As a child, Karl Tanzler encountered a vision of eros in Genoa, Italy, as many often do. He claimed that a dead ancestor, the Countess Anna Constantia von Cosel, revealed to him the face of his true love, an exotic, dark haired beauty. In 1926, he left his native Germany to come to Zephyrhills, Florida. A prominent radiologist, he soon found there was no work for him in Zephyrhills and moved to Key West. It was there that he met the love whose vision had haunted him years ago.
Her name was Maria Elena Milagro de Hoyos, colloquially known as Helen. She was admired throughout Key West as a local beauty, but by the time she met the Count, she was washed up, abandoned by her husband, dying of tuberculosis. The Count pledged that he would do anything for her. He often ruminated on this unfair opportunity, given to him too late, and he would never accept it. He accepted all the responsibilities of caring for Helen; he tried every medicine, he bought expensive X-Ray equipment, he gave her jewels and flowers so that she might come to him, but he failed. Helen died in 1931, near Halloween, and the Count had a giant above ground mausoleum erected for her so that he could pay tribute to her every night.
For two years, Count von Cosel visited Helen's grave with gifts, hoping to impart her favor, hoping that she might come to him, impossibly hopes and grief that drove him to madness. After two years of quiet grief, he removed Helen's body from the grave that he had built for her, and deposited her corpse in his house, keeping her in his body. For seven years, he slept with this body, showering it in perfumes to hide the smell, affixing the skin with wax and plaster, and filling the body cavities with rags and straw to keep the body's shape. After all these alterations, Helen's corpse looked like some life-size doll.
Maria, full of wax
Helen's sister heard rumors of this twisted relationship and confronted the Count in his home, where the body was found. After many psychiatric tests, von Cosel was found mentally competent and underwent a few trials for the case which was eventually dropped due to the laziness of the Florida Judicial system. Tanzler became a US citizen in the 1950s and was supported by his wife who he had abandoned in Zephyrhills years before. Separated from his true love, he built a wax and straw effigy of her that was found upon his death. He was found slumped over behind one of his large organs.
