Some people struggle to cope with the loss of a loved one and may initially find it difficult to accept the reality of death. Over time, however, they usually begin to adjust to their new circumstances. For one doctor in the 1930s, Carl Tanzler, accepting such a loss proved almost impossible. He fell in love with a patient he was treating for tuberculosis and desperately tried to keep her alive. After she died, his grief drove him to commit an extraordinary act: he removed her remains from her tomb and lived with them in his home for years.

Who Was Carl Tanzler?

The central figure in this strange story was Carl Tanzler, a doctor born in 1877 in Dresden, Germany. After graduating from a medical school, he traveled to Australia, where he was held in an internment camp during World War I. After the war, former prisoners were not permitted to remain in the country, so he was deported to the Netherlands. Upon returning to his homeland, Tanzler married and had two children. He later emigrated with his family to the United States, settling in Zephyrhills, Florida.

He eventually left his family there and moved to Key West, where he worked as a radiology technician at the U.S. Marine Hospital under the name Count Carl von Cosel. One day, while working at the hospital, he believed that a long-held dream had come true when a beautiful Cuban-American woman entered for treatment. Her name was María Elena Milagro de Hoyos, born in 1909. She was the daughter of a local cigar maker, had grown up in a large family, and was a homemaker. When she became ill, her mother brought her to the hospital.

When Tanzler was a young boy in Germany, he had imagined a dream woman who possessed extraordinary beauty and dark hair. When he saw María, then 22 years old, he immediately became convinced that she was the woman he was destined to love forever.

Unfortunately, Tanzler’s medical assessment of María’s condition was not encouraging. She had tuberculosis, which was still considered a deadly disease in the early twentieth century. Despite the limited treatment options available at the time, Tanzler was determined to save her. He tried various tonics, elixirs, and specially prepared medicines in the hope of achieving a positive result. He treated her at the Hoyos family home, showering her with gifts and repeatedly declaring his love for her during his visits.

María Hoyos’s Death

Despite Tanzler’s efforts, María Hoyos eventually succumbed to her illness and died in October 1931. Her death left her family and Tanzler, who had become obsessively attached to her, devastated.

Tanzler insisted on purchasing an expensive stone mausoleum in a Key West cemetery for her remains. With her parents’ permission, he hired an undertaker to prepare her body before it was placed in the coffin. After the burial, María’s family did not realize that Tanzler would retain the only key to the tomb. He soon took advantage of this access, setting the stage for one of the most disturbing episodes in the story.

For nearly two years, Tanzler visited María’s grave almost every night. This habit abruptly stopped after he lost his job for reasons that remain unclear. Her family found the sudden change in his behavior somewhat strange, but they could not imagine what lay behind it.

Living with María’s Remains

In April 1933, Tanzler no longer needed to make nightly trips to the cemetery. He decided to remove María’s remains from the mausoleum because, from then on, he intended for her to live with him in his home.

Preserving a body that had been dead for two years and had already decomposed required considerable effort. Tanzler applied layers of plaster and wax-soaked silk to replace the deteriorated skin. He added glass eyes, used coat hangers and wires to support the skeleton, and stuffed the torso with fabric to preserve its original shape. He covered the scalp with pieces of María’s real hair.

He also used large quantities of perfume, flowers, disinfectants, and preservatives to conceal the smell of decomposition. He applied creams to her face in an attempt to restore some of its freshness, then dressed the body in a gown, gloves, and jewelry. Finally, he placed it on his own bed, where it remained beside him for the next seven years.

During this period, Tanzler became a local curiosity. He was often seen purchasing women’s clothing and perfume. A local boy also reportedly saw him dancing with what appeared to be a giant doll. These stories made María’s family suspect that something unusual was happening.

In 1940, María’s sister visited Tanzler’s home and found what she initially believed to be a life-sized statue of her deceased sister. She alerted the authorities, who investigated and discovered that the figure was, in fact, María’s body. Tanzler was arrested on a charge related to grave desecration.

An examination of the remains revealed the extraordinary lengths to which he had gone to preserve the body. He was evaluated by a psychiatrist, who concluded that he was competent to stand trial rather than legally insane. Some accounts also claimed that Tanzler’s ultimate plan had been to take María high into the stratosphere so that radiation from outer space could penetrate her tissues and bring her back to life.

The Trial and the Final Years of Carl Tanzler

Following legal proceedings, Tanzler received considerable public sympathy, with some people viewing him as a hopeless romantic, albeit an eccentric one. Because the statute of limitations had expired for the offense he was accused of committing, the court decided to release him.

María’s remains were displayed at a funeral home, where nearly 7,000 people reportedly came to see them. Her body was eventually laid to rest permanently in an unmarked grave in a Key West cemetery, in an effort to prevent Tanzler from attempting another removal.

After his release, Tanzler moved to Pasco County, Florida. He wrote an autobiography titled Fantastic Adventures and spent the rest of his life alone. He died at home in 1952, and his body was not discovered until three weeks later.

According to some accounts, Tanzler kept a life-sized wax doll resembling María until his death, including a plaster cast of her face. One version of the story claims that when his body was discovered, he was lying in the arms of the María doll.