Casefile Extra: Elena Milagro Hoyos

When 20-year-old newlywed Elena Milagro Hoyos was diagnosed with tuberculosis in the spring of 1930, her family took her to the Marine Hospital in Key West, Florida, for treatment. There, they met a German-born scientist named Carl Tanzler, who promised that he – and he alone – could save Elena from certain death. The Hoyos family’s despair quickly turned to hope, but little did they know the disturbing lengths Carl would go to preserve Elena’s life. Casefile Extra features bonus episodes exploring compelling cases, stories and topics beyond our regular weekly releases. --- Narration – Anonymous Host https://www.instagram.com/caseys.snaps/ Research & writing – Brianne Jaskulski Production & music – Mike Migas http://mikemigas.com/ Audio editing – Anthony Telfer Sign up for Casefile Premium: Apple Premium https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/casefile-true-crime/id998568017?ign-itscg=30200S&ign-itsct=casefile_podcastsSpotify Premium https://spotifyanchor-web.app.link/e/9gSwcv7USsbPatreon https://www.patreon.com/casefileFor all credits and sources, please visit https://casefilepodcast.com/casefile-extra-elena-milagro-hoyos Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy https://acast.com/privacy for more information.

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  It was around 2:00 a.m. on a dreary night in 1899 when 22-year-old Carl Tanzler was awoken by the feeling that he was being watched. A budding young scientist, Carl lived in his family's estate, the Villa Kozel, just outside Dresden, Germany. According to his mother, the estate had previously belonged to their ancestor, Countess Anna Konstantia von Kozel, a German noblewoman and mistress of Augustus the Strong, King of Poland, and Grand Duke of Lithuania. Although the countess died in 1765, several members of the Tanzler family had reported seeing her ghost roaming the halls at night,

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  her long hair glowing white in the darkness.

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  Carl didn't believe in the supernatural, choosing instead to focus on the scientific. He often stayed up until all hours tinkering in his laboratory. But over the past few nights, he'd observed several strange phenomena. The first happened while he was working at his desk. Just outside of his field of vision, he saw a pencil levitating. When he turned to look at it, the pencil dropped suddenly to the ground. This was soon followed by furniture that slid across the room as if pushed by invisible hands, and glass plates that shattered without so much as a touch. Carl was intrigued, but not frightened,

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  believing it was some kind of prank or that there was a thief or prowler in the house. But all that changed when he opened his eyes that night to find the figures of two women standing at the foot of his bed, their skin translucent like water. He immediately recognized one of them as his ancestor, the Countess Anna Konstantia von Kozel. Beside her stood a younger woman, her face hidden behind what appeared to be a bridal veil.

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  Carl sat motionless as the countess grabbed the younger woman by the hand and presented her to him. "I've been trying to get your attention for some time," the countess said. "Look here, Carl. I have brought you the bride whom someday you will meet."

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  Carl opened his mouth to reply, but no words came out. For a fleeting second, the young, dark-haired beauty smiled at him. Then, just as quickly as she and her ghostly companion had appeared, they vanished, leaving him alone in his bed.

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  Carl was mystified, but not disturbed by the encounter. On the contrary, he found it to be wonderful. He noted the time and then fell back into a sound sleep.

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  Although Carl Tanzler got on with his life, he never forgot this otherworldly encounter. He eventually got married, had two daughters, and took on the surname von Kozel before immigrating to the United States in 1926.

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  Carl and his family moved in with his sister in the Florida city of Zephyr Hills, where he struggled to find work in the dwindling job market. Practically destitute, Carl moved 445 miles south seeking employment at the Marine Hospital in Key West. The three-story facility featured specialized wards for infectious diseases and was the only hospital for several miles. For that reason, it was open to the general public, not just military personnel.

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  As a young man growing up in Germany, Carl had been fascinated by the various sciences and claimed to have nine degrees from the University of Leipzig, one of the country's oldest and most respected medical institutions. These apparently included a Master of Arts in Medicine as well as additional degrees in Philosophy, Mathematics, Astronomy, Physics, Engineering, and Chemistry. Carl accepted a job as an attendant, which involved cleaning up after surgeries. But it didn't take long for him to distinguish himself, and eventually he was allowed to operate medical machinery and deal with patients. By 1930, 53-year-old Carl was working as a radiology technician.

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  Every month, he sent a small stipend back to his wife and daughters in Zephyr Hills.

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  The morning of Tuesday, April 22, 1930, started out like any other for Carl. He was informed by the head office that there was a young woman waiting to have some blood samples and X-rays taken. The patient was Elena Malegrojohas, a 20-year-old who had recently been diagnosed with tuberculosis. The deadliest disease in human history, tuberculosis, also known as consumption or the White Plague, is a bacterial infection that attacks the lungs, causing chest pain, persistent cough, fever, weight loss, and fatigue. Throughout the first half of the 20th century, it was the leading cause of death among young people in the United States,

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  accounting for roughly 11% of all fatalities. The year Elena Malegrojohas was diagnosed, nearly 85,000 Americans died of the disease. Today, tuberculosis is largely curable, but in the 1920s and 30s, it ravaged Florida's immigrant communities. Elena's parents had immigrated to the United States from Cuba decades earlier, hoping to build a better life for themselves and their three daughters. Her father worked in a cigar factory, where the dense, crowded conditions, coupled with the close-knit nature of immigrant housing, facilitated the rapid spread of the disease.

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  When Elena first started showing symptoms of tuberculosis, her family didn't realise the signs. Elena was one of three sisters in a boisterous Cuban-American household, and she'd grown up surrounded by good food and lively conversation. With raven black hair and deep brown eyes, many thought she looked like a movie star. Throughout her teenage years, Elena was inundated with suzards, yet she only had eyes for one man, Luis Massa. Their courtship was quick and intense, and they got married in February 1926. When the couple discovered they were pregnant just a few months later, they were elated. Elena had always wanted to be a mother.

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  But several months into Elena's pregnancy, her health began to deteriorate, and she suffered a devastating miscarriage. After that, Luis became cold and distant, which devastated Elena. In the months that followed, she lost a significant amount of weight, her once radiant complexion turning sickly and pale. Her family initially dismissed these changes as the ravages of grief, but as the months turned into years, they began to fear something far more insidious had taken hold of Elena.

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  In April 1930, her physician diagnosed her with tuberculosis, and to determine the severity of Elena's infection, scheduled an appointment for her at the Marine Hospital in Key West.

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  Dr Marion Lombard, the physician in charge, had successfully battled the bubonic plague while working in New Orleans 15 years earlier, giving the Hoyos family hope that he would be able to cure Elena. On the day of her appointment, Elena was escorted to an exam room while her husband, Luis, waited outside. When Carl Tanzler entered the room to begin the blood work, he couldn't believe what he was seeing. Sitting before him was the woman who had come to him during that vision all those years earlier. It was the bride who had been promised to him by his ancestor.

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  Carl was so struck by Elena, he could hardly speak. For over thirty years, he'd lived every day with the thought of his promised bride in mind. At long last, they were face to face. When Carl read Elena's chart and saw that she was married, it felt like he'd been slapped in the face. Although Carl, too, was married, he viewed his wife of nearly ten years as a placeholder, someone to tide him over while he waited for his true love to appear. He told himself that Elena's husband, Luis, must be a placeholder too. With this explanation in mind, Carl made a promise to himself.

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  He'd save Elena's life and claim her for himself.

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  The following day, he administered a chest X-ray to determine whether Elena had developed lesions on her lungs. Unfortunately, the result confirmed his worst fear. Not only was she suffering from tuberculosis, but it was a particularly virulent and fast-acting strain of the virus referred to as hasty consumption. With no effective pharmaceutical cure, it was unlikely that Elena would survive the year.

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  Carl delivered the bad news to Elena and her family, explaining that the hospital wasn't adequately equipped to handle a case as dire as hers. However, he explained that over the past few years, he'd developed his own equipment for treating tuberculosis. If Elena was willing to trust him, he'd promised he'd do everything in his power to save her from this hideous disease. Given their financial situation, the Hoyos family didn't have many options when it came to Elena's care, so they agreed to let the self-proclaimed Count Carl von Kozel treat her.

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  He began by administering radiation therapy at the hospital, supervised by head physician Dr Lombard. Carl also gave Elena quinysol, adrenaline, glucose, and beef extract. At the time, doctors believed that quinysol, a chemical compound with powerful antiseptic properties, could act directly on the tubercal bacillus in the bloodstream. Adrenaline, on the other hand, was used to relieve pulmonary diseases such as asthma, bronchitis, and emphysema, so Carl hoped it would work on tuberculosis as well. It was during this time that Elena's husband, Luis Massa,

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  decided he could no longer stand by and risk contracting tuberculosis himself. In Elena's hour of need, he abandoned her for another woman and fled to Miami. This abandonment weighed heavily on Elena's heart, magnifying her symptoms and diminishing her strength. Carl pretended to be upset on her behalf, but in reality, he was thrilled. To cheer Elena up, he showered her with expensive gifts, including a pearl necklace, a new radio, a silk kimono, a mahogany bed, and even a diamond ring.

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  Despite Carl's attention, Elena's condition continued to worsen, and the Hoyos family began to question if he truly was the miracle worker he claimed to be. Having grown tired of his condescending attitude and covetousness toward their daughter, Elena's parents sought a second opinion from another doctor in town. Carl was infuriated. He claimed that the other doctor administered a series of injections that left Elena trembling and gasping for air, yet her parents refused to let her return to the Marine Hospital. Instead, they filled their home with family, music, and food, hoping the presence of Elena's favourite things would improve her prognosis.

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  But as the weeks wore on, Elena began to develop a dry cough, which was exacerbated by the humid Key West weather and the smoke that seemed to permanently hang around the cigar district like a dark cloud.

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  Carl felt the only way to save Elena was to get her away from her family. Under this pretext, he asked her to marry him, but she turned him down, reasoning that she and Luis were still married in the eyes of God. Carl continued to pursue Elena regardless, saying they were destined to be together. He even told her about his youthful encounter with the ghost of Anna Constantia von Kozel, explaining that Elena had been searching for him since before she was even born.

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  As Elena's 21st birthday came and went, it became clear to the Hoyos family that her death was inevitable. They sought advice from several more doctors, but all were pessimistic about her chances of recovery. Elena had grown too weak to journey back and forth from the hospital, so Carl resolved to treat her in-house. Over the next few days, he wheeled several strange contraptions into her bedroom, including a homemade electrical therapy machine that looked like a prop from a science fiction film.

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  According to author Ben Harrison, who wrote the definitive book on Elena's case, Carl placed sponge electrodes on Elena's chest and shocked her until she literally jolted. When the electricity surging through her body became too much to bear, she'd cry out in pain. Only then would Carl allow her to rest.

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  Carl still believed he could save Elena, and often regaled her with fantastic stories of all the adventures they'd go on once she was well again. Several years earlier, he'd begun restoring a small wingless airplane in the navy yard behind the Marine Hospital. As soon as he finished working on it, he told Elena that they would fly to a distant island and to live out the remainder of their days as husband and wife. According to Carl, Elena shared his vision of a future together and made him promise that he would never abandon her. She allegedly told him, "If I must die, all I can leave you is my body. You will take care of my body after I am dead, won't you?"

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  Carl swore that he would, calling it, "The most sacred promise I ever made in life."

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  By the autumn of 1931, Elena Malagro Hoyos was in poor shape. She spent most days drifting in and out of consciousness and have a present fever confining her to her room. Believing some fresh air would do her good, her father Francisco started taking her for rides around town in a borrowed Ford Model T. Carl Tanzler was furious, convinced that being exposed to the elements would hurt her chances of recovery. He expressed his concerns to Francisco, but if Elena was going to die, her family wanted her to experience what little joy she had left. For the next few weeks, Francisco continued to take his daughter on daily outings in

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  an attempt to lift her spirits.

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  Then, on October 25, just as Carl was getting ready to leave work for the day, a car screeched into the hospital parking lot. Behind the wheel was Elena's brother-in-law Mario. With tears in his eyes, he told Carl to come quickly. Elena had just died.

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  By the time they arrived at the Hoyos home, a large crowd had already gathered outside. Carl and Mario made their way into Elena's bedroom to find her cold and unresponsive. Mario explained that Francisco had allowed Elena to attend the town's annual Halloween parade. She had insisted on wearing her favourite silk dress and several pieces of jewellery, waving to all the friends she encountered along the parade route.

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  It was, as Carl begrudgingly admitted, a farewell fit for a princess.

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  Elena's funeral was held at the Hoyos residence that Sunday and attended by scores of friends, family and neighbours, many of whom laid flowers outside the bedroom where Elena had taken her last breath. Just before her coffin was closed, Carl took a letter from his breast pocket and placed it beneath her dress. It read: Elena, my darling Elena, my love for you is greater than ever. You are now free from all of your fetters, and you are free to go where you wish. Elena, please come to me, sweetheart. I long so much for you. Tell me, what shall I do? As I cannot live without you.

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  Will you have me, darling? Then take me, or you come to me and stay with me until I can go with you. My sweetheart, Elena. Your own Carl.

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  Wanting to feel closer to Elena, Carl soon began renting her vacant bedroom and sleeping in the same bed she'd died in just weeks earlier. Although the Hoyos family was unhappy with the arrangement, they couldn't justify turning down the $5 in monthly rent Carl was offering. As long as Carl kept to himself, Elena's parents saw no reason to kick him out.

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  Carl was worried that the shallow grave Elena had been buried in would fail to adequately protect her from the elements, so he proposed building a grand mausoleum to house her body. He offered to pay for the construction and upkeep on one condition: he would need to be placed in charge of Elena's remains. Although Elena's parents were unsure at first, they eventually relented. Carl began working on the project, securing a permit to remove Elena from her current resting place and have her re-interred in an above-ground crypt. Elena's body was soaked with rainwater and had been partially crushed beneath the shovel of a grave digger.

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  When Carl saw it, he decided that Elena would need to be re-bedded. In most cases, re-bedding consists of replacing a coffin's interior linens or adjusting its mattress to better accommodate the deceased. In Elena's case, a complete sterilisation of both her body and coffin were performed. Knowing the Hoyos family would view this as sacrilege, Carl snuck into the funeral home in the middle of the night to work in private. Later writing about this experience in his memoir, Carl said: Decay had set in in a most disheartening manner. Only with the greatest care was I able to peel the pieces of textile from the body.

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  This took hours. I then lifted the body out of the coffin and laid it on a table. Having sprayed the body all over, I now proceeded to sponge her face with a specially-prepared solution and also her hands and feet. Till dawn, I worked with every energy, appalled at the negligence of the mortician who had failed to embalm the coffin, which smelled awful.

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  Carl finished by spraying odor cologne all over Elena's body. With the mortician's help, he then placed her wooden coffin inside an airtight outer coffin made of metal and sealed with nearly 100 screws.

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  Like many others, the mortician found Carl to be an off-putting individual. Regardless, he agreed to let Carl use the embalming room to fill Elena's coffin with an antiseptic solution intended to protect her body against further decay. According to the book Undying Love: The Shocking True Key West Story of a Passion That Defied Death, Carl submerged Elena's body in a homemade incubator tank, similar to how one would suspend an object in formaldehyde.

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  Three months after being exhumed, Elena Milagro Hoyos was once again laid to rest. Her mausoleum was considered one of the most elaborate in all of Key West, with an ornate dome, great pillars and marble headstone. On each of the structure's four sides were cement urns filled with fresh flowers and a large black crucifix adorned its roof. The Latin inscription on the base of the dome read: Hecicitu sapangelus, which meant: summoned by angels.

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  With her mausoleum finally complete, this marked the end of a long and painful journey for Elena's family, who hoped they could now move on with their lives. Elena's eldest sister Florinda, who was affectionately known as Nana, visited Elena's grave regularly. She often brought flowers and shared stories about their friends and family, keeping Elena up to date on all the events, including the death of their younger sister Celia, who passed away from tuberculosis at the age of just 21. Their father Francisco followed soon after, leaving just Nana and her mother Aurora.

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  During those first few months, Nana visited the cemetery almost every day, but as time went on, her visits grew less and less frequent, eventually petering out to once or twice a year. Carl Tanzler, on the other hand, never stopped coming. This didn't sit right with Nana. If Elena's own family was able to move on following her death, why couldn't he?

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  According to those who lived near the cemetery, Carl visited Elena's grave every single night, often pulling up a chair and reading to her from a book of poetry, or serenading her with her favourite Spanish love songs.

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  Sometimes, the neighbours could hear Carl's laughter echoing off the mausoleum walls, as if someone had just told a particularly funny joke. “He would go there and read and play the radio,” one neighbour told the Miami Herald, “and when he left, he would lock the door with three padlocks.”

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  This went on for eighteen months, before one day, the visits suddenly stopped.

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  While Nana found this odd, she was also relieved. For years, she and her family had been subjected to Carl Tanzler's obsessive and often erratic behaviour. She hoped he'd found something new to fixate on, and would finally allow her sister to rest in peace.

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  Over the next seven years, Nana saw very little of Carl, only contacting him when Elena's mausoleum needed work. Then, in the autumn of 1940, she heard a disturbing rumour.

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  A local boy had peered through Carl's window one night, and seen him dancing with what appeared to be a life-sized doll. Most people brushed it off, citing Carl's reputation as the town eccentric, but Nana and her husband Mario were concerned.

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  They began digging, and discovered that in the years since Elena's death, Carl had moved to a secluded shack on the outskirts of Key West. Neighbours reported seeing him carry large boxes of perfume and disinfectant to and from the property. He was also rumoured to have purchased several pieces of women's clothing and jewellery, despite living alone and not having a female companion. These accounts planted a disturbing question in Nana's mind.

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  What if the life-sized doll the boy had seen Carl dancing with was actually Elena?

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  On September 28, 1940, Nana and Mario told Carl that Elena's mausoleum had been broken into and the coffin had been tampered with. The trio headed to Key West Cemetery, where they were met by several others, including the cemetery sexton and undertaker. Nana demanded to see Elena's body, but Carl pushed back, assuring everyone that while the outer coffin may have been opened, the inner one was still undisturbed. Momentarily placated, Nana agreed to let the matter rest.

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  But, three days later, Carl was summoned to the cemetery again.

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  This time, Nana had gathered a small crowd of supporters who stood by as she broke down in tears and begged him to prove that Elena was still in her coffin. If she could just see that Elena was alright, Nana said she would be satisfied.

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  Reluctantly, Carl offered to take Nana and her husband Mario back to his house, so that they could talk things over in private. Nana and Mario agreed. They followed Carl back to his dilapidated shack on Flagler Avenue, terrified of what awaited them.

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  Carl led them into a small bedroom. In the centre of the room was a twin bed with a curtain around it. Nana crept forward, her whole body quaking with fear. When she pulled back the curtain, she could hardly believe her eyes.

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  Reclining on the bed, dressed in a blue silk gown, was what appeared to be a life-sized wax figure. There was a bridal veil over its face, artificial flowers in its hair, and jewels around its neck and wrists. Nana knew immediately that what she was looking at was no wax figure. It was her sister's dead body.

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  Nana gripped Mario's arm for support, her legs giving out from under her. Carl didn't deny that the patchwork body dressed in bridal finery was Elena's. Instead, he admitted with pride that he'd freed the dead woman from her tomb and given her a second chance at life, stating: “She could not have it better anywhere. I think that will pacify you.”

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  Despite her disgust, Nana tried to reason with Carl, telling him that she would forget the whole sordid affair if he'd just agreed to return Elena's body. He refused, arguing that Elena was safer with him than she'd ever be in her grave.

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  Nana and Mario gave Carl until the end of the week to return Elena's body. When he failed to comply, they contacted the police, who showed up at Carl's house with a warrant for his arrest. The police told Carl that he was being charged with unlawful possession of a dead body. Carl argued that Elena was his wife, and that he could therefore do as he pleased with her body. With the help of two funeral attendants, the officers placed Elena's body in a wicker basket and carried her to a waiting hearse. Enraged, Carl moved to stop them, but was restrained by one of the officers.

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  He was soon escorted to the county courthouse, where he was questioned about his relationship with Elena. Carl claimed that the two had fallen in love while she was undergoing tuberculosis treatment at the marine hospital, and that he'd done everything he could to save her.

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  After Elena's death in the autumn of 1931, Carl claimed he had been sleeping in a chair beside Elena's crypt when he heard what sounded like a pistol going off. He looked over at Elena's outer coffin and noticed that around fifty of the screws holding it together had sprung loose. Carl inched closer and heard a crackling sound, like nails scratching on a metal surface. He opened the remaining locks on the outer coffin, and found that the inner coffin was still sealed. But, after a minute or so, he heard Elena's voice. Carl whipped around, but there was no one there.

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  From that day forward, he was convinced that Elena was still with him.

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  Over the next few months, Carl claimed to have had numerous paranormal encounters, the most significant of which culminated in Elena singing La Boda Negra, or The Black Wedding, from inside her coffin. A dark, romantic folk song, it tells the story of a man who rescues his dead lover from the grave before taking his own life on a bed of flowers. Carl claimed to have heard the song for the first time while treating Elena's tuberculosis. After listening to it together, they decided it would be “their song”.

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  Some of the lyrics said: “On a night when thunder roared and lightning flashed, he broke apart the tombstone of her grave. With his hands he dug into the earth, and in his arms he carried her away.”

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  Carl began to wonder if Elena was trying to tell him that she needed to be rescued from the grave. He knew from his scientific studies that energy could neither be created nor destroyed, just transferred from one form to another. As he later explained in his memoir: “Modern science has advanced far enough to prove that death is not always final. In reality, death is just the first severe shock. Real or final death may follow, but not invariably.” With this truth as his guiding principle, Carl resolved to free Elena from her tomb, resurrect her from the dead, and make her his eternal bride.

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  In April 1933, Carl snuck into the Key West Cemetery under the cover of night and entered Elena's mausoleum. He removed the inner coffin and lowered it to the ground. Although it was heavy, Carl said he found himself imbued with an almost otherworldly strength, as though Elena's spirit had taken control of his nervous system. "She directed my every step," he recalled. "I merely acted like a radio receiver to the waves which came from her." Carl loaded Elena's coffin into a wagon, placing a rubber cushion on either side of it for support. He then draped a blanket over her empty crypt and secured it with rope so that no one could

• 39:34Speaker 00

  see into the mausoleum. Once properly shielded, he wheeled Elena out into the cemetery. Everything was going according to plan until Carl tried to hoist Elena's coffin over the cemetery fence and it bore down on him, leaking fluid out of an open valve. With great effort, Carl managed to lift the coffin over the fence and transport it to a nearby shed. There, he soaked his clothes in whiskey to rid them of their awful stench. He then wheeled Elena's coffin back to her parents' house, using a series of side streets to avoid detection.

• 40:15Speaker 00

  For 24 hours, the coffin remained in Carl's rented room, the very same room Elena had died in, before being moved to the cabin of his wingless airplane located in the navy yard behind the Marine Hospital. Over the next few weeks, Carl claimed he worked tirelessly to restore Elena's body. He started by removing her silk dress and stockings, which had grown slimy with mold. Several pieces stuck to her body, threatening to peel away the delicate skin beneath. To loosen these pieces, Carl applied a soapy solution and let it soak overnight.

• 40:57Speaker 00

  The following day, he stripped Elena of her remaining clothes and bathed her in a phenol solution. While putrefaction had yet to set in, he found maggots feeding on the blood around her scalp and ears, as well as the surface of her abdomen. Carl treated these areas with healing lotions and sterile packing. In the 18 months since Elena's second burial, her tissue had continued to decay, causing her fingers and toes to shrivel up. To avoid further damage, Carl dressed them with formal and soaked bandages, which he moistened regularly. Next, he straightened out her arms, which had been crossed over her chest in death,

• 41:40Speaker 00

  using a counterweight and pulley system. He then used piano wire and coat hangers to hold her skeleton together and stuffed her abdominal cavity with rags to maintain its shape. Once Carl felt confident that Elena's body had been properly treated, he turned his attention to her face, which had begun to collapse due to the dissipation of bodily fluids. In life, Elena's deep brown eyes had been one of her most striking features, but now they looked like two cavernous black holes in the centre of her face. As an employee at the Marine Hospital, Carl had access to several mail order catalogues

• 42:23Speaker 00

  specialising in medical supplies. It was through one of these catalogues that he purchased a pair of glass eyes nearly identical to Elena's and fit them into her empty eye sockets. He then covered her face in finely oiled silk wax and plaster, with the intention of creating a death mask. Historically, death masks were used as references for artists to create accurate portraits and statues. They later served as personal keepsakes or historical records prior to the invention of photography. Carl hoped a death mask would forever capture Elena's beauty.

• 43:05Speaker 00

  What he wasn't counting on was that it would adhere to her face, making removal a dangerous prospect. But this turned out to be a happy accident. By allowing the mask to harden, Carl was able to not only preserve Elena's features, but keep maggots and other pests from eating away at her flesh. He went on to cover her entire body in the mixture, essentially turning her into a modern day mummy. With Carl and Elena reunited, he stopped renting the room from her parents and bunkered down in the cabin of his airplane alongside Elena's mummified body.

• 43:47Speaker 00

  This went on for several months, until a new commander was put in charge of the Marine Hospital and demanded that Carl no longer store his airplane in the navy yard. Carl rented a rundown shack at Rest Beach, which had previously served as a butcher's pen for slaughtering cattle. He enlisted the help of Elena's brother-in-law, Mario, who was completely unaware of what the airplane contained. Together, the two men hitched Carl's plane to a rented truck and towed it several miles south to Rest Beach. Carl converted the shack into a home laboratory where he could continue experimenting on Elena's body. This required a considerable amount of hard labour, from levelling the ground to pouring

• 44:32Speaker 00

  concrete floors, to installing a small power station independent of the city's electrical grid. Aside from a friendly Italian man who lived further down the beach, the only other people Carl had to contend with were out of towners staying at the Casamarina Hotel, located several blocks away. Once the laboratory was completed, Carl began mixing solutions, testing pumps, and preparing a new and improved incubator tank for Elena. While his previous work had focused on preventing her body from deteriorating any further, his new objective was to reverse cellular decomposition.

• 45:15Speaker 00

  To achieve this, Carl placed Elena in the incubator tank and filled it with a clear solution of oxyquinolene sulfate, heated to 38 degrees centigrade, the same temperature as human blood. The tank was then drained and refilled with a circulating plasma solution. Carl repeated this process daily, removing Elena from the tank once every 24 hours to administer a five-minute high voltage radiation treatment. After several weeks, he noted that Elena had gained back much of the weight she'd lost in the grave, going from 30 to 90 pounds.

• 45:55Speaker 00

  As he later wrote in his memoir, "Her living contour was again restored and she had added weight. Her limbs were filling out and her beauty became radiant. Her expression showed serenity and happiness." Carl was so pleased with Elena's progress, he often found himself sitting by the incubator tank for hours, just watching her float. In his view, these were some of the happiest years of his life. Case File will be back shortly.

• 46:37Speaker 00

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• 48:02Speaker 00

  In September 1935, a massive hurricane struck the southeastern United States, devastating the upper Florida Keys. Torrential rain and strong winds destroyed buildings and several citizens lost their lives. Although Carl Tansler’s property on Rest Beach survived the storm, he was forced to pause Elena’s daily plasma baths. With great care, he removed her from the incubator tank, dried her body with alcohol wipes, and covered her in eau de cologne. He then bundled her in a heavy quilt to keep her body temperature up, and placed her beside him in bed. By the time Carl was able to reassemble Elena’s incubator tank,

• 48:46Speaker 00

  her body had cooled considerably, causing him to fear that all the progress they’d made over the past few months would be reversed. This fear was compounded by the arrival of worker groups who were sent to clean up the beach after the hurricane, shattering his privacy. Several weeks into the cleanup, the concrete pier next to Carl’s property, which served as a barrier between his laboratory and the sea, was blown up. Without it, he could no longer ensure Elena’s safety, so he began looking for alternate housing. He eventually found another wooden shack on Flagler Avenue, where he moved with twenty truckloads of equipment, marking Elena’s fifth post-mortem journey.

• 49:30Speaker 00

  By 1936, Carl had lost his job at the hospital due to budget cuts. He spent his days at the new house on Flagler Avenue, where he was unable to install his scientific machinery and left with no choice but to leave Elena’s body out in the open air. To protect her from the elements, Carl placed two screens on each side of her bed and a waterproof tarp above it. During the day, he claimed that he tended to Elena’s body as one would a living patient, and at night, he slept beside her to ward off insects and other dangers. Whenever Carl noticed a leak coming from Elena’s body, he sealed it with silk and plaster of Paris.

• 50:13Speaker 00

  He then filled the affected area with sterile cotton packing to supplement volume loss. Over the next four years, Carl’s belief that Elena was communicating with him from beyond the grave grew more intense. He claimed that Elena regularly spoke to him in his native German and on several occasions even attempted to rise from her bed. All was going well for Carl, until Elena’s sister, Nana, summoned him to the cemetery and demanded that he prove that Elena’s body was still inside her coffin. At that point, he had no choice but to come clean. As Carl Tanzler's story emerged,

• 50:58Speaker 00

  Elena’s sister, Nana, was quick to dismiss his claims that he and Elena had fallen in love while she was undergoing treatment for tuberculosis. According to Nana, Elena had never reciprocated Carl’s feelings, nor was she his wife. She told the Miami Herald: “Elena never loved him. She was only nice to him because my mother told her she should be kind to those who were kind to her. She looked upon him as a grandfather, and when he proposed to marriage, she always told him, ‘You are too old. Why, you’re old enough to be my grandfather. What’s more, I do not love you.’” Within hours of Carl’s first court appearance,

• 51:43Speaker 00

  Key West was teeming with reporters as word spread that someone had been arrested for sleeping with a corpse. Carl was subsequently booked on charges of wantonly and maliciously demolishing, disfiguring, and destroying a grave and removing a body without authorization. The following morning, Carl Tanzler's name was on the front page of every newspaper in Florida with headlines sensationally declaring: “Man slept beside sweetheart’s body for seven years. Lover in fantastic romance with corpse sees no wrong in taking her from crypt. Man who kept a girl’s body in wax says he had hoped to restore life.”

• 52:27Speaker 00

  As author Ben Harrison noted in his book, Undying Love: “The shocking true Key West story of a passion that defied death,” the public was overwhelmingly on Carl’s side. Women in particular viewed his actions as “marvelously romantic.” Gifts such as fresh fruit, cookies, and tea began arriving at the jailhouse for Carl, where a local band serenaded him each night. A group of young women from Tampa traveled seven hours just to visit him, while a radio station in Cuba even ran a soap opera about Carl and Elena’s doomed romance. The media frenzy reached its peak when on October 7, 1940,

• 53:10Speaker 00

  Elena’s mummified body was placed on display at the Dean Lopez Funeral Home in Key West. Over the course of several days, nearly 7,000 people waited in line for hours to pay their respects. Many were horrified by Elena’s waxy but lifelike appearance, claiming she looked like a paper mache doll. It emerged that Carl had spent the past few years having almost no contact with the outside world. The only time he was known to interact with anyone was when he dropped by the post office to pick up his monthly cheque. Although the source of these cheques remains a mystery, employees at the post office believed Carl

• 53:53Speaker 00

  was either receiving a pension for his service in the German military during World War I or that he was the beneficiary of a large inheritance. Either way, this monthly stipend had allowed him to survive without steady employment. Some debate also began to surface about Carl’s medical qualifications. While he claimed to have nine degrees from the University of Leipzig in Germany, these credentials were unable to be confirmed, prompting some to suspect that he embellished his academic history in an attempt to pass himself off as someone of higher rank. The Miami Herald tracked Elena’s estranged husband, Luis Mesa,

• 54:34Speaker 00

  down in Little Havana to question him about the situation. Luis said: “That old man ought to be hung. I heard that he came to the house to see Elena after I left, but I knew nothing of a love affair.” Luis, like the rest of Elena’s family, remained steadfast in his belief that Elena never encouraged Carl’s romantic advances. Carl, on the other hand, maintained that Elena had agreed to marry him shortly before her death, even making him swear that he would take care of her body after she was gone. In a jailhouse interview, he stated: “Elena is mine. Her father gave her to me.

• 55:18Speaker 00

  I am more entitled to her than her sister.” Carl Tanzler's hearing was scheduled for October 9 at the Monroe County Courthouse in Key West. The findings would determine whether he’d have to stand trial in criminal court for removing a body without authorization. Dozens of reporters from all over the country gathered outside the courthouse hoping to snap a photo of the radiology technician-turned-mad scientist. With the public’s sympathy for Carl expanding, the general consensus was that he should be allowed to go free, although most agreed that Elena’s body should be returned to her family.

• 55:59Speaker 00

  Elena’s sister, Nana, was the first witness to take the stand. When the judge asked her to describe what she’d seen at Carl’s home on Flagler Avenue, she said: “Your Honor, it was the most grotesque thing I have ever seen in my life. Elena’s hair was still on her head. She had glass eyes. Her arms and legs were like sticks with stockings. It was a monster. It was horrible. What I saw will haunt me for the rest of my life.” By this point, Elena’s mummified body had been examined by doctors, but they had refused to make their findings public.

• 56:40Speaker 00

  Nana struggled to hold back tears as she questioned why this was, asking the judge: “What has Carl done to my sister’s body? Was he doing something too horrible for words?” A hush fell over the courtroom as the judge turned to Carl and asked him the question everyone had been wondering: “Had he, at any point over the last seven years, sexually molested the body of Elena Milagro Hoyos?” Carl responded: “No.” When Carl took the stand, the courtroom fell so quiet that those present said you could hear a pin drop. Several women in the gallery audibly wept as Carl recounted how he’d met and fallen

• 57:25Speaker 00

  in love with Elena, then cared for her through her illness and death. When the judge asked Carl if he truly believed that Elena could be brought back to life, he replied in the affirmative, saying: “There is always life left in the body which can be resurrected by special methods.” Carl had dubbed the small wingless airplane he’d been working on for years “Elena’s Airship.” He said his plan was to fly Elena’s mummified remains high into the stratosphere so that cosmic radiation could penetrate her body and restore her to life. The judge pointed out that Carl had been in possession of Elena’s body for more

• 58:06Speaker 00

  than seven years, yet no signs of life had been restored. For that reason, he decided that her remains should be returned to her family for burial. Carl exploded from his seat, shouting that Elena belonged to him and that re-burying her would be tantamount to murder. Unable to restrain herself any longer, Nana looked Carl dead in the eyes and said: “Elena is going to be buried in the ground and rot, like all of her ancestors.” Nearby, reporters jotted down every word of the heated exchange. The judge ordered that Carl be held under $1,000 bond and that he undergo psychiatric

• 58:50Speaker 00

  evaluation to determine whether he was mentally competent to stand trial. The board of psychiatrists who examined Carl found that he was in a “borderline state, but otherwise legally sane.” One went on record, stating: “Those who have had occasion to talk to the old man declare that he is not insane. As a matter of fact, they have marvelled at his intelligence. His knowledge of engineering, botany, art, medicine, and aviation is learned.” The county solicitor agreed, adding: “He is an intelligent man, but his love for the

• 59:30Speaker 00

  girl has evidently gotten the best of him.” Two local men, a camp proprietor and a barbecue stand operator, posted Carl’s $1,000 bond and he returned to his home on Flagler Avenue. The charges against him were subsequently dropped after authorities determined that the statute of limitations on his crime had expired five years earlier. After Carl was released from jail, reporters tracked down his estranged wife, Doris Tanzler, who was still living in Zephyr Hills with their now eighteen-year-old daughter, Ayesha. Their younger daughter, Clarista, had died of diphtheria six years earlier, without any

• 1:00:13Speaker 00

  acknowledgement from Carl. Like most of the world, Doris Tanzler learnt of her husband’s treatment of Elena Milagro Hoyos through the media. When questioned about her marriage, Doris remained tight-lipped, admitting that she and Carl had been separated for twelve years, but refusing to publicly disparage him. Privately, however, she was devastated by the revelation that he’d been secretly caring for a dead woman while neglecting his living family. In spite of the bizarre facts that had come to light during Carl’s hearing, the public continued to rally around him.

• 1:00:53Speaker 00

  Many argued that his preservation of Elena’s corpse was proof of Carl’s scientific abilities, as well as his love for the deceased woman. In the weeks following Carl’s hearing, people from all over the country wrote to him and expressed their support. Several even sent money and artwork inspired by his relationship with Elena. Elena’s body was eventually returned to Key West Cemetery, where it was dismembered and buried in an unmarked grave. This was a deliberate decision made by Elena’s sister, Nana, who wanted to prevent Carl from ever finding her remains. When questioned by the Miami Herald about why she’d chosen to hide Elena’s body

• 1:01:36Speaker 00

  from Carl, Nana replied: “Would your sentiments be the same if the body was that of one of your loved ones? He could not have Elena in life, so he stole her body in death. He’s no idealist. Instead of being lauded, he should be condemned.” After his legal troubles were through, Carl Tanzler once again found himself on the brink of destitution. To make ends meet, he began giving tours of his home on Flagler Avenue to the thousands of curious visitors who travelled far and wide to get a glimpse of the place where Elena’s body had once been kept.

• 1:02:17Speaker 00

  Some travelled from as far away as the Bahamas, Cuba, and Canada. Many took home souvenirs, including bits of Elena’s bridal dress, screws from Carl’s laboratory, and plaster-of-Paris death masks. Carl began charging 25 cents per person. For months, public interest in the spectacle set new records for traffic on the highways and toll bridges leading to Key West. Eventually, the physical strain of entertaining guests from dusk till dawn took its toll on Carl, and on April 15, 1941, he decided to leave Key West.

• 1:02:57Speaker 00

  At around 1:45 a.m. that morning, residents who lived near Key West Cemetery were awoken by the loud bang of a violent explosion. The sheriff was called, and he discovered that the front of Elena Milagro Hoyos's mausoleum had been blown off. Police suspected Carl Tanzler was responsible, although they couldn’t prove it. For the next four years, Carl lived in Zephyr Hills with his aging sister. His estranged wife and daughter lived nearby and often visited to make sure he was taken care of. During this time, Carl wrote an autobiography entitled “The Secret of Elena’s Tomb.”

• 1:03:40Speaker 00

  It was published in the pulp fantasy and science fiction magazine Fantastic Adventures in 1947 and went on to become one of their most popular stories. By the time it was published, both Elena’s sister, Nana, and mother, Aurora, had died of tuberculosis, leaving no surviving members of the Hoyos family to contradict Carl’s narrative. In 1944, Carl moved from his sister’s home in Zephyr Hills to a rural residence in Pasco County, Florida. There, he lived out the remainder of his days alongside a life-size effigy of Elena,

• 1:04:20Speaker 00

  complete with traditional Spanish clothing and a plaster-of-Paris death mask taken from her corpse. On August 13, 1952, neighbours dropped by Carl’s house to check on him and discovered a stack of unopened mail sitting on his front porch. They contacted the police, who entered to find Carl’s badly decomposed body, which they estimated to have been there for approximately three weeks, lying on the floor. He was seventy-five years old. In the years following Carl Tanzler's death, public perception of his relationship with Elena Milagro Hoyos shifted dramatically.

• 1:05:04Speaker 00

  In 1972, one of the pathologists who had conducted Elena’s autopsy, Dr Julio Deppu, made a shocking revelation to Tropic Magazine, admitting: “I found a tube in her vagina wide enough to permit sexual intercourse. At the bottom of the tube, there was cotton, and in an examination of the cotton, I found that there was sperm. Then I knew we were dealing with a sexual pervert.” Following this bombshell, Dr Merrill Furica, who served as chief medical officer during Carl’s tenure at the Marine Hospital, released a medical treatise entitled “The Romantic Necrophiliac of Key West.”

• 1:05:48Speaker 00

  In it, he corroborated Dr Deppu’s story, admitting that he and the other doctors who attended Elena’s 1940 autopsy chose not to disclose Carl’s necrophilia in order to spare Elena’s surviving family members the indignity of such a scandal. The final twist in Carl and Elena’s story came in 1982, when journalist William Micklefelter published an article in Detective Cases Magazine alleging that a contractor hired to demolish Carl’s home had stumbled upon a written murder confession. The note supposedly read: “She died because I gave this to her mercifully.

• 1:06:28Speaker 00

  I mixed the root of wolfspine (monkswood) with aconite diluted. It was palatable, and my loved one departed this miserable world on October 25, 1931. Suffer no more, sweet Elena. I have sent you to the angels with my golden elixir.”

• 1:06:50Speaker 00

  According to Mickelfelder, the contractor had also found several bottles of this golden elixir hidden in a collapsed wall. Police logs from 1931, the year Elena died, mentioned her suffering violent convulsions shortly before her death. This would be consistent with aconite poisoning, which is known to induce seizures. The idea that Carl could have poisoned Elena was further supported by statements her friends and neighbours made to police, claiming that in the weeks leading up to Elena's death, Carl persuaded her to swallow double doses of this elixir, promising that it would help ease her pain.

• 1:07:31Speaker 00

  In 1972, former Key West police chief Ben Venido Perez admitted that back in the early 1930s, Carl told him that he was willing to kill Elena if it meant that he could keep her for himself. According to Perez, "He told me once, 'I have spent my whole life, I have roamed this earth searching for Elena. Years ago, she appeared to me in a vision, and she promised then to be my bride. Now I've found her, and I'll kill her if necessary to fulfil my destiny.'" Looking back at old interviews, William Mickelfelder discovered a quote from Elena's sister,

• 1:08:13Speaker 00

  Nana, that also raised some red flags. In 1940, Nana told the Miami Herald that Carl had warned her father that if there wasn't a wedding in the family soon, there would be a funeral. At the time, investigators dismissed this statement as Carl trying to pressure the Hoyos family into increasing Elena's tuberculosis treatment. But in light of contemporary revelations, it took on new significance. Mickelfelder's article marked the first time that Carl Tanzler was posited as not just a grave robber, but a potential murderer. The truth about whether Carl murdered Elena in an attempt to possess her for himself,

• 1:08:57Speaker 00

  or merely defiled her body after her death, will likely never be known. The final entry in Carl Tanzler's memoir reads: "Human jealousy has robbed me of the body of my Elena, yet divine happiness is flowing through me, for she has survived to death. Forever and ever, she is with me." For decades, Elena Milagro Hoyos's story was told almost exclusively through the eyes of her abuser. As journalist Mickey Meek remarked on her radio programme This American Life when re-examining the case in 2017, "Elena, of course, didn't ask for any of this.

• 1:09:40Speaker 00

  She didn't love Carl.

• 1:09:43Speaker 00

  She's paradoxically at the centre of this story, and utterly left out."

• 1:10:47Speaker 05

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