The postwar Minneapolis Tribune had a bit of a pulpy edge, with lots of crime and celebrity news, reminiscent of the Minneapolis Daily Star of the 1920s. The Tribune’s top story on this date in 1949, with an all-cap eight-column headline, was a curtain-raiser on a trial in Mason City, Iowa. Seems a pair of Kansans were using their charms to fleece lonely men and women across the Midwest.

Raymond Fernandez and Martha Beck

Three weeks after this story was published, another pair of lonely-hearts con artists, Raymond Fernandez and Martha Beck, were arrested in Michigan. They left their victims in considerably worse shape. Suspects in 17 murders, Fernandez and “Fat Martha” were eventually convicted of killing a New York woman and went to the electric chair in 1951.

Readers who complain that today’s newspapers too often play up tawdry news should note that the term “love swindle” has not appeared in a Star Tribune headline in the past 22 years.

2 FACE TRIAL IN LOVE SWINDLE

PAIR’S TRAIL
STREWN WITH
AREA VICTIMS

Kasson Farm Youth
Bilked of $5,600,
U.S. Charges

By EARL WINGARD
Minneapolis Tribune Staff Writer

Copyright 1949 Minneapolis Star and Tribune Co.

A dark, handsome furnace repairman and his attractive, blonde wife – who left a trail of broken hearts and empty pocketbooks throughout the Midwest – will go on trial in Mason City, Iowa, Tuesday.

They trafficked in the age-old commodity of faithless love, but the federal government has narrowed matters to the unglamorous charge of transportation across a state line of money obtained fraudulently.

The defendants are Mr. And Mrs. William Stanley, late of Rochester, Minn., and formerly, they said vaguely, “from Kansas.”

FANTASTIC ODYSSEY

The state line involved is that of Minnesota and Iowa, and the fraudulently obtained money is the $5,600 allegedly turned over to Mrs. Stanley by a Kasson, Minn., farm youth whom she promised to marry.

That’s the case the government will present to the Mason City jury, but it represents only one alleged swindle in a fantastic love-making Odyssey that extended from Ohio to Iowa to Minnesota to South Dakota and halfway back again.

Tobias E. Diamond of Sheldon, Iowa, United States district attorney for northern Iowa, said he has subpoenaed 28 witnesses, most of them victims, to testify against the Stanleys.

The government’s array will include Curtiss Larson, 28-year-old son of Edward Larson, prosperous Dodge county, Minn., farmer.

Young Larson met Mrs. Stanley – only he knew her as “Miss” – in Rochester, and the acquaintanceship, according to Diamond, blossomed into a one-sided but ardent romance.

There was only one snag in the marriage plans, the bride-to-be tearfully informed her betrothed.

She explained she owned a beauty shop in Minneapolis, and before she could sell it and move to the Larson farm she would have to pay off a mortgage.

Young Larson gave her the necessary amount, $5,600, and that was the last he saw of her.

The youth complained to Olmsted county authorities in Rochester and a pickup order was sent to neighboring states. The Stanleys, reunited as Mr. and Mrs., were arrested Nov. 2 in Mason City.

The federal government moved in under a law which makes it a federal offense to transport fraudulently obtained money, in excess of $5,000, across a state line.

SAME METHOD USED

A poster touting “The Honeymoon Killers” — yep, it’s about Raymond Fernandez and Martha Beck — pretty much captures the awfulness of this 1970 movie.

Young Larson was the most youthful, but far from the only victim, Diamond disclosed.

Stanley, in a statement to Mason City police, estimated he and his wife had bilked their Upper Midwest victims of from $20,000 to $25,000 in the autumn months of 1948 alone.

The Stanleys’ method of operation was much the same in all instances, Diamond said.

Stanley would pose as a furnace and stove repairman as he called at prosperous-looking farmhouses. While tinkering with the heating equipment, Stanley would determine whether the household included well-to-do bachelors, widowers, widows or elderly maidens.

If the “mark” selected was a woman, Stanley would undertake the courtship. His tactic was to borrow money to pay off the mortgage on some business property.

BLUEPRINT FOLLOWED

When the intended victim was a man, Mrs. Stanley would follow the blueprint that worked so well with the Kasson farm youth.

A federal investigator said the Stanleys are suspected of using one variation in their travels though these parts.

Mrs. Stanley, the picture of an unhappy, lonely woman, would sip at a cocktail in some dimly lit hotel bar.

Before closing time, she would strike up at least a speaking acquaintanceship with some equally unhappy and lonely traveling salesman.

From there on, the pattern is familiar to law enforcement officials.

An invitation to a hotel room – for an after-hours drink – then the sudden appearance of the irate husband. Only a substantial amount of long, green currency would assuage the husband’s injured feelings.

FAITHFUL TO ROLES

If nothing else, Diamond said, investigation disclosed the Stanleys were methodical in attention to detail and faithful to their roles as perennial brides and grooms.

A wealthy Ohio farmer met Mrs. Stanley and immediately began calling her “Breathless” after a bewitching female character then current in the Dick Tracy comic strip.

His choice of name was prophetic. Mrs. Stanley not only left him breathless, but almost penniless.

This particular victim was a devout Catholic and insisted that before he would marry Mrs. Stanley she must adopt his faith.

Mrs. Stanley for three weeks took instructions from a priest at the victim’s church, finally convinced her husband-to-be that she could be trusted, obtained the customary “mortgage money” and then did the very unreligious act of departing unannounced.

UNGILDED CAGE

After their arrest, Diamond said, the Stanleys between them had only enough cash to go one bail, so guess who was left to languish in the federally approved Dakota City jail near Humboldt, Iowa.

Mrs. Stanley doesn’t relish her role as a pretty bird in an ungilded cage, but she will get a breath of fresh air tomorrow when United States marshals transport her to the Mason City courtroom.

The Stanleys gave their ages as 36, but Diamond estimated Stanley is in his late 40s and Mrs. Stanley at least past 40.

Diamond said he based his estimate on the fact that the Stanleys have a married daughter living in Kansas, who has been caring for three younger Stanleys while their parents have a wooing gone.

The G & M Bar in Minneapolis, about 1950: A likely place for a lonely-hearts hookup. (Photo courtesy mnhs.org)

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