees. At the Spinsters' Ball, he called a 30-year-old waitress a racial slur and hit her with the cane; she fled the room in tears. Moments later, after ordering a drink that Carroll didn't bring immediately, Zantzinger cursed at her, called her a another derogatory name and struck her on the shoulder and across the head with his cane. After a delay of perhaps a minute, he complained about her being slow and struck her again. Within five minutes of the first blow to the head, Carroll leaned heavily against the barmaid next to her and complained of feeling ill. Carroll told co-workers, "I feel deathly ill, that man has upset me so." The barmaid and another helped her to the kitchen. Her arm became numb, her speech thick. She collapsed and was hospitalized. Hattie Carroll died eight hours later.

Zantzinger was initially charged with murder but that was reduced to manslaughter, for which he was convicted on August 28, 1963 and sentenced to six months in prison. He was not tried by a jury of peers but by a panel of three judges. The sentence was handed down on the same day that Martin Luther King delivered his “I Have a Dream” speech. Bob Dylan, 22 at that time, was one of the celebrities at the march and on the journey home, read about the conviction of Zantzinger and decided to write a topical protest song about the case. He recorded it on October 23, 1963, when the trial was still relatively fresh news, and incorporated it into his live repertoire immediately, before releasing the studio version on January 13, 1964. The song continued to haunt Zantzinger until his death in 2009. Hattie Carroll is buried at the Baltimore National Cemetery in Baltimore, Maryland.

Lindbergh Kidnapping

On March 1, 1932, Charles Augustus Lindbergh, Jr., son of famed aviator Charles Lindbergh was kidnapped. The toddler, 18 months old at the time, was abducted from his family home in East Amwell, New Jersey on the evening of March 1, 1932. Over two months later, on May 12, 1932, his body was discovered a short distance from the Lindbergh’s home. A medical examination determined that the cause of death was a massive skull fracture. After an investigation that lasted more than two years, Bruno Richard Hauptmann was arrested and charged with the crime. In a trial that was held from January 2 to February 13, 1935, Hauptmann was found guilty of murder in the first degree and sentenced to death. He was executed at the New Jersey State Prison on April 3, 1936 and Hauptmann proclaimed his innocence to the end.

The Murder of Sheriff Pat Garrett

On February 29, 1908, legendary lawman Pat Garrett died. He was born on June 5, 1850 in Cusseta, Alabama. He was Sheriff of Lincoln County, New Mexico and best known for killing Billy the Kid.

 On November 7, 1880, the sheriff of Lincoln County, New Mexico, George Kimbell, resigned with two months left in his term. As Kimbell's successor, the county appointed Garrett, who had reputation as a gunman and promised to restore law and order. Garrett was charged with tracking down and arresting an alleged friend from his saloon keeping days, Henry McCarty, a jail escapee and Lincoln County War participant who often went by the aliases Henry Antrim and William Harrison Bonney, but is better known as Billy the Kid. McCarty was an alleged murderer who had participated in the Lincoln County War. He was said to have killed 21 men, one for every year of his life, but the actual total was probably closer to nine. New Mexico Governor Lew Wallace had personally put a US$500 reward on McCarty's capture.

On December 19, 1880, Garrett killed Tom O’Folliard, a member of McCarty's gang, in a shootout on the outskirts of Fort Sumner. On December 23, the sheriff's posse killed Charlie Bowdre, and captured the Kid and his companions at Stinking Springs. Garrett transported the captives to Mesilla, New Mexico, for trial. Though he was convicted, the Kid managed to escape from the Lincoln County jail on April 28, 1881, after killing his guards. On July 14, 1881, Garrett visited Fort Sumner to question a friend of the Kid's about the Whereabouts of the outlaw. He learned the Kid was staying with a mutual friend, Pete Maxwell. Around midnight, Garrett went to Maxwell's house. The Kid was asleep in another part of the house, but woke up hungry in the middle of the night and entered Maxwell's bedroom, where Garrett was standing in the shadows. The Kid did not recognize the man standing in dark. Garrett shot him twice, the first shot hitting him above the heart, although the second one missed and struck the mantle behind him. (Some historians have questioned Garrett's account of the shooting, alleging the incident happened differently. They claim Garrett went into Paulita Maxwell's room and tied her up. The Kid walked into her room, and Garrett ambushed him with a single blast from his rifle.

Billy the Kid's Grave

There has been much dispute over the details of the Kid's death that night. The way Garrett allegedly killed McCarty without warning eventually sullied the lawman's reputation. Garrett claimed Billy the Kid had entered the room armed with a pistol, but no gun was found on his body. Other accounts claim he entered carrying a kitchen knife, but no hard evidence supported this. Garrett's reputation was also hurt by popular stories that he and Billy had once been friends, and that the shooting was a kind of betrayal, but historians have found no evidence of such a friendship. Still, at the time, the shooting solidified Garrett's fame as a lawman and gunman, and led to numerous appointments to law enforcement positions, as well as requests that he pursue outlaws in other parts of New Mexico.

His law enforcement career never achieved any great success following the Lincoln County War, and he mostly used that era in his life as his stepping-stone to higher positions. After finishing out his term as sheriff, Garrett became a rancher and released a book in 1882 titled, The Authentic Life of Billy the Kid, which was a first-hand account about his experiences with McCarty, which helped raise the Kid to the level of historical figure, was in large part ghost written by his friend Ash Upson. Garrett lost the next election for Lincoln County sheriff and was never paid the $500 reward for McCarty's capture, since he had killed him. In 1882, he ran for the position of Sheriff of Grant County, but was defeated. In 1884, he lost an election for the New Mexico State Senate. Later that year, he left New Mexico and helped found and captain a company of Texas Rangers. 

On December 20, 1901, Theodore Roosevelt, who became a personal friend of Garrett, appointed him customs collector in El Paso, Texas. Garrett served for five years. He then retired to his ranch in New Mexico but was suffering financial difficulties. He owed a large amount in taxes and was found liable for an unpaid loan he had cosigned for a friend. Garrett borrowed heavily to make these payments and started drinking and gambling. By this time, questions surrounding the manner in which Garrett had killed Billy the Kid and his general demeanor had led to his becoming quite unpopular. He no longer had any local political support, his support from President Roosevelt had been withdrawn, and he had few friends with power. 

On February 29, 1908, Garrett and Carl Adamson, who was in the process of talks with Garrett to purchase land, rode together, heading from Las Cruces. Jesse Brazel showed up on horseback along the way. Garrett and Brazel began to argue about the goats grazing on Garrett's land. Garrett is alleged to have leaned forward to pick up a shotgun on the floorboard. Brazel shot him once in the stomach, and then once more in the head as Garrett fell from the wagon. Brazel and Adamson left the body by the side of the road and returned to Las Cruces, alerting Sheriff Felipe Lucero of the killing. 

There has occasionally been disagreement about the identity of Pat Garrett's killer. Today, most historians believe Jesse Brazel, who confessed to the shooting and was tried for first degree murder, did in fact commit the crime. Brazel claimed self defense, claiming Garrett was armed with a shotgun and was threatening him. Adamson backed up Brazel's story. The jury took less than a half-hour to return a not guilty verdict. Cox hosted a barbecue in celebration of the verdict. To date, the common belief is the death happened as Brazel said it did. Garrett was known to have carried a double-barreled shotgun when he traveled, and he had a fiery temper. Garrett could have reacted violently during his argument with Brazel. Garrett's body was too tall for any finished coffins available, so a special one had to be shipped in from El Paso. His funeral service was held March 5, 1908, and he was laid to rest at the Masonic Cemetery in Las Cruces, next to his daughter, Ida.

Garrett family plot at the Masonic Cemetery in Las Cruces