Martha Beck is a character based on American nurse Martha Beck.Born Martha Jule Seabrook on May 6, 1920 in Milton, Florida, she claimed to be the victim of physical abuse by her mother, and sexual abuse by her brother. Hearing that there was a nursing shortage in California, she moved there, and married. Deserted by her husband when she became pregnant, she returned to Florida to have her daughter. She concocted a story that her husband was fighting overseas, then had a telegram sent to herself informing her that he had been killed , earning her the sympathy of the townsfolk.Deserted by her second husband, and now the mother of two young children, she joined a lonely hearts club. She got a letter from a man named Raymond Fernandez, who came to Florida to meet her. When she lost her job at a school for disabled children after her superiors learned that they had been intimate (breaking the moral turpitude clause of her employment), Martha went to New York City, children in tow, and located him. Impressed by her moxie, he told her that she could stay -- but not the children. She dutifully abandoned them at a local Salvation Army, never to see them again. Ray then confessed to her that he has been wooing women he found in the lonely hearts ads, promising them marriage, then bilking them. Instead of being repulsed, Martha decided she wanted in.As implied in The Honeymoon Killers, Martha was prone to violent jealousy, especially when Ray would oblige a mark with more than just companionship. Extradited to New York (where they had killed Albany widow Janet Fay) after they confessed to the murder of Michigan widow Delphine Downing (whom Ray shot) and her daughter Rainelle (whom Martha drowned in a bath tub), the subsequent trial became a circus, filled with scandalous revelations - provided by the defendants on the witness stand - about the couple's truly twisted relationship.Ray and Martha were executed at Sing Sing Prison on March 8, 1951; she had to sit on the arm rests of the electric chair as she was too obese to sit in the seat. She is buried in an unmarked grave in Milton. Show less «