Margie had another problem: she was always short on cash, so she started writing bad checks to cover her addiction. She appeared many times in court for this only to receive slaps on the wrists. She continued, however, and in 1974 forged her mother's name for a thousand dollar loan application. Panicking when she realized the bank might try to contact the real Lillie Bullard for verification, she decided to eliminate the problem by feeding her mother a lethal dose of insecticide. Yet again, the death was attributed to natural causes.
Two years later, Margie Barfield was employed by Dollie Edwards as a live-in house cleaner. As a fringe benefit, Dollie's nephew, Stuart Taylor, started dating Margie. Their relationship, however, did not stop the fearless Barfield from poisoning Dollie in February of 1977. Apparently, she had no motives, as there was not anything stolen, and the officials and doctor chalked it up to a sudden death of acute gastroenteritis.
A couple of months later, Barfield next moved in with John Lee, eighty, and his wife Record, seventy-six, to take care of them. “Heaven forbid.” Again, with no motive, she started poisoning John Lee. Before his death, he lost sixty-five pounds. He died on June 4, 1977. She then proceeded to poison Lee’s widow, but gave up her job in October, leaving her frail survivor behind.
Moving right along to a Lumberton rest home, Barfield was twice caught forging checks on her boyfriend’s, Stuart Taylor's account. He forgave her each time, but they argued angrily after her third offense, on January 31, 1978. That night, Margie spiked his beer with poison and kept up the dosage until Taylor died on February 4. Relatives rejected the diagnosis of "acute gastroenteritis" and demanded a full autopsy, resulting in the discovery of arsenic. “Finally!”
While being interrogated, Margie Barfield confessed to the murders of Taylor, her mother, second husband, Dollie Edwards, and John Lee. A jury deliberated for less than an hour and convicted Barfield of first-degree murder. She was executed by lethal injection on November 2, 1984.
“I sometimes wonder how long it takes the authorities to add two and two together. Lovely lady wasn’t she.”
Martha Beck and
Raymond Fernandez (Couple)
The Lonely Hearts Killers/Honeymoon Killers
Martha Seabrook, born in 1920, was raped by her brother by the time she was thirteen. She had already grown prodigiously obese by that time. This horrible experience may explain her appetite for peculiar sex and her yearning for a life of romance. It may also have been at the root of her progressively callous outlook of other people. Martha was educated as a nurse and worked as an undertaker's assistant before being selected the superintendent of a home for crippled children at Pensacola, Florida.
Raymond Fernandez was six years older than Martha, born in Hawaii, but raised in Connecticut by his Spanish parents. They did live a spell in Spain where he had married and fathered four children, all of whom he had long since abandoned. He had served with the British Intelligence Service during World War II and in 1945 sustained a head injury, which disturbed an already not so stable personality.
He began studying black magic and claimed to have an overwhelming power over women. Whatever the reason, Fernandez was considered to have worked his way into more than a hundred women’s hearts, homes, and bank accounts, over the next few years, draining them all dry. All the victims had been chosen from notices in a newspaper called the Lonely Hearts Clubs, where he eventually met up with Martha Beck, and together added murder to fraud and deception.
Martha placed demands on Raymond's faithfulness, going to excessive and often parody lengths to make sure that he did not accomplish any other lonely heart connections. One time, Martha demanded that she sleep with one of the victims herself to make sure there was no nighttime fun and games. Nevertheless, Fernandez found it difficult to control his lothario urges and often became the focal point of Martha's violent rage. Fernandez met another woman, sixty-six-year-old, Janet Fay, from New York, and squandered her savings with the promise of marriage. He invited her to his apartment to meet his so-called sister, who happened to be Martha, where he then strangled and beat her to death. Only weeks after the disposal of Janet Fay, next up was Delphine Downing, a very young widow who had a two-year-old daughter. Fernandez did not waste any time and moved into Downing’s house in Michigan, which really upset poor Martha. After stealing what money and possessions she had, the killing duo forced sleeping pills into Delphine and then shot her in the head. In order to stop the baby from crying, Martha Beck drowned her in the bathtub.
Neighbors of Delphine and Rainelle Downing reported them missing. Eventually they were found buried in the cellar under newly poured cement. The neighbors told police she had a live-in boyfriend, and police immediately obtained an arrest warrant as a person of interest.
Because Michigan does not have the death penalty, once Beck and Fernandez were caught, they were extradited to New York for the murders, where they confessed to the Downing and Fay killings, but denied the other seventeen deaths they were suspected of causing.
The Lonely Hearts Killers were found guilty of three murders and subsequently sentenced to death. Old Sparky fried both of them on March 8, 1951 at Sing Sing prison in New York City.
Apparently, the last words of Fernandez were: "I wanna shout it out, I love Martha! What do the public know about love?" - Raymond Fernandez.
“Well, this author can’t speak for the public but I bet most would agree that love has nothing to do with murdering people for money or any other reason.”
Lizzie Borden
The Lizzie Borden case has bewildered and mesmerized people who are interested in true crime for many decades. Very few cases in American history have attracted as much attention as the hatchet murders of her parents, Andrew and Abby Borden. Despite the horrific nature of the crimes, the unexpected temperament of the accused was not that of a hatchet maniac, but that of a churchgoing Sunday school teacher who was highly regarded.
The accused was eventually found not guilty for the violent and bloody murders of two people due to unusual circumstances. It was an era of swift justice and vast newspaper coverage. And as evidence against her was almost entirely contingent, and the prosecution considered incompetent, public opinion was divided to the guilt or innocence of Lizzie.
Lizzie Borden lived her life where she was born in Fall River, Massachusetts. Lizzie’s mother, Sarah, died when Lizzie was less than three years old. Lizzie had another sister, Emma, who was nine years older than she. Her father, Andrew, remarried to Abby Gray and lived a quiet and uneventful life. Until 1892. That year, Lizzie was active at church, including teaching Sunday school and a being member of the Women's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU). In 1890, Lizzie Borden traveled abroad briefly with some friends.
Andrew Borden became somewhat wealthy, and was notoriously tight with his money. In 1884, when Andrew presented his wife's half-sister a house, his daughters Lizzie and Emma objected and fought with their stepmother, Abby, refusing after that to call her "mother," and started simply calling her "Mrs. Borden." Andrew tried to make harmony with his daughters, giving them some funds, and allowed them to rent out his old family home.