CARL TANZLER: BIOGRAPHY AND CASES OF NECROPHILIA - BIOGRAPHIES - 2024

Carl Tanzler (1877 - 1952) was a German who went down in history for starring in one of the most memorable cases of necrophilia. By profession of a radiologist, Tanzler maintained a relationship with María Elena Milagro-Hoyos for years, after the Cuban was already dead.

Tanzler had different identities throughout his life and lived in different countries. She was born in Germany, moved to Australia and with almost 50 years she settled in the United States, where she spent the rest of her life.

Source: Florida Keys – Public Libraries, via Wikimedia Commons.

Tanzler met Hoyos when he treated her for tuberculosis and since then his fascination with the Cuban began. Two years after her death, Tanzler dug her up to live with him. She treated the already rotten body in different ways to slow decomposition.

He was discovered seven years later, but the case was dismissed and he was released for desecrating Hoyos' grave. The case generated great interest in the condition of Hoyos' body, which was exhibited in Key West.

Necrophilia charges against Tanzler were never fully substantiated. The German remained in Florida until his death and even became an American citizen two years before dying at the age of 70.

Biography

Carl Tanzler was born in the city of Dresden in Germany, on February 8, 1877. Not much information is known about his parents or family. The only information that is known for sure is that he had a sister.

He was in various jobs and became a boat builder and also an engineer. It is believed that he traveled constantly, coming to live in Australia.

When the First World War began he was in Australia and was imprisoned and sent to a concentration camp. When he was released he was transferred to Holland.

He married Doris Anna Shafer when he was in his early 40s. The couple even had two daughters, Ayesha and Crysta Tanzler.

Other names

At least four different names are associated with Carl Tanzler throughout his life. This information has been known thanks to different official documents that remained about his life, both in Germany and in the United States.

For example, when he married Doris Anna Shaffer on German soil, the marriage certificate reflected that his name was Georg Karl Tänzler. He added the title of Count to the medical notes he made when working in a hospital, since he always signed his reports as Count Carl von Cosel.

The papers where the procedures of his citizenship as an American were reflected established that his full name was Carl Tanzler von Cosel, although in the act when he died he was only made official as Carl Tanzler.

Immigrant

In the mid-1920s, Tanzler decided to travel to the United States in search of more and better opportunities. She did it without her family and before reaching US soil she made a stopover in Cuba.

Doris met her husband a few months later in Zephyrhills, a Florida city that sits between Tampa and Orlando. She was not long in the area and she left her family again when she went to Key West, an island that is characterized as the southernmost point of the United States.

He was known in the Florida archipelago as Von Cosel and began working in a Navy hospital, where he worked as a radiology technician.

He met Hoyos

In 1930 Tanzler met Hoyos in Key West, after the Cuban's family sought medical attention for the 21-year-old who suffered from tuberculosis. The disease was considered incurable during that time.

Tanzler fell in love with the Cuban and convinced the family that he could do something to save her. She performed different medical tests in Hoyos that were useless. The whole process took place in the house of the Cuban woman's parents.

Historians claim that Tanzler gave various objects to Hoyos during this time. She took it upon herself to bring valuable equipment home for treatment that had not been approved by the hospital.

There was no evidence to show that Tanzler's interest in Hoyos was reciprocated. Among other reasons, the age difference between the two was more than 30 years.

With the young woman's death, the German's obsession with her only grew. She offered to cover all the expenses of her burial. He also decided to make a mausoleum in the cemetery of Key West, where he went to visit her for more than a year and a half.

Necrophilia case with Hoyos

In April 1933 Tanzler made the decision to remove Hoyos's body from the cemetery where it was found. The German took the Cuban woman's body home where it remained for seven years.

Tanzler's next step was to prevent the body's decomposition process from progressing rapidly. To do this, she performed different procedures such as putting glass in the eye cavities or using cloth and plaster for the areas where she no longer had skin.

In addition, Tanzler was commissioned to make a wig. The interior of Hoyos' body was filled with different elements so that he did not lose his silhouette.

The German did not skimp on care and even dressed the body of Hoyos with clothes, some new and others used, and even used jewelry to fix the corpse.

The smell of the decomposing body was disguised with different products, from perfumes to disinfectants.

On the island, which had about 20,000 inhabitants, the rumors began. Some came to witness Tanzler come to life with what they considered at the time a giant doll. Among other things, they saw him dance and build a plane to fly with María Elena.

court

Seven years passed for the Hoyos family to find out what was going on in the Tanzler home. Florinda, one of the Cuban's sisters, went to the German's house and discovered the body.

Authorities initially detained Tanzler and he was brought before the judge. In tests with doctors, no psychiatric problems could be detected. The charges brought against Tanzler focused on the desecration of a grave.

As it had been so many years since Tanzler had removed Hoyos's body from his grave, the case was time-barred and the German was released by decision of the Florida Court.

Controversy

When María Elena's body was discovered, the authorities ordered a series of tests. Several doctors, some specialized in pathologies, examined the corpse. It was then exposed to the public at a Key West funeral home and thousands of people came to see Hoyos' lifeless remains.

It was a case that attracted a lot of media attention at the time. No information or data on necrophilia was presented at the time of the trial.

The evidence of necrophilia appeared more than 30 years later. Two of the doctors who performed tests on Hoyos 'body assured that a tube was found in the vaginal area whose function was to allow Tanzler to have sex with Hoyos' lifeless body.

The delay in making these data known is what casts doubt, according to many, the accusations of necrophilia. At that time, more than three decades after the trial, there was no physical evidence to corroborate these data.

Death

Four years after the trial, Tanzler moved further north in Florida to settle in Pasco County and publish his biography in 1947.

He continued his obsession with Hoyos even far from Key West, as he created a life-size figure of the Cuban woman. There are two versions of her death. In one they say that Tanzler's lifeless body was found next to a statue of Hoyos.

Meanwhile, in his obituary it was published that Tanzler's body was found lifeless on the floor of his house, behind a piano.

Among the personal belongings he left, it was specified that there was a metal tube that was lined in plastic and a wax figure. The tube matches the description that doctors gave about the object that was found in Hoyos and that it allowed Tanzler to have sex with her.

Necrophilia cases

Throughout history, several cases of necrophilia have been announced that have had a lot of echo in the media. It is also called by the name of necrosexuality and deals with the degree of excitement that certain people feel for individuals who have already died.

These feelings can be expressed just by looking at a corpse, by touching them or for the pleasure of mutilating them when they are already lifeless.

Edmund Kemper III

Kemper was a 16-year-old who shot and killed his grandparents. He only served five years in prison thanks to his good behavior while in prison. In freedom he killed six women and their mother, having sex with the mutilated heads of the students he killed.

Anthony Merino

In one of the most recent cases, Anthony Merino was found having sex with the lifeless body of a woman in her 90s. It all happened in 2007 in New York City, United States, while Merino was completing his second week of work at a hospital in the area.

Kenneth douglas

In the 1980s, David Steffen murdered Karen Range who was found to have traces of semen during an autopsy. Steffen was charged with rape, charges that he denied at all times.

To prove his guilt, different tests were carried out, including DNA tests. The investigation revealed that the semen really belonged to Kenneth Douglas, an aide at the morgue where Range's lifeless body was found.

Douglas was then charged with necrophilia and at trial confessed that he was guilty of the charges. In addition, he even admitted that he had had relations with more than a hundred bodies before carrying out the autopsy work.

Ted Bundy

He was linked to more than 100 cases. He is one of the best known serial killers in the world. He committed all kinds of crimes, but was also characterized by acts of necrophilia.

One of the best known cases involving Bundy occurred in the 1970s with a 12-year-old girl whom he killed, drowned in a hotel bathtub, and with whom he had sex after her death.

Bundy confessed that he was involved in more than a hundred cases and narrated how he carried out acts of necrophilia with his victims.

References

1. Graham, H. (2014). The cursed. Ontario: Harlequin Mira.
2. Miller, F., Vandome, A. and McBrewster, J. (2010). Carl Tanzler. VDM Publishing.
3. Ogden, T. (2010). Haunted cemeteries: Creepy Crypts, Spine-Tingling Spirits, and Midnight Mayhem. Guilford.
4. Russel, J. and Cohn, R. (2013). Carl Tanzler. Book on Demand.
5. Schnur Neile, C. (2017). Florida Lore. The History Press.