Tanzler went by many names; he was listed as Georg Karl Tnzler on his German marriage certificate. He provided free radiation treatments to Elena Hoyos, and a promise of marriage. He inserted glass eyes into her orbitals, and replaced her rotting skin with silk cloth coated by plaster of paris and wax. While Elena was undergoing agonizing death, Von Cosel supplied her with perfume, jewelry, fruits, and candies. [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. Elena died on 25th October 1931 at the age of twenty-two. In Episode 44 of the NightMerica podcast, released 3rd February 2021, David L. Sloan gave an interview to Aaron Sagers about the story, and discusses an article he found in the Detective Cases magazine, published in 1982. In any case, Hoyos was determined to have tuberculosis, which was deadly in those days. The charges against Tanzler were dropped as the statute of limitations on the crime had expired. Tanzler himself would publish an account of this period in a 1939 publication of the Rosicrucian Digest (Tanzler von Cosel 1947, Harrison 1996, Meek 2017). . Of course, she was shocked to find Hoyos body and she ran out of the laboratory to notify authorities. Tuesday, October 6, 2009 Maria Elena Milagro de Hoyos Most people have never heard of her. Save to an Ancestry Tree, a virtual cemetery, your clipboard for pasting or Print. The prognosis did not look positive for poor Maria. On October 25, 1931, Maria finally succumbed to TB, after struggling against the illness for a year and a half, which was how long Carl had spent orbiting her. Accounts show she led the normal life of a teenager in the 1920s. You cant turn the channel. From Cuba he settled in Zephyrhills, Florida, where his sister had already emigrated, and was later joined by his wife and two daughters. Hoyos family didnt realize that the only key to the tomb would remain in Tanzlers possession. Normally you dont get any new information [about the story]. I have roamed the earth searching for Elena! Are you visiting Key West? 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. Tanzler was evidently consumed by obsessive lust for Elena. Enter Carl Tanzler von Cosel, a German-born radiology technician who worked at the hospital. This would not be the end of Tanzlers obsession. 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. But death was creeping up close and fast. The County Jail charged him of malicious and wanton disfigurement of a burial vault, yet the jurors found no law that he had broken. To her parents, this was a kind gesture, but this was only where the obsession began. In 1947, Tanzler published his memoir The Secret of Elenas Tomb in the pulp magazine Fantastic Adventures which was then used as the basis for the books Undying Love by Ben Harrison (1996), The Lost Diary of Count von Cosel by David Sloan (2012) and Von Cosel by Tom Swicegood (2003), all of which represent the majority of established literature on this subject. Separated from Elena, he used a death mask to create a life . Tanzlers body was discovered on the floor of his home. I thought you might like to see a memorial for Elena Hoyos I found on Findagrave.com. Before leaving, he dynamite bombed the mausoleum he had created for Maria, to spite authorities. For the past eighty years, the story of Elena Hoyos has been told primarily through the point-of-view of Carl Tanzler, a man who portrayed himself as so in love he could not bear to live without her. After reading about the perverse love of Carl Tanzler, brush up on macabre marriages with the Chinese ritual of ghost brides. Yet Carl Von Cosel was unable to resist peeking at Elena Hoyos. The former corpse bride is now at rest. The Living Doll of Key West: Elena Hoyos & Count Von Cosel. [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. On February 18, 1926, Elena married Luis Mesa (19081974), the son of Caridad and Isaac Mesa. But the curious began wondering why Von Cosel visited her night after night and when his visits stopped all assumed he had died. For his final diary entry, Carl had written: Human jealousy has robbed me of the body of my Elena, yet divine happiness is flowing through me for she has survived death. I have sent you to the angels with my golden elixir Perez also claimed Tanzler had once told him that he 'would kill Elena if necessary to fulfil [his] destiny'[12] The poison confession letter article was also cited by historian David L. Sloan on episode 44 of the NightMerica podcast.[14]. Arriving authorities quickly determined that this doll was, in fact, Hoyos herself, and they arrested Tanzler for grave robbing. He loved her, but no evidence has surfaced to confirm that Hoyos reciprocated his love. The mausoleum Carl had Elena laid to rest in. + Sloan, D.L. I have sent you to the angels with my golden elixir (p. 7 8). 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. Learn more about merges. These cookies do not store any personal information. Unfortunately for them both, Tanzlers prognosis for young Hoyos was not great, having diagnosed her with tuberculosis, which was still considered to be a fatal disease in the early 1900s. That seems extremely dubious. 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. He was devastated. Failed to delete memorial. We will review the memorials and decide if they should be merged. [1], The story of Tanzler and Elena would be reproduced in pulp magazines in the years following his death, with various parties adding new details to the case. Elenas consumptive condition meant little to Carl Von Cosel. In April 1933, he removed her body from the mausoleum and transported it to his makeshift laboratory that also served as his home. 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. HBO, 1999. Standing above him as he died was a wax figure of Maria. The first of many details was revealed by Dr. Julio DePoo in 1972. His behaviour became too erratic to hold a job, and the hospital had found out he was stealing medical equipment from them. He replaced Marias brittle broken bones with coat hanger wire, and stuffed her torso with rags to keep her body in its original shape. Although he tried to stop her disintegration with embalming fluids, her body continued to decay. Not only were reporters sympathetic to Count Von Cosels May-December romance, jurors acquitted Von Cosel of the theft, preservation, and mistreatment of Elenas cadaver. He did this, as needed, inside of an old airplane he had repurposed into a makeshift medical laboratory. Please reset your password. You are living in an insane world. As they autopsy her body, for a second time, they discovered that she was removed from her tomb two years after her burial. Tanzler would quickly take advantage of this privilege, which would result in one of the most macabre tales of all time. Tanzler immediately recognized her as the woman of his dreams. [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. 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. Life is dormant, inactive, sleeping, in a person who has died. Tanzler emigrated to the United States from Germany in 1926, sailing from Rotterdam on February 6, 1926 to Havana, Cuba. Sources differ (Tanzler von Cosel 1947, Perez 1952, Michelfelder 1982, Swicegood 2003) on when exactly he did this but the more respected tellings of this story (Harrison 1996, Sloan 2012) state this occurred in 1933. Like most patients, Hoyos was scared of the illness and the treatment. Love: the mercy killing of a baby with a major deformity or partner with incurable cancer. She was Methodist. Her body belonged to him. In April of 1930, the beautiful but doomed Elena Hoyos arrived at the Marine Hospital for blood tests. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate, or jump to a slide with the slide dots. 17 Feb. 2017, https://www.thisamericanlife.org/610/grand-gesture, Michelfelder, W. Floridas Dr. Frankenstein and His Love Laboratory. At the end of the war no prisoner was permitted to return to his former residence, but all were shipped to the prisoner's exchange in Holland. He had just begun to build a trans-ocean flyer when the war broke out and the British military authorities placed him in a concentration camp for 'safe-keeping' along with many officers India and China who were prisoners of war. She was only nice to him because my mother told her she should be kind to those who were kind to her. Upon returning home, Tanzler married and had two children in 1920, and the family emigrated to Zephyrhills, Florida. 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. She forbade the family to let von Cosel know until she was too far across the border to be recalled (p.1). . Local townspeople in Key West noticed Tanzler was buying womens clothing and perfumes, but they thought he was in a serious relationship. 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