MD Bastek
Content warning: This article contains a graphic representation of a deceased human body and references to attraction to a corpse and tampering with a corpse.
The story of Carl Tanzler and Elena de Hoyos is one of obsession taken to an unthinkable extreme. This is not a story about stalking and murder. The person being stalked was already dead.
Our story begins at the Marine Hospital in Key West, Florida. Twenty-two-year-old Maria Elena Milagro de Hoyos, called Elena, was feeling ill, and her family brought her to the hospital for some tests. She meets Carl Tanzler, aka Count Carl Von Cosel, a radiologic technician.
Elena de Hoyos was diagnosed with tuberculosis, which was terminal at the time. Although not actually a doctor, Tanzler was determined to save de Hoyos. With her family’s approval, he tried out different remedies. Many sources describe the concoctions as potions and tinctures. According to Ghost City Tours’ website page, “The morbid tale of Count Von Cosel and Elena de Hoyos,” Tanzler also administered painful treatments using a device that included electrodes. He thought charging her oxygen electrons with electrodes could possibly cure her.
As he desperately tried to save de Hoyos, Tanzy reportedly showered her with gifts and told de Hoyos that he loved her. However, de Hoyos made it clear that she was not interested.
Despite Tanzler’s best efforts, de Hoyos died on October 25, 1931. Tanzler insisted on paying for her funeral complete with a large mausoleum. Her family consented but weren’t aware that Tanzler alone had a key to the mausoleum. Elena de Hoyos was embalmed and interred in the Key West Cemetery.
After her internment, Tanzler visited de Hoyos’ grave nightly. He left gifts and even had a telephone installed in her tomb. He continued his visits with de Hoyos for the next two years. During this period, Tanzler was fired from his job at the hospital for unknown reasons.
Over the following two years, Tanzler’s behavior became increasingly unusual. Those who knew him became suspicious. He was seen purchasing women’s clothing and perfumes. A young neighbor saw him dancing with what appeared to be a life-size doll through Tanzler’s window. He stopped visiting de Hoyos’ grave. Rumors spread that Tanzler was living with Hoyos’ corpse.
In 1940, this rumor reached the ears of de Hoyos’ sister, Florinda, who then decided to visit Tanzler. Tanzler willingly showed Florinda Elena’s body. According to a 2017 article “Carl Tanzler Fell In Love With His Patient, Then Lived With Her Corpse” on All That’s Interesting, Florinda thought that what she saw was an effigy Tanzler made of her sister. However, it was later discovered that it was actually her corpse.
Tanzler admitted that he broke into de Hoyos’ tomb in April of 1933 and used a cart to transport her body back to his house. Over the next seven years, Tanzler worked hard to preserve her body as best as he could.
An autopsy exposed all of Tanzler’s extensive modifications. To retain the shape of her frame, he used coat hangers, wires, and stuffed her torso with rags. He used plaster of Paris to reconstruct her face which he touched up with mortician’s wax. He replaced her eyes with glass ones. After her hair fell out, Tanzler made a makeshift wig which he stapled to her head. Tanzler used Hoyos’ real hair, some of which her mother gave to Tanzler after her death. To hide the smell of decay, he used a lot of perfume, flowers, disinfectants, and substances to preserve the body. The most unsettling detail was a tube placed into her body in a very intimate area. Most sources agree that Tanzler never confessed to committing necrophilia, and there was reportedly no evidence that there was any post mortem intercourse. However, Tanzler did keep Hoyos in his bed, dressed up, complete with jewelry.
When Tanzler took Hoyos’ remains home, he restored her in a makeshift laboratory that he built. This laboratory was built in the shape of an airplane, which Tanzler called “Elena’s airship.” Tanzler’s plan was eventually to use the plane to bring Hoyos back to life. According to All That’s Interesting, Tanzler thought that he could fly her “high into the stratosphere so that radiation from outer space could penetrate her tissues and restore life to her somnolent form.”
Tanzler was deemed fit to stand trial after a psychiatric evaluation. He was charged with destroying a grave and removing a body without authorization. However, the charges were dropped since the statute of limitations expired.
After his arrest, the public’s reaction was sympathetic. By all accounts, Tanzler wasn’t viewed with disdain but pity. He was seen as a lonely eccentric. Before Hoyos’ remains were laid to rest in an unmarked grave, her modified corpse was put on display at a funeral home where over 6,000 people came to see her remains.
So, what is Carl Tanzler’s story?
Tanzler was born in 1877 and lived in Austria until 1910. While in Austria, Tanzler studied weather patterns. In 1920, he got married and had two children. He abandoned his wife and children after moving to Zephyrhills, FL. He then went to work at the hospital under the name Count Carl Von Cosel.
According to multiple sources, Tanzler claimed he had a vision as a young man. He said that he was in touch with the ghost of an ancestor who showed him a vision of his one true love, described as an exotic dark-haired woman. Tanzler claimed that the woman was Hoyos.
Tanzler passed away in 1952. According to Ghost City Tours, Tanzler had a life-size doll of Hoyos with him at the time of his death.
Tanzler is sometimes described as a necrophile. Since almost all sources agree that there was no evidence of post mortem intercourse, would Tanzler qualify as a necrophiliac?
Necrophilia is defined as attraction and/or sexual relations with corpses. However, according to a 2018 Psychology Today article, “The Appeal of Necrophilia,” Jack Pemment writes, “It is worth noting that for a person to end up with these ideas and even desires, the evolution of their pathology could have started from a harmless place.”
Pemment points out that “it is sometimes mentioned in the literature that necrophilia stems from the need for an unresisting partner.”
He writes that a need for an unresisting partner could stem from a need for a non-judgemental partner or a fear of being hurt. Some may feel less anxiety thinking of an unresisting (inanimate) partner due to lowered social, emotional, and sexual expectations.
One of the few details about Tanzler’s personal life is the abrupt abandonment of his family. There isn’t any other information about the situation, but it certainly raises questions. It couldn’t have been a happy or satisfactory relationship.
Aside from this detail is the strange story about the ghostly visitations from his ancestor and the belief that taking Hoyos’ corpse in an airplane would somehow bring her back to life. There’s also the name change to Count Von Cosel. There is no evidence that Tanzler held any such title. He suffered bizarre delusions that caused him to obsess about Hoyos to the point that he literally would not take no for an answer. So, he went to the unthinkable extreme of possessing her after death.
Deprived of Hoyos’ corpse, Tanzler reportedly had a life-size doll in Hoyos’ likeness. He didn’t rob another grave but chose to substitute Hoyos, who he believed was his soulmate, with a doll. It wasn’t specifically a corpse he wanted—all he wanted was Elena Hoyos.
Tanzler wasn’t obsessed with corpses specifically but with Hoyos. No matter how bizarre, he even had a plan to bring her back to life. His obsession with her, fueled by delusions of having some otherworldly connection with her, made living with her corpse tolerable. He made an effort to mask decay.
Whether you consider Tanzler a necrophiliac or not, this story is still one of the most bizarre and disturbing ones that I’ve heard. It’s even somewhat sad that someone could be so trapped within a delusion that they’re willing to live with a corpse with the belief that, like the fictitious Dr. Frankenstein, they will eventually be able to bring the person back to life.
This person was a Radiology Tech – NOT a Radiologist. All Radiologists are physicians, who attended medical school, and had post-graduate training to become a radiologist.
This person was a radiology tech, who typically does x-rays or gives other assistance to a physician.
Nicely written article about this most unusual and sadly horrific “love” story.