Tanzler was subsequently arrested on the charge of wantonly and maliciously destroying a grave and removing a body without authorisation so a hearing was held. A local Cuban- American woman by the name of Maria Elena "Helen" Milagro de Hoyos was brought into the hospital by her mother for an examination. She was diagnosed with fast-acting tuberculosis. Additionally, there is his threat towards Elenas father if there is not a wedding before Christmas, there will be a funeral (Michelfelder 1982, p.56) and his declaration to Perez that he would kill Elena if necessary (n.d., p 68). Some of his hospital records were signed Count Carl Tanzler von Cosel. We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. [1], The facts underlying the case and the preliminary hearing drew much interest from the media at the time (most notably, from the Key West Citizen and Miami Herald), and created a sensation among the public, both regionally and nationwide. The County Jail charged him of malicious and wanton disfigurement of a burial vault, yet the jurors found no law that he had broken. St. Martins True Crime Classics. Tuesday, October 6, 2009 Maria Elena Milagro de Hoyos Most people have never heard of her. Von Cosel was sixty years of age,and decided that they were to have their May-December romance. The prognosis did not look positive for poor Maria. Life is dormant, inactive, sleeping, in a person who has died. Edit a memorial you manage or suggest changes to the memorial manager. Victorians described consumption as an illness that heightened the elegance and refinement of its victim, and that it was tragically beautiful to waste away with pallor and fragility. [1][8] Two physicians (Dr. DePoo and Dr. Foraker) who attended the 1940 autopsy of Elena's remains recalled in 1972 that a vaginal tube had been inserted in the vaginal area of the corpse that allowed for intercourse. Tanzler also used copious amounts of perfume, disinfectants, and preserving agents to mask the odor and forestall the effects of the corpse's decomposition. She was only nice to him because my mother told her she should be kind to those who were kind to her. He was examined by doctors and found to be perfectly sane though it remains a mystery of how he lived with a corpse for so many years. The case was now the center of a media circus, and 6,800 spectators came to gawk at the macabre spectacle, paying $1 each for the privilege. Currently you have JavaScript disabled. He recognized her from a vision he had many years ago, when his dead ancestor Countess Anna Constantia von Brockdorff came to him in a dream and showed him the face of his true love and soulmate: a gorgeous dark-haired woman who looked exactly like Maria. The former three, as he describes them, are quite applicable to Tanzler. Its two associated names, monkshood and wolfsbane, come from its appearance and its use by shepherds to kill wolves respectively. Nosy neighbours who peered through Carls window saw him dancing with the figure of a woman, and some thought it was a large doll. Everyones heard the phrase until death parts us. Couples make this vow and they promise to love each other for the rest of their lives. She passed away on 25 October 1931 in Key West, Monroe County, Florida. To use this feature, use a newer browser. He even installed a telephone line to Elenas crypt so that he could continue speaking to her. He was charged with wantonly and maliciously destroying a grave and removing a body without authorization, but the statute of limitations saved him from prosecution. By all appearances, she was an attractive dark haired beauty queen who often wore red roses in her hair, drawing the attention of strangers who desired to photograph and court her. As the hair fell out of Elena's decomposing scalp, Tanzler fashioned a wig from her hair, which he had previously obtained from her mother. Remove advertising from a memorial by sponsoring it for just $5. Von Cosel robbed her body from the grave. You need a Find a Grave account to continue. Most curiously, he had made a death mask of her face to preserve her beauty. Carl Von Cosels only solution was to steal her remains. There was a problem getting your location. They either ignored or were unaware of the necrophilic aspects of the relationship.. Weve updated the security on the site. Determined to save his newfound paramour, Von Cosel connected her wasting body to his homemade contraption. Morticians found him beside his life-size replica of Maria Elena Hoyos, a mannequin reproduction that featured a mask of Elenas face. He was a cultured and intelligent man who had traveled across the world, to countries like Italy, India, Australia, Cuba and the Netherlands. Su padre, Francisco Pancho Hoyos, haba amasado una fortuna. Tanzler was evidently consumed by obsessive lust for Elena. Shortly after Elenas death, Tanzler talked the family into giving him residence in her room, paying them a fee of $20 a month (about $345 in todays money). As of that day, he was fifty-three years old and Elena was close to twenty-one. 6, no. Though the story is known and historical, not all of the events therein are common knowledge and thus, so too is the true extent of the indignity that Elena suffered. When John Dorschner wrote the sordid details of the case, he was met with remarkable contention. Add to your scrapbook. He moved to Miami, leaving Hoyos behind to her parents. Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. (2012). Tanzler emigrated to the United States from Germany in 1926, sailing from Rotterdam on February 6, 1926 to Havana, Cuba. Save to an Ancestry Tree, a virtual cemetery, your clipboard for pasting or Print. It was there that he fell in love with a young Cuban-American woman named Maria Elena Milagro de Hoyos. Image credit: Florida KeysPublic Libraries, CC BY 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0, via Wikimedia Commons. This article seeks to bring light to these, with the hope that people will learn what really happened as per these key findings. Please complete the captcha to let us know you are a real person. Rigor mortis had set in, leaving her limbs stiffened in unnatural . She had dark hair, was beautiful and was a foreigner. Despite her illness, she was still an attractive young woman, and her beauty didnt go unnoticed by Tanzler. HBO, 1999. The name aconite itself is derived from the Ancient Greek word akontion, meaning dart, as arrows were often mixed with aconite to create a poisonous weapon. He dedicated all his time to curing her, or at least attempting to do so. Despite his best efforts, Hoyos succumbed to her illness in October 1931, leaving her family and newly-obsessed caretaker heartbroken. If they only knew what was going on inside his home. Accounts show she led the normal life of a teenager in the 1920s. Carl Tanzler Fell In Love With His Patient, Then Lived With Her Corpse. Carl spent hours at Marias gravesite everyday, talking to her corpse, singing songs to her, reading stories, and other crazy activities that are best left unspoken. He replaced her former beauty with ghoulish, frightening features. Interestingly, Morrall (2006) uses the word mercy in love as a motivator for murder, as does Tanzler in the confession note I gave this to her mercifully (Michelfelder 1982, p.8). Carl Tanzler. Most curiously, he had made a death mask of her face to preserve her beauty. Maria Elena "Helen" Milagro de Hoyos (1909 - 1931) Photos: 4 Records: 23 Born in Key West, Monroe County, Florida on 31 July 1909 to Francisco "Pancho" Frank Hoyos and Aurora Sifontes. It is perfectly wonderful that you had such a strong love for the girl in this case. Maria Elena Milagro de Hoyos was a 21-year-old Cuban American beauty. He was cradling Hoyos doll. 28, 67 69, Sagers, A. Marias two sisters would later go on to die of tuberculosis, and her brother-in-law died while trying to save a construction worker from electrocution. Separated from Elena, he used a death mask to create a life . If you have questions, please contact [emailprotected]. All photos appear on this tab and here you can update the sort order of photos on memorials you manage. But the curious began wondering why Von Cosel visited her night after night and when his visits stopped all assumed he had died. She was part of one of the most bizarre love stories in history. As Meek (2017) puts it, [Elena is] paradoxically at the center of this story and utterly left out. She came into the hospital he worked at due to contracting tuberculosis. [10] His body was discovered on the floor of his home three weeks after his death. One night in 1933, he snuck her body out from the mausoleum in a toy wheelbarrow, and took her home with him. There is sufficient evidence to state that Tanzler, if not experiencing loathing towards Elena herself, experienced much loathing towards the people and situations around her. [1][8], One evening in April 1933, Tanzler crept through the cemetery where Elena was buried and removed her body from the mausoleum, carting it through the cemetery after dark on a toy wagon, and transported it to his home. He reportedly said that Elenas spirit would come to him when he would sit by her grave and serenade her corpse with a favorite Spanish song. Instead, Marias mummified remains were put on display at Dean-Lopez Funeral Home. Maria Elena Milagro de Hoyos [ edit] On April 22, 1930, while working at the Marine Hospital in Key West, Tanzler met Maria Elena "Helen" Milagro de Hoyos (1909-1931), a local Cuban-American woman who had been brought to the hospital by her mother for an examination. He asked if he could have Elenas body returned to him. Thats what happened between Carl Tanzler and Maria Elena Helen Milagro de Hoyos. The first of many details was revealed by Dr. Julio DePoo in 1972. Now two years deceased, Carl Tanzler was left with the task of maintaining Hoyos corpse. Failed to remove flower. Why, you are old enough to be my grandfather. Marias life was not going well. Men True Adventure, n.d, pp. You can always change this later in your Account settings. The obituary recounted: "a metal cylinder on a shelf above a table in it wrapped in silken cloth and a robe was a waxen image". File photo of Carl Tanzler when he worked as a . Mencken Quotes On Politics, Religion, And The American Public, What Stephen Hawking Thinks Threatens Humankind The Most, 27 Raw Images Of When Punk Ruled New York, Join The All That's Interesting Weekly Dispatch. Carl Von Cosel had preserved her corpse for seven years. Meek, M. 610: Grand Gestures. He adopted his official nickname, Count Carl von Cosel. Oops, we were unable to send the email. Carl Von Cosel decided that he was in love. It is mandatory to procure user consent prior to running these cookies on your website. He dressed her corpse in a wedding gown after stuffing her body cavity with rags. Tanzler immediately recognized Hoyos as the woman from his dream. In April of 1930, the beautiful but doomed Elena Hoyos arrived at the Marine Hospital for blood tests. He claimed she told him to take her away from the mausoleum. This account has been disabled. Over seven thousand visitors arrived, each desperate to peek at this well-preserved woman. German-born American radiology technologist and erotomaniac. Instead, he found plenty of things to do, including fashioning a wig for her once her hair fell out of her decomposing scalp. Nevertheless, he went on to live out the rest of his days alone and died in his home in 1952, where he was discovered three weeks after his passing. Join Ghost City Tours on one of our Ghost Tours and see what the excitment is all about! [1] Tanzler paid for her funeral, and with the permission of her family, he then commissioned the construction of an above ground mausoleum in the Key West Cemetery, which he visited almost every night. This all seems like silly speculation, to get people to read an old story. Just 21 years old, and 32 years younger than Tanzler, Maria Elena "Helen" Milagro de Hoyos was brought to the hospital for an examination. There are no volunteers for this cemetery. He carried on his love affair with her corpse. [12][13] An article written by Michelfelder in 1982 tells of how renovation workers found a note allegedly written by Tanzler, confessing to have killed Elena by poisoning her:[13]. [1][8], Despite Tanzler's best efforts, Elena died of tuberculosis at her parents' home in Key West on October 25, 1931. But unfortunately, this was a true story. Carl Von Cosel was nevertheless unsatisfied with the outcome of his trial. Those sensitive to spiritual energies claim that Elena Hoyos poltergeist haunts the funeral home of Bahama Lane. All of the sources that make claims about this are modern. However, the case was eventually dropped and Tanzler was released from prison because the statute of limitations for the committed crime had expired. She died at her parents home in Key West on October 25, 1931, at just 22 years old. He also claimed nine university degrees and self-titled himself Count von Cosel, taking the name of an alleged ancestor. She died on October 25, 1931 at the age of 22. . If youre craving for a new Lifetime movie to watch, look no further. However, he never gave up on his one true love. I thought you might like to see a memorial for Elena Hoyos I found on Findagrave.com. Whether this is true or not, well never know the answer. While the story was first presented in the media as a tragic love story, something played up to a great extent by Tanzler, more information has slowly come to the surface in the eight decades since Elenas final burial that has given it a much darker turn. How can these immense, unfounded claims be made? He lost time trying all doctors in town but none at home. She was then buried in an unmarked grave by undertaker Benjamin Sawyer, cemetery sexton Otto Bethel and chief of police Bienvenido Perez, all of whom have taken this location to their own graves as a secret never to be revealed (Harrison 1996, Sloan 2012, Meek 2017). Provoked by Von Cosels unapologetic behavior, the judge decided to bury Elena in an unmarked grave. Family members linked to this person will appear here. Hoyos family didnt realize that the only key to the tomb would remain in Tanzlers possession. In 1940, it was finally over. She was his soulmate, so he created a life-size doll from a death mask that closely resembled his favorite woman. The additional findings presented in this article elevate this sinisterness yet again, as now there is evidence which strongly suggests that Tanzler had actually killed Elena himself. Additionally, Hoyos was known as the beauty of Key West. Her family initially assumed that this illness was sadness due to the loss of her child, but the cough was not moving. When Carl von Cosel was released he set out to find his mother from whom he had not heard since the beginning of the war. He made house calls to Marias home, stealing the hospitals x-ray machine to monitor her progress. He was a radiologist or x-ray technician. Mesa left Elena shortly after she suffered a miscarriage of the couple's child, and moved to Miami. His subsequent actions would be the ones that brought this story to public infamy. I also want to give great credit to Ben Harrison as one of the most prominent writers and researchers on this story, he was one of the first to bring it to the modern age with his book Undying Love. Which theory do you think best explains the Iraq War? Being a radiology technician, he of course had to go full mad scientist and attempt to go high into the stratosphere, so that radiation from outer space could penetrate Elenas tissues and restore life to her somnolent form. Is necrophilia legal in outer space? If you notice a problem with the translation, please send a message to [emailprotected] and include a link to the page and details about the problem. Maria would soon become the object of somebodys very morbid obsession. He had also used flowers and other scents to keep out the odor. Tanzler moved from Key West to Zephyrhills near where his wife and sister lived, but not before according to Perez (1952, n.d.), using a time-bomb to blow up the tomb the night he left. On February 18, 1926, she married Luis Mesa, but he left her shortly after she suffered a miscarriage of the couples first child. Immortal Kisses Were His Goal. He slept with the body in his bed, but he kept a curtain between them because he was an extreme gentleman. Previously sponsored memorials or famous memorials will not have this option. On April 22, 1930, while working at the Marine Hospital, Tanzler met the one person in his life he had been searching for since he was 12 years old: his soulmate. for a minute Maria was 21 years old, and the daughter of a Cuban cigar maker, whose life was already marred by tragedy. Tanzler ignored the Marine Hospitals protocol for relationships between doctors and patients, and he became obsessed with Hoyos. 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