Ray Fernandez is a character based on American con artist Raymond Fernandez.Born Raymond Martinez Fernandez on December 17, 1914 in Hawaii, his family moved to Bridgeport, Connecticut. In 1932. He returned to his parents' native Spain, where he married and had four children.After serving in British Intelligence during World War II, Fernandez decided to seek work abroad. Shortly after boarding a ship bound for America, a steel hatch fell on top of him, fracturing his skull, and injuring his frontal lobe. By all accounts, the Raymond Fernandez who left the ship's hospital three months later was a changed man.While in jail for stealing clothing from the ship, he was introduced to voodoo by an inmate. Convinced he was a master of the dark arts, he wooed women he found through the personal ads, promised them marriage, then bilked them. As the victims were too ashamed to go to the police, he went undetected. Florida nurse Martha Beck was to be another mark when he answered her ad. When she lost her job at a school for disabled children after her superiors learned that she had slept with Fernandez (violating the moral turpitude clause of her employment), she went to New York City, her two young children in tow, to find him. Impressed by her moxie, he told her that she could stay with him -- but not the children. Martha dutifully abandoned them at a local Salvation Army, never to see them again. Ray confessed his scam to her. Instead of being repulsed, Martha decided that she wanted in.As implied in The Honeymoon Killers, Martha was prone to violent jealousy, especially when Ray would offer their latest victim 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 2 year old daughter Rainelle (whom Martha drowned in a bath tub), the subsequent trial was filled with scandalous revelations - provided cheerfully by the defendants themselves on the witness stand - about their truly twisted relationship. Fernandez and Martha were executed at Sing Sing Prison on March 8, 1951.