The famous and macabre case of necrophilia of Carl Tanzler

Few cases of necrophilia They are as famous as that of Carl tanzler. The true story of a man who, surprisingly, carried his obsession with a woman beyond death.

Carl Tanzler (later known as Carl von Cosel) was able to exhume the corpse of what he considered the woman of her life, to continue having sex with her.

What is necrophilia?

The necrophilia or necrosexuality is a type of paraphilia characterized by a high level of arousal through contemplation, contact, mutilation, or mental evocation of a corpse.

Having sex with corpses is not only considered socially unacceptable, but that is sentenced to jail, since it is understood that the dead person would not have consented to that act live.

Carl Tanzler: A Famous Case of Necrophilia

America was seen as the land of opportunity. For decades, many immigrants settled in the United States of America in search of a better future. This is what Carl Tanzler, a radiologist of German nationality, did.

Tanzler immigrated to Zephyrillis, a city in Pasco County in Florida. He arrived with his wife and his two daughters, but shortly thereafter he left his family to move to Key West Island, near Miami. There he rented an x-ray machine from the US Navy Hospital, and changed its name to Carl von Cosel.

One day in 1930, Tanzler's life changed forever. He was in his early fifties at the time and had an affair with his patient Maria Elena Milagro de Hoyos. She suffered from tuberculosis and her mother took her to the hospital in search of treatment for her pathology.

Tanzler had visions during his childhood of the woman of his life

As a child in Germany, Tanzler reported that he had visions of an exotic girl, the supposed woman of his life. When he met María Elena, he thought she was the woman from his visions. In other words, this 21-year-old Cuban woman was his true love.

Thanks to his crush and despite the fact that Tanzler did not have enough training to treat this pathology, and also of the few possibilities of cure for the patient, he himself carried out Elena's treatment from the home of his fathers.

But María Elena Milagro de Hoyos got worse due to her illness, and she died on October 25, 1931. So good old Tanzler he paid for the funeral and built a mausoleum for Maria Elena at the Key West Island Cemetery, all with the consent of his family. He visited her grave every night for a year and a half after her death.

His obsession with María Elena and the exhumation of the corpse

But soon the obsession with María Elena turned macabre. Tazler later recounted that Maria Elena's spirit sang for him in Spanish as she sat near the grave, and begged him to take her with him. In April 1933, Tanzler exhumed the body of the Cuban girl and brought it to his house with a toy cart.

When the body was in his house, he dedicated himself to preserving it in unimaginable ways. Since this one was in a considerable state of putrefaction, he glued her bones with hangers and cables, he put eyes glass in her eye sockets, and replaced the rotting flesh with silk cloth treated with wax and plaster White. Tanzler inserted rags into the abdominal and chest cavities to maintain the illusion of the human form and put on a wig that Maria Elena used to wear. To hide the rotten smell, the radiologist used liters and liters of perfume.

Tanzler had sexual relations with the corpse of Maria Elena Milagro de Hoyos

She spent days and nights with her body, she even danced with it. In addition, Tanzler had sexual relations with her corpse.

After a while, the rumors reached Maria Elena's family. Her sister Florinda went to Tanzler's house, and to her great surprise, she discovered her sister's body. Without thinking, she called the police and Tanzler was arrested.

The case became very famous and had a lot of media coverage. After her arrest, Maria Elena's body was buried in the cemetery so that she could rest in peace. When Tanzler was released from prison, he wrote an autobiography that was published in Fantastic Adventures.