caractacus (![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} plinth) wrote,@ 2008-10-09 14:35:00 |
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"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."
In 1927, 50-year-old Georg Karl Tanzler abandoned his wife, Doris, and two daughters in Zephyrhills, Florida, fleeing to Key West to “find his soul mate.” Upon arriving, the German immigrant claimed to have nine university degrees, reinventing himself as “Count” Carl Von Cosel. He landed a job as an x-ray technician and bacteriologist, treating tuberculosis patients at Marine Hospital. An electrical wizard, scientist, and inventor, Von Cosel enjoyed playing music long into the night on a home-made organ.
Sadly, Elena Hoyos was dying from tuberculosis, so Von Cosel set out to cure her. He used electric shock machines, gave her free radiation treatments, and even concocted a potion containing flecks of gold.
He soon professed his interest in her, lavishing her with gifts and proposals of marriage, but she denied them being a devout Catholic whose husband had deserted her. Alas, in 1931, several days before Halloween, the beautiful Elena passed from this earth and was buried in a simple grave.
Von Cosel got permission from her family to build her a mausoleum. There, Von Cosel used formaldehyde and other chemicals and spices to preserve the body, secretly visiting it nightly. He had a key made that no one but her sister knew about. The Hoyos's trusted Von Cosel and since he seemed to love her in life (even though it was an unrequited love), they were understanding of his fondness for visiting her grave. They did not know he was inside attempting to preserve Elena. Von Cosel paid for and built an above-ground burial vault which included a telephone so that he could communicate with her and a strange airship whose function he refused to state. During these nightly visits, he would talk to Elena's corpse and said later that one night he saw her ghost in the mausoleum. He claimed she appeared to him from that time after every night and they would have long conversations and she expressed her love for him. These nocturmal visitations continuted for two years until he lost his job at the hospital and moved to a remote shack.
For the next seven years, Von Cosel did everything he possibly could to keep his beloved near him; body and soul intact. Upon arrival home, most of poor Elena’s skin tore from her body when he accidentally dropped her. He then stuffed her nearly hollowed body cavity with rags soaked in embalming fluid, bulking her back to a more natural shape.
Piece by piece, he strengthened her skin with wax and silk, treating her with lotions, potions and electrotherapy using a million volt Tesla coil. He replaced her rotting eyes with glass ones, using the hair falling from her scalp to weave a wig. With piano wire he strung her bones back together. After dressing her in a white wedding gown, he perfumed her body with oils, and serenaded her with melodies on his home-made organ.
Not seeing Von Cosel outside Elena's tomb for over seven years, her sister Nana began to suspect something was amiss. She notified the authorities and they searched her mausoleum only to find it empty. Elena's sister instantly knew who had taken her sister's body and found Von Cosel's shack and confronted him. Peeking through one of Von Cosel’s windows, Nana got the shock of her life. She a body lying in Von Cosel’s bed, dressed in wedding regalia with one prosthetic finger sporting a wedding ring. .He kindly invited her inside and she saw what appeared 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 horrified and went to the police.
They came and took what they assumed to be a dummy to the local morgue to be autopsied. The "dummy" was actually the long decayed corpse of Elena Hoyos; her bones held together with piano wire, her skin had been treated with wax, her eye sockets filled with glass replacements, and she'd been perfumed to mask the odor of decomposition.
This turn of events sparked media frenzy. The funeral home became a tourist trap, putting Elena’s body on display. Over a three day span, upwards of 6,000 people came to view the tattered remains of Elena.
Declared sane, Von Cosel was not charged with a crime because the statute of limitations on grave robbing had expired. Elena Hoyos was eventually buried at a secret location. Von Cosel, separated from his love, used a death mask to create a life-sized dummy of her, and lived with it until his own death in 1952. It wasn’t until 1972 that some shocking information was released by a Monroe County medical examiner. “In the vaginal area, I found a tube wide enough to permit sexual intercourse.” Dr. Depoo said. “At the bottom of the tube was cotton, and in an examination of the cotton there was sperm. Then I knew we were dealing with a sexual pervert.”
To ensure Elena would never again be reunited with Carl, her remains were cut into small pieces, placed in an 18-inch box, and buried in a secret location. The only three people who knew the whereabouts of the box, took that secret to graves of their own.
