Extremely overweight Martha Beck and cheap-wig-wearing Raymond Fernandez chose their victims from the personal ads of Lonely Hearts magazines.

In the case against the two, it became clear that it had been Fernandez who had started the scheming in 1947 when he seduced and robbed the bank account of a woman he had met in the personal ads. He attempted to do the same with Beck, but it seems the two fell in love and she joined him in his pursuits.

Over the next two years the two robbed and seduced women, and then their antics took a sinister turn for the worse. They would murder their victims and then play kinky sex games next to the corpse.

They were caught when they murdered a woman who allowed the two to live with her (having been told they were brother and sister). But the woman refused to marry Fernandez. Beck got angry and killed her with her 2 year old son.

Police searched the house and found a makeshift grave in the basement. The two then made a full confession, believing they would not be executed because the state they were in did not have the death penalty. However, the authorities in New York, which did, secured an extradition of the couple. Beck and Fernandez then pleaded insanity but the jury wouldn't accept it.

The Honeymoon Killers, a movie released in 1970, was based on this story.