The Noble Necrophiliac

Karl Tanzler was never one to let reality get in the way of his warped view of the world. At fifty years old he was described as “an imaginative, impractical inventor, scientist, electrical wizard and sometimes ingenious liar' who had 'already begun to mix fact and fantasy.' Even his name seemed to change along with his view of the world. He was listed as Georg Karl Tänzler on his German marriage certificate, as Carl Tanzler von Cosel on his United States citizenship papers, and he was listed as Carl Tanzler on his Florida death certificate. Some of his hospital records were signed Count Carl Tanzler von Cosel. Not much is really known about the realities of Tanzler’s early life, but his later years would become legendary.

In 1926, Tanzler immigrated to the United States in 1926, sailing from Rotterdam on February 6, 1926 to Havana, Cuba. From Cuba he settled in Zephyrhills, Florida, where his sister had earlier emigrated, and was later joined by his wife and two daughters. At some point during this trip, Tanzler claimed he was visited by the spirit of countess Anna Constantia von Cosel, who revealed to him that he was her descendent. This epiphany led him to refer to himself as “Count Carl von Cosel” for the remainder of his days. The countess also is said to have revealed to Tanzler a vision that would become his lifelong obsession - the face of his true great love, an exotic dark-haired woman with a rose in her hair.

Tanzler became obsessed with finding the girl in his visions and separated from his wife. In 1927, falsely claiming to have 9 academic degrees, he found employment as an x-ray technician and bacteriologist at the U.S. Marine Hospital in Key West, Florida. Although he did not have the academic credentials he claimed, Tanzler was a very intelligent man. He built up a very respectable X-Ray department at the hospital, and in his spare time he built a bizarre airship, tinkered with curious electrical devices and played music on his home-made organ.

On April 22, 1930, a local Cuban-American woman was brought to the hospital for an examination. Tanzler immediately recognized her as the beautiful dark-haired woman that had been revealed to him in his earlier 'visions.' Her name was Elena Hoyos, she was 22 years old and by all accounts was viewed as a local beauty in Key West, known for wearing a red rose in her hair. In fact one report held that Hoyos was so striking, that tourists would often stop and take pictures of her. The good count realized that, at long last, fate had delivered his life’s love to him!

Tanzler examined Hoyos and found her to be suffering from tuberculosis. The Hoyos family knew very well the severity of Elena’s illness and was desperate to help her. Tanzler, in his mad quest to save his newfound love, conjured up a radical treatment plan. The hospital staff was dubious but with his nine 'degrees' and occasional eccentric brilliance, they let him try his approach on Elena, knowing they could do nothing themselves to save her.

Convinced he had dreamed about her for years and that she was destined to be his bride, he lavished her with gifts - which she gladly accepted. He also professed his undying love and proposed marriage, the responses to which are not known although it is widely believed she rejected his advances. Tanzler, with his madness set aflame, set about trying to cure her with electric shock machines and potions of his own devising, which included specks of gold amongst their ingredients. Using an odd mix of chemicals, herbs and even reportedly X-ray treatments, he attempted to stem the tide of her tuberculosis.

Despite his mad scientist efforts, Elena Hoyos died in October 1931, aged just 22. Tanzler was crushed. Despondent and alone once again, he was left with only questions. How could this happen? The prophesized love of his life was now dead and gone.

Or was she?

Tanzler was not about to let a little thing like death get in the way of his divinely-ordained relationship. His insanity sprang into action once again as he hatched a new scheme. He offered to pay for Hoyos’ entire funeral and to build her a magnificent mausoleum. The Hoyos family, who were themselves impoverished, happily agreed.

Tanzler treated Hoyos with formaldehyde and other chemicals, whereas normally the body would simply be embalmed. His mausoleum was bizarre in design. It included two telephones – one for Hoyos and one for him – which he would use to talk to her from beyond the grave. He had a key made that no one but himself knew about, granting him 24/7 access to the inside of the tomb. His bizarre airship was interred within the mausoleum, for reasons he refused to discuss.

Upon completion and the subsequent internment of Hoyos’ body, Tanzler made nightly visits to the mausoleum. He was often seen talking into the telephone he had installed. Eventually use of the phone ceased and Tanzler claimed that the spirit of Hoyos herself was appearing to him. In stark contrast to her demeanor in life, she was now professing to him her eternal love and her desire that they be together always. The Count, being the good gentlemen he was, could not deny the young lady’s request. He entered the tomb and there (perhaps among other things) continued to treat and preserve her body.

Eventually this obsession began to spill over into Tanzler’s daytime life. Staying up all night talking to the spirit of his love had caused his work at the hospital to become sloppy, and he eventually lost his job in 1933. This in turn led him to move from his house into a secluded wingless airplane. Around this time, the spirit of Hoyos began to beg him to be freed from her coffin prison so they could be together. Tanzler resolved to honor her request. Alone, in a feat of superhuman strength, he remarkably removed her large metal coffin and loaded it onto a small toy wagon. He would later write:

“I was prepared to risk my life, to face any danger which would cross my path this night. There was no half way, this was clear to me. Once it was started, it had to be carried out to a finish. This was my resolve. Besides, I did not know of a single person whom I could ask for help. Not a single human being I could trust who would be reliably discreet. And she would have to come out, if ever I was to take proper care of her.”

As he started on his return trip, Tanzler experienced what he described as a second spirit entering his body. He then perceived a beautiful group of veiled angels on either side of him as he began to disembark. He felt secure, protected and invulnerable. As he further pulled the wagon along, he noted that all of the cemetery was alive with souls, cheering him on in what became a festival of the departed. He had become a champion of the dearly departed, and they paid him proper tribute as he rescued his love from her cold tomb. Tanzler’s cart became light and responded to his lightest touch, which he attributed to the helping hands of the happy spirits.

Then, seeming disaster struck. The cart exploded under the weight of the huge coffin, which immediately fell on top of Tanzler. Foul smelling fluids, which he had been using for years to treat Hoyos’ body, dripped out onto his face. In yet another feat of superhuman strength, Tanzler – perhaps strengthened by the supernatural - dragged the heavy coffin for the remainder of his journey and surprisingly did this unnoticed.

Finally, he reached his destination. There he placed her body on a large bed, enough to sleep two, curtained with a cloth veil. Tanzler attached the corpse's bones together with piano wire and coat hangers, and fitted the face with glass eyes. As the skin of the corpse decomposed, Tanzler replaced it with silk cloth soaked in wax and plaster of paris. As the hair fell out of the decomposing scalp, Tanzler fashioned a wig from Hoyos' hair that had been collected by her mother and given to Tanzler not long after her burial in 1931. Tanzler filled the corpse's abdominal and chest cavity with rags to keep the original form, and dressed Hoyos' remains in stockings, jewelry, and gloves. Tanzler also used copious amounts of perfume, disinfectants, and preserving agents, to mask the odor and forestall the effects of the corpse's decomposition.

He then began a wild series of experiments to resurrect Hoyos, including frying her with a million volt Tesla Coil which he built himself (pictured right).

By October, 1940, rumors had begun to spread. Tanzler often spoke of his “bride” when he jaunted around town, raising eyebrows. Elena's sister Florinda heard the ghastly rumors of Tanzler sleeping with the disinterred body of her sister, and decided to confront Tanzler at his home. Upon arriving, Tanzler kindly invited her inside, and to her horror, she saw what appeared to be a wax dummy in the likeness of Elena laying on the bed. He told her that he and Elena were happy and in love and invited her to come back again and visit. The sister was livid and horrified and went to the police.

Initially skeptical, the police eventually searched Hoyos’ tomb and were surprised to find it empty. From there, the authorities searched Tanzler’s home and found what they thought was a wax dummy. Further investigation revealed this to be the long decayed corpse of Hoyos. Tanzler was arrested and detained. Examination of the corpse revealed that Tanzler had reconstructed almost every part of Hoyos’ body, including her eyes, nose, and even vagina which he had constructed from a paper tube to allow for intercourse:

'I made the examination in the funeral home. The breasts really felt real. In the vaginal area, I found a tube wide enough to permit sexual intercourse. At the bottom of the tube was cotton, and in an examination of the cotton, I found there was sperm. Then I knew we were dealing with a sexual pervert.'

Tanzler was psychiatrically examined, and found mentally competent to stand trial on the charge of 'wantonly and maliciously destroying a grave and removing a body without authorization.' The papers jumped on the story, and surprisingly the majority of the public, especially women, were firmly behind the romantic Count, seeing him as a man who loved a woman so much that he was unable to let her go. It seems that the press did not divulge the details of the necrophilia before showing her corpse and had the general public known about that aspect there probably would have been less sympathy. Instead the papers focused on a portion of his confession in which he stated that he had planned to use the airship to take the both of them 'high into the stratosphere, so that radiation from outer space could penetrate Elena's tissues and restore life to her somnolent form.' After he removed her from her tomb, he had begun modifying his wingless airplane to suit this cause. Many people sympathized with Tanzler after hearing his story and a latin love song was even composed based on the subject.  Apparently in 1940, Americans simply did not want to read about any more criminally insane Germans in lieu of Adolf Hitler.  They would much rather read about the romantically jovial graverobbing antics of the chipper Count instead!

After a preliminary hearing on October 9, 1940 at the Monroe County Courthouse in Key West, Tanzler was held to answer on the charge, but the case was eventually dropped and he was released, as the statute of limitations for the crime of grave robbing had expired.

Such a circus was made of the case that the authorities decided to display the body of Hoyos in order to satisfy the morbid curiosity of the public. Over 6,800 people lined up to catch a glimpse of the macabre display. One eyewitness reported 'I've never been able to forget that sight. It didn't even look like a human anymore. So much reconstrution and decay....it was the scariest thing I've ever seen. Her face was an odd white-ish color that looked more like a wax dummy than a womans face. And she had horrible, black, staring, glass eyes. I still dream about that sight.'

After her final public appearance, Elena Hoyos was once again sealed in a metal coffin. At the request of her family, she was buried in a secret location to prevent further tampering. It seemed that at long last, Karl Tanzler would be separated forever from Elena Hoyos. Or would he?

In 1944, Tanzler moved to Pasco County, Florida close to Zephyrhills, Florida. There he lived in poverty, but rumors quickly spread of a spooky waxen image of a woman contained within his house. Indeed these rumors proved to be true. Tanzler once again had a mummy bride and was proudly showing her off! Apparently at the time of Hoyos’ death, Tanzler had made a death mask and had held onto it for all those years. Using that, he constructed a new likeness of his lost love – which was much more aesthetically pleasing. Some continued to speculate that a sympathetic friend within the hospital had swapped Hoyos’ corpse and returned it to Tanzler before her second burial. However when Tanzler died in 1952 – with his waxy love ominously overlooking his body - there was no report made of any human remains being found within Tanzler’s second Elena effigy.

Tanzler wrote a chilling autobiography of the entire incident that appeared in the pulp publication, Fantastic Adventures, in 1947.

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