Note: This case is not found in the Homicide Detective's Scrapbook, but I have always been fascinated by it, thought I would give as much information as I could find.
THE BEGINNING OF THE END:
Elena "Helen"de Milagros Hoyos Mesa, was born to Aurora Milagro (1881-1940) and Francisco Hoyos (1883-1934), nicknamed "Pancho", he worked as a cigar maker in Cuba. Elena had two sisters, Florinda Milagro Hoyos (1906-1944) and Celia Milagro Hoyos (1913-1934). Florinda, aka "Nana Hoyos," married Mario Medina (c1905-1944). Medina was electrocuted trying to rescue a coworker who hit a power line with his crane at a construction site. Elena's sisters also succumbed to tuberculosis.
On February 18, 1926, when she was just a girl of sixteen, Elena married Luis Mesa (1908-1974), the son of Caridad and Isaac Mesa, also of Cuban extraction. In 1928, Luis left Elena shortly after she miscarried the couples' child, and moved to Miami. At age 19, she fell ill to tuberculosis, which at the time, was still incurable and most often proved fatal. Her mother Aurora, brought Elena to the United States Marine Hospital for treatment of the disease. This is where Von Cosel fell in love with her.
She was allowed to return home, and Von Cosel used to take the x-ray and other equipment, without the hospital's permission, to her home to continue treating her in an effort to cure her of the disease. "After she was removed from the hospital to her home, she invited me to her house. I asked her father could Elena marry me. She was still married though and both she and her father said that she still cared for her husband. Later, however, I asked her again to marry me and that time she said that she no longer cared for her husband, because he had deserted her. She said, however, she did not want to marry me while sick," said Von Cosel. As she lay dying on her death-bed, he brought her precious gifts and professed his undying love to her. As Elena's hair fell out from the treatments, Von Cosel promised her he was going to make a wig for her, so as it fell out, her mother gathered it and gave it to him.
Although Von Cosel proposed marriage to her while she was in the hospital, Elena was still legally married to Mesa until the time of her death. Elena turned Von Cosel down many times, to his detriment, but this proved only to further his sentiment. He made a death promise to her loved ones to care for her as long as he lived.
On Oct 25, 1931, her family took her to see the Halloween parade in town, although she wasn't feeling that well, her family thought getting her out of the house for a few hours would cheer her up. The local organization called La Carabina, held an annual parade composed of several hundred marchers, fitted out in elaborate costumes. Even though she was feeling terrible, she really did want to go because her friend, Bienvenido Perez, the local police chief, was leading the parade, wearing a red devil's costume that she had made for him. Her family carefully wrapped her in a blanket, and took her over to see the parade, however, about half way through the festivities, Elena suffered a seizure. Her parents rushed her home. Minutes later, Perez said he was pounding at the front door. "Something told me she was dying and I rushed to her house," said Perez. Unfortunately, his instincts proved to be right.
Von Cosel said he was not present on the night Elena died. Arriving at her home shortly afterwards he vainly endeavored to revive her with electrodes controlled by a machine he called an ultra-violet ray. He worked feverishly for a few minutes, trying to revive her limp body. He hoped that the electrodes would jolt her cells back to life. But she did not twitch. The family physician arrived and pronounced her dead. Von Cosel said it was then that her father gave the body to him.
STRANGE TALES FROM THE CRYPT:
When she died at age 22, Von Cosel was visibly heartbroken and attended her funeral. He then visited her grave every day for six months. He did not like the thought of the body being beneath the ground. Taking advantage of their deep mourning, and knowing her family was not exactly wealthy, he told them he wanted to build an ornate mausoleum dedicated to Elena. He obtained permission from her family to build the burial vault for her in the city cemetery. "I paid for the funeral expenses and everything," said Von Cosel. "I told them I had promised Elena I would stick to her in life and death."
The body was disinterred and placed in the white mausoleum. Family friend, Bienvenido Perez, claimed he wasn't sure whether it really was her body or an effigy. Perez said he thought an effigy was placed in the vault and that Elena's body was kept in Tanzler's shack where it was discovered by deputies eight years later, but he wasn't positive it might have been the other way round.
Von Cosel said that, "The wooden coffin was placed inside a galvanized container and the container inside of a steel coffin." He filled her coffin with formaldehyde and other preserving agents to stall decomposition of the corpse. In an effort to staunch the putrefaction, he continued his special experiments and again, he took the hospital's medical equipment and used it on Elena's body while he was inside the crypt.
Von Cosel continued his visits, he placed a chair inside so he could comfortably spend hours at the vault, though he usually made trips wee hours into the night to prevent gossip. He had a special key made so that only he had access to the body and could come and go as he pleased. He placed blue silk curtains inside to give it a touch of home.
He connected a telephone to the vault from his home so "I could talk with her, on rainy days." Night after night, he serenaded the dead girl with love songs, read her poetry that he composed and told her of his fantastic plans for their "future" together. Von Cosel later told authorities that Elena awoke from her death every night and they would have "conversations" deep into the morning. He claimed that Elena confessed to him that she was afraid of losing her beauty and that she feared rotting and decaying.
He calmly told police that "About three weeks after she had been placed in the vault, I opened the steel casket and then a small hole in the galvanized container and there was an awful odor. I then opened the wooden coffin and there were many vermin there. I found the body was decaying. I decided then and there that I would take the remains and preserve them for me always. I promised Elena before she died that I would take care of her always. So at night I went to the vault and removed it to the Marine hospital where I was employed. I filled the container full of a solution to kill the vermin. Several days later, I washed the remains with water. Then I decided that I would try my experiment to see if life could be restored."
Von Cosel genuinely believed that eventually he could restore life to Elena and experimented with all his medical skill to restore her life functions. The method by which he hoped to restore life was "simple" according to him. "I covered the frame with a protective tissue of ingredients which conveyed nourishment to the underlying tissues of her body. It is my belief that life still exists in the cells of her body, even after death. Daily I have fed her with my formula which I hoped would aid in reviving her. At the right time I hoped through the aid of a powerful x-ray machine to stimulate cavities in her body."
"I tried experiments to restore her to life. I hope still if I live long enough to bring her back," said Von Cosel. He said that he was deeply in love with her and he promised Elena the night before she died, to "take care of her as long as I lived."
He stole Elena's body from the crypt and carried to to the hospital where he was still employed, there, he performed his experiments using machines and equipment he was not physically able to remove from the hospital. He said he still had ready access to the facility due to his employment as the x-ray technician. In his laboratory, he claimed he treated the body chemically for a week to restore decomposed parts. Then he started to apply beeswax to protect the outer tissue. He expressed a firm hope that inner cells could be reactivated with a combination of electrolysis, chemistry and x-ray treatments. It was around this time, that he lost his job at the hospital. The institution noticed his behavior became more and more erratic, he was not showing up regularly for the job and sometimes did not come in at all. In addition, he kept taking some of their medical equipment and not returning it. He said he was granted "furlough without pay" from the hospital. The hospital told authorities that he was let go due to the fact that he was not a naturalized citizen.
After his discharge from the hospital, he made up his mind to remove her from the crypt for good and take her to his home, where he could continue to conduct his bizarre secret experiments to stop all further decomposition, preserve her beauty and ultimately, restoring her back to life. Von Cosel later said that he had become so infatuated with Elena while she was alive, that he could not resist the temptation of removing her body from the grave and that "If I couldn't bring her back to life, I wanted her to remain always as I remembered her." He purchased a damaged airplane, which he planned to rebuild and fly away with Elena when he had successfully revived her.
Informed that he lost his only source of income, his ex-wife Doris, out of pity, sent him money to help with his general welfare. Although at the time, he was receiving a World War I pension from Germany which had stopped sometime prior to the start of the second world war.
He said that he moved her body in the cabin of the plane from the hospital grounds to an abandoned building on Rest Beach. There the body secretly remained in the plane for several months, while he prepared a room. Police officer, Bienvenido Perez, the close friend of Elena's family, claimed that he actually found the body in the "Count's" damaged plane five months after her death in 1931, but her family refused to take action. He saw that Von Cosel had painted her name on the side of the airplane. Perez said he visited Von Cosel a few days later and inside the plane, propped up in a chair, was Elena's body. Perez, ordered away by Von Cosel, raced to the home of Elena's sister, Florinda. She didn't believe Von Cosel had her sister's body. She told Perez it was only a wax replica.
Later, when Von Cosel moved from the beach to the place where the remains were eventually found, the airplane was again used for transportation. The plane, he explained, was towed by a truck.
Von Cosel said that even though he had removed the body from its crypt, for two years he would return there each day to keep it clean and to beautify it. "Some day I knew we both would occupy that place together," he said. He confessed that he performed this ritual so Elena's family would not suspect the body had been removed. At the end of two years, noticing that the doctor had stopped visiting the burial vault, and what Perez had said about seeing the body in the plane, Florinda, the sister of the dead woman, told officers she had felt for some time that Elena's body was not in the vault.
WHERE'S ELENA?
A Key West resident, Raoul Vasques, who once owned a nightclub known as Raoul's, said the real truth was that the girl's family knew Von Cosel had the body and "accepted a monthly sum from him to keep quiet about it." He was sending portions of his pension until it ran out. When the hush money stopped, years later, in 1940, they informed authorities, saying they were suspicious for some time the body of their sister was no longer interred in the crypt. Florinda said that Von Cosel had persistently reassured her that Elena was still interred in the vault.
On a hunch, the dead girl's sister told her family friend, Enrique Esquinaldo, who just happened to be the justice of the peace, that "I take flowers there every Sunday but lately, I don't feel she is there." She had already heard rumors that Von Cosel had her hidden away in his home. Suspicions were raised further when reports that Von Cosel refused to entertain visitors inside his dwelling and had recently chased some boys away from his home, threatening them with a gun.
Florinda told Esquinaldo that she and her husband had visited Von Cosel's rickety shack, peered inside a window and saw, on a bed, in a half-sitting, half-lying position, was the figure of a woman. The lifelike features resembled her sister. The eyes were wide open and staring off into space. Her body dressed in a wedding gown and veil.
Von Cosel came to the door and Florinda expressed her concerns about her sister's body not being inside the tomb. Von Cosel said, "Of course she isn't - she is here, safe with me. Don't worry, your sister is all right. I have here here with me." He gestured to the bed which Elena occupied during her fatal illness. Over it was a canvas canopy. She said Von Cosel carefully guarded the bed, but when he was not looking, she peeped through a netting which draped the bed and there saw the image of her dead sister. "Then he showed me something grotesque which couldn't possibly be Elena," said Florinda. She refused to believe that it really was her sister's remains laying atop the bed.
Florinda's husband, Mario Medina, filed a complaint. Esquinaldo said he reported the incident to the sheriff who tried to dampen down his fears and said, "Oh we've heard that rumor before - but Von Cosel is an old man who liked to play with papier mache dolls." Both Florinda and Esquinaldo were convinced that the effigy on the bed really was Elena. Family friend, Bienvenido Perez, who had been elected constable, received word from local undertaker Ben Lopez, of the Lopez Funeral Home, who advised him to go take a look. Perez said that he indeed, saw Elena's body in Von Cosel's home.
Intrigued, Esquinaldo asked County Solicitor, Allan B. Cleare, Jr, to go with him to see if the body was still in the tomb. Florinda, Cleare, Perez, Esquinaldo, and Deputy Sheriffs Elwood and Waite visited the crypt on a Sunday afternoon. To everyone's dismay, but no surprise to Florinda, Elena's body was not found in her steel coffin.
As a result, Esquinaldo issued a search warrant and the next day. Authorities, armed with guns and the search warrant, went to Von Cosel's home, located in a remote section of the island community. It was reportedly a dirty, ramshackle, abandoned warehouse or garage, on Flagler Street in Key West, built on city-owned land. The building was used as a shelter for automotive equipment and as a field office for a boom-time real estate development. Esquinaldo said "It was a Sunday morning and it looked like an invasion."
Outside the front door, was a signed reading "Laboratory." A sun-dial, made by Von Cosel, one time when his watch was out of order, stood in the front yard, which was covered with grass that had grown knee high. The tiny enclosed office portion, not more than 10 feet wide and 20 feet long, was arranged in two cubicles as the old man's living quarters.
Esquinaldo and the sheriffs deputies confirmed what most of the island natives already knew.
When the deputies went to Von Cosel's home they found that the "bedroom" barely had any walking space around two sides of a wooden bed. Esquinaldo saw for himself, the macabre figure that Florinda had described. The women's body was found reposing on a bed covered by a a shallow canopy of double folded white cheesecloth blue silk. Wide boards placed from footposts to headposts provided support for the low canopy to hide the body. "Elena loved blue and white," said Von Cosel, "she looked beautiful lying here."
He explained that the bed on which the body was found was purchased by him for Elena while she was sick, said Von Cosel."She asked me for a large double bed and I bought it. Later her father gave it to me," said Von Cosel. For seven years, he lied next to the body of his beloved.
In his logbook, he admitted to caressing, fondling, kissing and cuddling the corpse as she lie in her bed. He had the bed arranged so that at first impression it looked as if there were two single beds. For the remains of the girl he had bed clothing separate from his own.When not having an intimate moment with the body, the cheesecloth gauze was placed in between them as he always felt he was a gentleman and this barrier maintained Elena's dignity. He told Deputy Sheriff Bernard Waite that, "It was so good to have her beside me always." At the head of the bed, hung a picture of Elena. Draped from the picture were strands of her black hair.
Elena's corpse was dressed in a wedding gown, there was a veil over her face, an artificial rose was in her hair and wore two gold bracelets at the wrists. Around Elena's skeleton, the scientist had built a frame of plaster and gauze bandages. At first glance, her shoulders and hip bones protruded sharply from under the robe. The arms and legs resembled sticks, joints were held together with wire, the legs encased in stockings, and her gaunt hands lie stiffly at each side. A pair of black house slippers, were positioned beside the small, stockinged feet. Since Elena was of Spanish descent, Von Cosel placed a lace mantilla around her head, on it was a card reading, "Elena, Partially Resurrected."
On a corner shelf nearby, was a large photograph of Elena in happier times, adorned with a lace wedding veil, her face beamed with life. However, looking around the room, one could sense a feeling of despair. Death masks of Elena, carefully worked from wax and plaster of paris, hung on the wall, its white visage cowled in white and fixed with a blue headband while another adorned a table that was cluttered with miscellaneous knick knacks. Perhaps fittingly, a book on embalming rested atop a pile of assorted magazines. Also in the home was a cupboard full of bridal finery in which Von Cosel dressed the corpse.
Albums, filled with pictures of the beautiful girl bore such titles as "The Secret of the Tomb" and "Elena in the Battle of Life." The scrapbooks contained photographs of her while alive, her former home, pictures of her in death, as well as handwritten poems dedicated to her and a rambling account of his actions. Some of the photos pictured Elena's corpse in the wooden airplane and in various parts of his shack.
At the time, no one knew what was locked behind a pair of double garage doors between the enclosed part of the building and the junk filled open section. There, the largest object was the silver-colored airplane, a wreck Von Cosel said he had purchased years ago and partially rebuilt. On its nose was lettered, "Cts. Elaine von Cosel," an abbreviation for "Countess Elaine von Cosel," his official name for Elena. This is what Bienvenido Perez noticed nearly eight years prior.
A police investigator revealed that the doctor had removed Elena's remains from the grave and as a result, the scientist was booked as Karl Tanzler Von Cosel, and was brought to court on charges of "willfully removing a tombstone, wantonly and maliciously destroying contents of a tomb or grave" and "removing a body without authorization.” Penalty of one year in prison or $500 fine could have been imposed for conviction on either count. Von Cosel appeared to be surprised that he was being arrested, declaring, "I promised Elena that I would take care of her, no matter what happened. Her father told me I could care for her body. She was so beautiful I wanted to preserve her and to try my experiments to see whether life could be restored."
During questioning, Tanzler told Deputy Sheriff Ray Elwood that he decided to take the body from the grave when "he noticed it was decomposing" and that "I did not want one so beautiful to go to dust. I stole the body. I have had it with me since." He said he retained an astonishingly youthful look on her face by treating it with special chemicals. He said that when he was a youth back in Germany, he would spend hours at painting and sculpture, so that the reconstruction of Elena was an easy task for him, but "the greatest task was her face, for she was so beautiful."
He told police he took the body from the tomb and hid it for two years before moving it to Key West. He hid the body in the fuselage of his junk airplane for the two years and used it to transport the body to Key West. He claimed the airplane he was rebuilding was meant to propel Elena “high into the stratosphere, so that radiation from outer space could penetrate Elena’s tissues and restore life to her somnolent form.” Von Cosel lived like a hermit and kept all visitors away from the house, authorities said.
He brought the corpse into his home and placed her atop the bed which was given a crude canopy of cheesecloth which he doubled over to cover the body to keep insects away from it. He said he was consumed with thoughts of Elena constantly. He knew she loved music and for six months he devoted much of his time to rebuilding an abandoned church organ so that he could play music for her. He placed the organ he had rebuilt right next to her side of the bed, the keyboard near her ears so she could "awaken" from the sound of the music being played.
Despondent over the discovery of Elena's body, he was held in the Monroe County jail in default of $1,000 bond pending a hearing scheduled for Oct 7 before Peace Justice Enrique Esquinaldo. In the meantime, Elena's body was transferred from Von Cosel's home to the Lopez Funeral Home in Key West, where more than 2,000 residents crowded in to get a glimpse of the young woman's reconstructed body preserved with wax and plaster.
WHO THE HELL WAS VON COSEL?
Karl Tanzler, was a native of Dresden, Germany. According to the testimony at his hearing, he claimed that his grandmother had been a German princess and he inherited the title “Count von Cosel.” He said that the title, "Count Von Cosel" was centuries old. The family also had a castle in the countryside near Dresden, called the "Coselschloss." He claimed he was born in the castle and at other times, he said he inherited it. "People used to say the castle was haunted, I used to study there when I was a boy, and I had a private spook," he said.
At the age of 24, he finished his courses at the Leipzig University with nine degrees, although he said that the average age of his classmates was 26. He told of passing "nine difficult examinations" in such subjects as metaphysics, mathematics "as far as calculus," electrical engineering, medicine, astronomy, chemistry and physiology.
He said that "When I was a young fellow, I did not smoke, I did not drink, I did not go out dancing with the girls. I did not have time. I did fencing for exercise. That is a chivalrous art and exercises the whole body. It requires perfect coordination of mind and muscles." he said he had two sisters, but no brothers. One of the sisters came to the USA as a young girl to live with relatives and later to reside with her husband in Elizabeth, NJ. His "little sister" stayed behind in Dresden with her mother.
Von Cosel said he became an engineer in Germany. He said he owned and operated a large machine shop. He once patented an engineering device, which he would not describe in detail. "Someone tried to steal it from me. The lawyers took it to court but got nowhere, so I went into court and won the case myself. The government finally bought the patent," he explained. He said an arrangement was made for him to receive a monthly allowance (pension) from the shop, this income he stopped when when the Second World War broke out.
He said he married in Dresden and had two small girls. In his words, a nagging wife resulted in his leaving his marriage. He said she was "war-like - quarrelsome, you would say," so he left her. He left his family behind in Germany and claimed not to hear from them for 12 years.
He spent ten years in Australia where he was employed for five years of those years by the government as an electrical engineer before coming to the United States. He made no mention of his wife or daughters being in Australia with him, although the timeline he gave for the separation, would have been after he left that continent.
"I had a beautiful residence overlooking the harbor in Sydney. I had a pipe organ, my boats and a 125-foot diesel-powered yacht, the Aeyesha. That is an Arabian name meaning "The Star of the Heavens" or "Fire from the Heavens." There was a queen of that name in the Cocos Islands whose husband was an Englishman. She used to come to Sydney many times, and I saw that queen. She was a Malayan with olive skin, loaded with diamonds, brilliants and precious stones."
"I had the steel for the diesel motors of my yacht especially made in England so that it was very strong. I was building a seaplane with 100-foot wing span and two 500-horse-power diesel engines. I became a licensed pilot, taking lessons from a Monsieur Geau who brought seven planes from Paris."
"I left Australia after the World War, they made it so unpleasant for me. I had lived there for 15 years, was a British citizen, a servant of the king. I was respected and had good friends everywhere, and yet, as soon as the war broke out, they looked upon me as an enemy. The military moved me, for me own safety, they said. They kept me in military headquarters for five years with several doctors, spies and others"
"People broke into my residence about 100 times, and everybody went in and took what they liked. There were 100 windows, and they were all broken. The inside was a shambles. The pipe organ was chopped to pieces with an ax. I lost my library, all my documents, my collection of diamonds, emeralds, and opals. I had some big ones, fiery opals as big as that." He raised both hands and formed a circle about two inches in diameter with fingers splayed. "They told me to make out a claim for the damage. It amounted to 6,000 pounds sterling, for the furnishings alone, not the house. The ministry acknowledged it but refused to pay, saying England had won the wat and Germany had lost it."
Von Cosel said he also owned an island coconut plantation as large as Key West near the equator, "near the spot where Amelia Earhart went down." He said, "I still own it. I intend to go back when this war finishes and stay there several months." He said he traveled to India, where he came down with influenza and almost died. "They put me in the morgue. I heard a man's voice saying I was to be buried at 5 o'clock. That brought me back."
Then he said he came to the United States and was held at Ellis Island "for das" until his sister from Elizabeth, NJ, who apparently "wears the pants in her house, as they say," put up $20,000 bond for his admittance. I found a 1928 Bayonne, NJ newspaper blurb about a Karl Tanzler, "An automobile driven by Karl Tanzler of 14 West Thirty-Fourth Street North on the Boulevard at Sixteenth Street last night struck a nine-year-old boy crossing the street. Tanzler told police that he stopped the car to see if the boy was injured but the lad had disappeared."
He stayed in New York about one year, but "was glad to get away from there because I caught such a severe bronchitis in New York and was sick for months. It was too darn cold in the winter, colder than Germany."
With Germany on his mind, he went back to see his mother, who he said was quite old at the time. "There was a revolution there at that time. The Russian soldiers - Communist bands - were roaming all over. They had robbed people on the street of their clothes who had better clothes than they had." This apparently was the point where ge left his wife and daughters in Dresden, making arrangements to provide for their financial needs from his German holdings. His friends in Key West said Von Cosel used to receive a monthly check for $150, but this sum dwindled after the Nazi party came into power to only $19 a month, then $4 a month, and finally nothing. The income ceased around 1937, they said.
Before leaving Germany at his mother's behest, he sent money ahead and bought ten acres "between Lakeland and Dade City, Florida," which he intended to develop as an orange grove. "It was a beautiful forest, miles away from the townships. That did not matter to me. I bought a large car. I worked there one year, hard, started building a residence, fenced it all in with barbed wire, built a road all the way through the ten acres. I wanted a large pipe organ there like I had in Australia. You see, I must have something to play with, to amuse myself. I used to amuse myself for hours playing all the classical music, Beethoven, Wagner. I brought an organ from Europe, paying $200 freight."
He said he bought a cement mixer and did all the work himself. The house was to constructed of just cement, to prevent destruction by fire such as he saw of one house in the sparsely populated area. Thirty six columns formed an oblong patio around which the rooms were to be built, two stories high. However, "I did not finish it because all these darn farmers wanted to see what was going on. It did not matter what it cost me. I wanted to finish it and have my organ playing, and the bedrooms on the upper floor, not on the ground floor. There were no neighbors, but they came from far away, over the hill, standing around with their hands in their pockets, smoking, saying, 'What are you building here?', 'I am building a house,' 'That's no house-that's a fortress,' they said. 'When are you going to put up some 12-inch guns?' They said, 'You will never get your money back,' I told them, 'I'm not building for speculation. This is to be my home.'"
"Finally, someone set the brush on fire. I had a fire-break inside and outside the fence, but the wind was blowing so hard, the fire came over the tops of the trees. They did it on purpose to humbug me, because I told them the truth and they foolishly thought I was trying to build a fortress. That was what made it impossible for me to stay there."
He then went to Miami, left his care with all his possessions in front of his hotel, was called to Havana to fulfill a promise he had made to a friend arriving from Germany who spoke no English or Spanish. Von Cosel had promised to meet him and smooth his way. He never saw his car and baggage again because, as the ship from Key West docked at Havana, he and several others were whisked off to Casablanca, where he was kept under heavy guard with several other foreigners for three months. Luckily, the German ambassador had him released, and it was then that Von Cosel returned to Key West, where he was employed by the United States Public Health Service as an x-ray technician and met Elena.
Von Cosel told a lot of stories, to a lot of different people. Some of the stories added up, some didn't, some details were changed around, some left out, some added.
Dr. DePoo, a consulting doctor for the defense, recalled that Von Cosel "told me that before he came to America, he was playing the organ in his castle, and it was raining. The door blew open. A girl, a girl with a beautiful face, came in and kissed him - and then disappeared. He saw the face again in Florence. It was a statue of the Madonna. Then he came to Key West, and saw this face again, and he fell in love with the woman he had met years before."
During his interview with police in 1940, he declared his intentions to become an American citizen more than ten years prior, but was never naturalized. He had applied for American citizenship but it was being held up due to his impending trial.
Friends of the Hoyos family said that Von Cosel was regarded as an eccentric by all who knew him. They told about the airplane that Von Cosel started to build, but never finished. This was the same plane which was used to move Elena's body to his home. Von Cosel has said that the plane was towed by a truck. The friends stated that they saw Von Cosel in Elena's crypt. One of the friends said, "He would go there and read and play the radio. And when he left, he would lock the door with three padlocks." When getting a rare glimpse inside the crypt, they noted that Von Cosel had decorated it elaborately, so much that it seemed "fantastic and unreal."
OUT ON BOND WITH GROWING PUBLIC SENTIMENT:
While Von Cosel sat in jail, awaiting his release, we know that Elena's body was returned to the Dean-Lopez Funeral Home. Since the case became known worldwide, the funeral home decided to bank on it. They allowed curious spectators the privilege of viewing the remains for $1 per person. According to Benjamin Sawyer, manager of the mortuary, it was estimated that around 6,850 people came to Key West to view the object of Von Cosel's obsession. Elena was covered with the blue gown and white cheesecloth square veil which Von Cosel had provided. Before his release, the scientist inquired again as to what disposition has been made of Elena's body. He was told it was still at the Lopez Funeral Home, where it would remain until the criminal charge against him was disposed of.
On Oct 12, Von Cosel was released on the $1000 property bond from the county jail where he had been confined since his arrest on Oct 6. The bond was collected by friends and acquaintances of Von Cosel. Joseph Zorsky, owner and manager of a colony of tourist cottages signed the property bond. Zorsky was a former daredevil car driver who became acquainted with Von Cosel six months prior when he did some pottery work for him. Benjamin Fernandez, barbecue lunch-stand owner, told Deputy Sheriff, Bernard Waite, that he did not "even know the old man" but was one of the people who signed the property bond for him. Several other folks applied at the sheriff's office, Waite said.
Fernandez gave a statement to the Key West Citizen newspaper explaining the reasons for posting bond for Von Cosel:
"Persons In Key West who recall the circumstances surrounding Dr. Von Cosel's kindly administrations while Elena Hoyos Mesa was in the hospital, have implicit faith in his motives. In appreciation of the services he rendered then, for his devotion to the girl he loved, and in behalf of the humanitarian aspects of this present case, I have followed my best judgment in assisting in furnishing bond for the defendant. We who know him, think he should be freed of all charges."
After his release, Von Cosel visited the sheriff's office on Oct 13 and received from Deputy Sheriff Bernard J. Waite, the jewelry that had been worn by Elena. It was revealed that the jewelry that he originally gave to Elena before she died, and legally belonged to him.
Spectators visited Von Cosel's secluded home on Flagler Avenue to see where Elena's corpse rested for seven years. Friends of Von Cosel talked him into staying away from his home for several days since news of his of his "romance" had attracted thousands of curiosity seekers to his home. One of the friends allowed Von Cosel to stay at his home in seclusion, away from prying eyes. A watchman was placed at the home. A rope was drawn across the entrance to the grounds to keep back the teeming crowd.
Zorsky said that many people were approaching Von Cosel and asking him what he is doing to occupy his time now that he has been released from jail. He said that Von Cosel is following his scientific bent by helping to conduct electrical experiments at his laboratory ay Cactus Terrace. But, Von Cosel wanted to return home, saying, "I want to resume work on my organ. I derive much consolation from my music and I want to have the organ playing again." He had given the organ to a church in exchange for one badly in need of repairs and it was on the damaged organ that he was working when he was taken into custody.
From all sections of the country there were protests against taking Elena's body away from Von Cosel. Letters were addressed to not only Von Cosel, but also to his lawyer and the county solicitor, Cleare, Jr.
Von Cosel, his lawyer, and one of his bondsmen, Joseph Zorsky, visited the Key West Citizen newspaper office for an informal talk on some aspects of the case. They brought with them three letters they had received that morning, all expressing sympathy for Von Cosel. He also said that letters were coming in every day since the case broke. Von Cosel's lawyer, Harris, turned over an unusual letter signed by Clara Mason of Hollywood, California, which read:
"As a small child I loved to be with the young lady in my mother's needlework shop. She told me beautiful stories, the one I loved best was about The Sleeping Beauty. She lay in a glass case breathing ever so gently at Madame Tussaud's, London, Eng;and. Twice I have visited her and hope to do so again as soon as the war is over. What on earth could be wrong in placing Dr. Von Cosel's 'Sleeping Beauty' in an airtight, glass case. She belongs to him absolutely. Is it not wonderful in this world of today to find such kindly thought? I have enclosed one dollar towards purchase of such a glass case."
"Von Cosel is a sane man in an insane world," wrote one Detroit resident to county solicitor, Allan B. Cleare, Jr., protesting against his arrest. A Miami Beach resident, wrote county judge, Raymond Lord, lauding the "aged lover as a genius and a gifted idealist." A woman in West Palm Beach wrote the judge requesting that he do what he could to bring about the release of Von Cosel. "He sainted his beloved Elena and enshrined her in his Taj Mahal."
Another letter addressed to Harris, was from Mrs Margo Nisbet, of Flint, Michigan. She stated that her "vote would be in favor of letting Dr. Von Cosel keep her. His great love for her must have been divine."
The Miami Daily News published a letter sent to their editor, "Surely there is no judge or jury in these United States of America, that would contemplate fining or jailing this 70 year old, Von Cosel, the pathetic figure of the weird and macabre waxed cadaver case. It must be obvious to even the most uninformed person that this man has not been "wantonly and maliciously destroying contents of a tomb or grave." Certainly the gravest desecration has been committed by the curious gaping crowds and the persons allowing the remains to become a 'side show.' Why add this accusation to the burdens of an already bewildered, disordered, and unbalanced mind? - Kathrin Y. Carter, R.N., Miami."
The Key West Citizen published a letter from "Red Bay Billy" who said: "Karl Von Cosel is reputedly a poet. Will you please convey to him the poetic consolations of a kindred through uncouth and exceedingly crude fellow poet. If he desires 'it' can be published under the nom de plume of Red Bay Billy, Miami, Florida, Oct 9, 1940." His poem is as follows:
To Me She is Not Dead, She But Sleepeth -
Love dieth not, though breath of life
From body shall depart,
And death's inevit'ble beckoning call
Doth still the beating heart.
Aye, I wasn't lonely for thou,
Though thou was't wafted hence,
And could'st thy body near me lie
T'would be slight recompense.
Thus, in the silence of the night,
No thought of men's laws breaking,
I bore thee gently homeward
To still my sad heart's aching.
Thy spirit, smiling through the years
Through midnight's darkest gloom,
Did'st hover round in mystic love
And cheer my lonely room.
In life, in death, beloved the while,
And now in dastard durance vile
I lie a prisoner for thy sake
"Cause I thy deceased frame did'st take
And sought with wax, to mould, to make -
Perpetuate for love's own sake - thy smile.
Ah, yes, men's stringent law I break;
They call me mad - for this mistake.
But o'er again love for thy sake
Ten thousand prison years I'd take.
Mock not, nor scoff, ye callous soul,
Think not me vile, a doddering ghoul,
Because for love - my love I stole,
With science sought to make her whole.
Lord this I pray, be it thy will,
Stretch forth thy hand and keep me 'till
Dark shadowy death and Jordan past,
My inseparable love I find at last.
Dale Winbrow, of 7600 Harding Avenue, Miami Beach said that he visited Von Cosel less than ten weeks prior to the doctor's arrest. He was unaware that in the man's modest bedroom, lay the corpse of Elena. Winbrow said that he declined Von Cosel's invitation to "some in and see my x-ray equipment." Instead, they talked for several hours in the front yard of his house. One of the few persons who gained Von Cosel's confidence, Winbrow, a former radio entertainer and script writer who was doing a magazine article on the Key West Cemetery, learned the events leading up to the erection of Elena's burial vault, but failed to discover the secret which Von Cosel kept successfully for all those years.
Neighbors who knew Von Cosel told of his weird actions and warned Winbrow that he was "anything but friendly." Winbrow was directed to his home after having inquired about the story behind the vault that supposedly contained Elena's remains. Winbrow said that "The crypt stands in a remote corner of the cemetery. A beautiful work of art, with a gold-covered spire, it looks like a miniature cathedral." Von Cosel revealed to Winbrow that he the vault was air-conditioned via means of vents, and installed a telephone there leading to his home, so that he could call her up on rainy days when he couldn't get to the cemetery. Winbrow went on, "He also told me he married the girl two days before she died." However, authorities discounted Von Cosel's claim due to the fcat she was still legally married to Mesa at the time.
Winbrow said, "Talking intelligently, in broken English but with a cultured German accent, he discussed the case with me quite freely. Once, while speaking of his love for her, tears came to his eyes and he stopped for a moment, saying, 'You will excuse me.'" Von Cosel told Winbrow that he first fell in love with Elena's "helplessness", not her beauty. He stated he was a specialist in bacteriology, and she was turned over to his exclusive care. Her family misguidedly failed to follow his instructions and twice their well-meaning efforts to help her nearly brought the end. According to the story he related to Winbrow, Elena died after having been taken for a car ride by her father. Twice before, he claimed, he had saved her life by means of electrodes held to the seat of the nerves leaded from the brain to the heart, but this time he was summoned too late to save Elena.
Winbrow said that Von Cosel, "Heartbroken, he gave up. As a last gesture he built the shrine to the only woman he ever loved." Winbrow recalled that, "I spent several hours in his company. I saw the plane he is building, the boat he has built, and photographed him standing by the plane that visiting scoffers have said won't fly." Winbrow seemed to have some sympathy for the old man saying, "Von Cosel is an intelligent man, well educated. He is a mechanic, a poet, a botanist, a carpenter, a bacteriologist and an expert in high power x-ray technique. Skinny, raw bones, brown as an Indian, he looks like Ghandi. But he's abnormal in only one aspect, his devotion to the one love of his entire life."
Attorney John P. Feeley visited Von Cosel after his release from jail and was told by Von Cosel that he would have been able to make the body talk if he had not been interrupted in his experiments by the interference of the authorities and the law suit the relatives of the girl started.
FRIENDS & FAMILY:
The dead woman's estranged husband, Louis Mesa, who separated from his wife in 1928, said he knew absolutely nothing of the hopeless devotion that drove Von Cosel to steal the body and attempt to bring her back to life. His first remark when learned about the news was, "that old man ought to be hung."
He said he met Von Cosel at the US Marine hospital when he took Elena there for treatments for the tuberculosis. Mesa understood that Von Cosel worked there as an x-ray technician. he did confirm that her illness had nothing to do with their separation, she was a victim of tuberculosis as was other members of her family. In fact, her father, mother and sister all died of it. He said that he and Elena were married on Feb 18, 1926, and in November of that year, a child was born, prematurely, which died. A year or so later, the young husband moved to Tampa but continued to support his wife. "I heard that Von Cosel came to the house to see Elena after I left, but I knew nothing of a love affair."
He mentioned that he had not remarried since the death of his wife in 1931, he had been living in Miami since 1936 and opened a cafe, and that he did not see his wife for some time before her death. After their separation, he said, Elena went to live with her mother and father in Key West. Mesa was living with his seven brothers, his mother and father when he learned of the Von Cosel's theft of his dead wife's body. At the time, he was working as a waiter at the San Juan restaurant located at 2436 SW Eighth Street.
Friends of Elena recalled that one of her favorite songs was the Spanish tune, "La Boda Negra" ("The Black Wedding"). Eerily, this song could have been written about her and Von Cosel. Its lyrics tell of a lover stealing into a cemetery on a stormy night to steal the remains of his dead beloved, carrying the remains to his room, laying her on his bed, covered her with flowers, lay beside her and committed suicide. Lyrics translated from Spanish to English:
"Listen to the story that I told one day, An old undertaker from the region, He was a lover who luckily impious, His sweet goodness snatched the grim reaper, Every night he went to the cemetery, To visit the grave of his beautiful, The people murmured with mystery, He is a dead man escaped from the pit, In a horrendous night he tore to pieces, The marble of the abandoned tomb, He dug the earth and carried in his arms, The rigid skeleton of the beloved, And there in the more than gloomy darkness, From a funeral candle to the uncertain flame, He sat the cold skeleton next to him, And he celebrated his wedding with the dead, He tied the bare bones with ribbons, The rigid skull crowned with flowers, The horrible mouth, he filled it with kisses, And he told her, smiling, his loves, He took the bride to the fluffy thalamus, And he lay down next to her in love, And forever he fell asleep, To the rigid skeleton embraced, He tied the bare bones with tape, The rigid skull crowned with flowers, The horrible mouth, he filled it with kisses, And he told her, smiling, his loves, He took the bride to the fluffy thalamus, And he lay down next to her in love, And forever he fell asleep, To the rigid skeleton embraced, And forever he fell asleep, To the rigid skeleton embraced."
Von Cosel's case was slated to be tried at Criminal Court on Nov 11. Louis Harris, who volunteered as a defense counsel, said he would be ready to go to trial at that time.
Florinda was determined to keep what remained of Elena far, far away from the grasp of Von Cosel. She said, "I have had enough trouble about that vault and this time I am going to have her buried beside her mother to rot there like all her ancestors." However, at the time, that news was not broken to Von Cosel, the less he knew, the better.
THE LUNACY TEST:
The court did not tell Von Cosel that five Key West citizens had signed a petition for a lunacy inquisition in the court of County Judge Raymond Lord. The petition in part said, "Your petitioners, the undersigned, reputable citizens of said county, would respectfully represent unto your honor that Karl Tanzler von Cosel is to each of your petitioners personally known; that your petitioners' knowledge of his mental condition is sufficient to justify the belief that an examination be instituted and made as provided by law." The petition was signed by Harry Baer, Manuel Acevedo, Mrs. William Sawyer, and Mr. and Mrs. Medina, brother in law and sister of Elena.
A psychiatric evaluation was ordered by the county solicitor, Allan Cleare. He said "I wouldn't like to assume the responsibility of turning loose this man without an examination by a competent psychiatrist and a decision by a board of examiners. His existence has been woven around the memory of a girl for the last several years, and no one knows how he will react if he feels he has lost the body forever."
Upon learning that Von Cosel had to undergo the lunacy test, some of Von Cosel's friends gathered outside telling reporters, "He will make monkeys out of them. He might be obsessed with the thought he can bring back Elena. His love for her is responsible for this. He is not insane. Visit his home. See the electrical work he has done. View some of his paintings and his sculpture work and this will convince even the most persistent that the old man is not insane."
Members of the "sanity board" were DR William R. Warren, Dr. Harry C.Galey, and Mrs. Gilmore Parks, secretary to county judge Raymond R. Lord. They committee was appointed by Judge Lord to examine him as to his sanity. He did not know that they had carried him into the room to test his mentality. Von Cosel had a lengthy private examination which he was reported to have answered technical scientific questions. The committee also advised Von Cosel that the body will be reburied at the request of her sister, Florinda. After sending 45 minutes with Von Cosel, they team sat and discussed their findings. The entire hearing lasted a little over an hour. The psychiatrist and board found Von Cosel to be mentally competent to stand trial. They refused to comment on their findings but made it clear that their decision had no bearing on Von Cosel's guilt or innocence of the criminal charge of removing the remains and keeping them in his home.
Later, in his cell, he said that they had asked him scientific, medical and everyday questions. They asked him particularly about the antiseptic he used on Elena's body after he removed it from the vault. He told them it was "Clinosol." "How do you spell it?" they asked me. I spelled it and told them that it was one of the most powerful germicides in the world and that I had ordered it from Hamburg, Germany. I paid $15 an ounce for it," he said.
However, a few hours after the lunacy hearing certified Von Cosel as sane, Deputy Sheriff Ray Elwood received an air-mail letter from Mrs. Doris Tanzler, claiming she was the wife of Carl Tanzler Von Cosel. Her letter read:
"Dear Sir, I note in the papers that Carl Tanzler is in custody. He is my husband and we have been separated for eleven years. His mind is troubled on account of many ways. It was impossible for us to live together. He has had many adverse setbacks. If my testimony as to his sanity is desirable, I will gladly tell what I know. Sincerely yours, Mrs. Doris Tanzler."
Confronted with the letter, Von Cosel read it several times before commenting, "Sure, we separated. She was jealous. She pulled a gun on me. In the scuffle, a shot was fired. I decided them that I would leave her." He stuck to the story that he separated from her in Dresden, Germany, sixteen years prior, and he had not heard from her in twelve years. Later he said that his sister, who resided in Zephyrhills, had written him that his wife was with her. However, he said he had not received any word from his sister in about 10 months. Reporters were asking for her name, and Von Cosel, who usually talked freely with them, said in a sharp tone, "Leave her out of this. I do not want her name to be brought into this. She is very old and sickly." He then asked Deputy Elwood, "Please get me some paper and an envelope. I want to write my wife to keep out of this. I thought she had a divorce."
Although the lunacy board declared him sane, Dr. Ralph Greene, medical director of Eastern Air Lines, expressed the following professional opinion at the request of the Miami Herald: "The macabre episode recently revealed in Key West is immediately suggestive that the living participant is of impaired mentality."
"From press notices which purport to accurately quote the elderly person involved, it is reasonable to assume that he is not the victim of senile deterioration because of his apparent ability in the realm of memory for recent events. One with senile changes affecting the mind remembers remote events with great accuracy, but with inaccuracy, so far as his immediate environment is concerned."
"A psychiatric conjectural opinion in a case of this kind under consideration would lead the expert to suspect a morbid mental trend technically known as 'necrophilism,' which term, reduced to understandable lay language, is intended to mea the existence of insane love for dead bodies. In certain localities, morbid tendencies, particularly in the realm of acts of perversion, are classified as criminal offenses, punishable by imprisonment, usually not for a period longer than three years."
"It is difficult to understand how custodial treatment could correct mental disease. The logical disposition of a case of this kind is to regard the individual as mentally ill and entitled to the benefits and kindly care of a well regulated hospital wherein highly specialized skill in the treatment of mental diseases is available."
"The outlook for recovery in cases of morbid practices is discouraging. However, under a well regulated institution or hospital regime, people thus afflicted are given the benefit of a kindly atmosphere rather than the ill effects of a prison atmosphere amidst bolts and bars, a surrounding which is not conducive to peace of mind and hence is prejudicial to recovery."
Dr. John Thorn, a nationally known criminal psychologist, described Von Cosel as "abnormal" and "frustrated," a man lacking the talent for fame but dissatisfied with normal routine. He added: "if they (the frustrated) who fill a corner of the police blotter with crimes out of the ordinary - sometimes trivial, sometimes serious - but always bizarre."
Von Cosel remained in jail under the $1000 bond, awaiting the decision from a preliminary hearing on that charge. He said there was little sleep for him after he was told he would never see Elena again. "It was a far more miserable night than when she died. Then I knew it was God's wishes. This decision, however, to take her from me and bury her beneath the ground is the wish of man. What right have they?," cried Von Cosel. He added, "Elena visited me in my cell just before sunlight broke through the window. She told me that I must get some sleep and not to worry any more. She knew that I desired so much to carry out my promise to be with her always. When she left, I went to sleep."
Friends of Von Cosel raised the $1000 bail, which they were ready to place the bond but desired to await the justice's decision on whether to charge him in Criminal Court before obtaining the old man's release.
A DARK HAIRED SPIRIT WAS ALWAYS WITH HIM:
At his hearing, Von Cosel regaled his first meeting with Elena saying, "I will never forget when I first saw Elena. I was called in to make x-rays of her chest. She looked so beautiful. I was in love with her the first time I saw her. I knew she was the lady I had been looking for for ages. I had envisioned her from my early youth. I had painted pictures at home but I had not seen her yet. I remember in Italy, a cemetery, the most wonderful and beautiful in the world. When I walked among those statues, I saw the features of one of them, a young woman. I was spellbound and stood there for an hour. I was a young fellow then. While I was gazing, the live image appeared just behind her face, and I stayed there until it became dark and the guards came and told me I would have to leave. It was a wonderful cemetery. It was in Australia, in my residence in Sydney, that this figure appeared, veiled from head to foot. This spirit appeared right in the door beside the pipe organ. Its hair was this long, down to here," he gestured to his knee. He went on saying, "It was the same spirit. This spirit stayed in my house seven days, walkin with me everywhere I went."
Determined to keep Von Cosel on track, Louis Allen Harris, said, "Then you came to Key West and found that lady, the spirit of your dreams, then lost her?" Von Cosel then replied, "Yes, sir. But she is still with me. She is with me now. When she died, it affected me inside. I never told the story. I kept it secret. I had the feeling I would see her again. The day before she died, I told her no matter what happened to her, I would take care of her in life and death. That has become a sacred promise, a holy conviction, in my mind and body. She was my wife. She had accepted my proposal of marriage. I built her monument with my own hands and watched over her so that nothing would happen to her. I think I have done my best."
Von Cosel believed that "the human spirit survives death." He was asked "Then why, did you feel it necessary to bring Elena back to life?" Von Cosel replied, "Life is dormant, inactive, sleeping, in a person who has died. It can be awakened by a series of treatments, by chemical solutions. They penetrate the perforations in the body and feed the cells. There were many, many performations, so I had to submerge the whole body in the solutions. It takes time, the resurrection, for the dried-up cells to come to life. I do not know how much longer it will take to bring ger fully back to life. I did not complete the job. That's why I am anxious to get her back under my treatment. Of course, I would not attempt it unless I was prepared and would not be interrupted."
He was asked if he believed that there was still consciousness in Elena's body and he replied, "it is not in the physical body. The physical body is asleep. the ears can hear, but the eyes cannot see because they are in darkness. I remember when someone was brought back from the grave, the mother of my friend, a doctor, a very good close friend of mine. He is now dead, too. His mother was brought back from the grave, and nursed very carefully, like you would feed a baby. She came to life herself, while they were lowering the casket into the grave. then, when she recovered, she told every word that was spoken during the three days and three nights she was lying in her coffin, when she was dead."
"That is the reason I placed Elena very close to the organ, so she could hear the music, heavenly music such as is played in church, at masses. I put the little organ right beside her bed, and put Elena's picture in the middle of the organ. Every night I played soft music, the 'Good Friday Spell' from 'Parsifal,' my most favorite music. It got around town that I played. Many people raised hell. But I played for her. She might hear it in the faint distance. Even so, it would be beneficial and help keep her mind and spirit at peace."
Von Cosel said that he had not played the organ for a year because he exchanged it for a larger one from a Negro church. He said the organ has been disabled for eight years, but he undertook the task of rebuilding it for Elena.
Harris asked him about why he removed her form her underground resting place and why he wanted her placed in the mausoleum, Von Cosel replied, "There were maggots, millions of them. Her body was teeming with them. I wanted the undertaker to disinfect the body, destroy the bacteria, clean out the casket. It was a mess of slime - it was nasty."
He said he hired a taxi to take him to the cemetery at dusk. He removed the sealed, galvanized container from the coffin, placed it in the car and had the driver help him lift it into the airplane he kept near the Marine hospital. He said he did not know the driver's name, and the man knew nothing about the nature of the errand.
Von Cosel said when she first died, he made a death mask of her face. He tried in vain to preserve her with chemicals he mixed in a vat and revealed that despite all his "treatments," her soft tissues continued to degrade. He explained how he tried to restore the body, "I rebuilt the lost parts, bandaged the broken parts and the destroyed parts, which had to come out, I replaced. I put in sufficient absorbent material for packing to soak her in solutions to feed her and develop the tissues. I made these solutions very carefully."
He replaced the soft tissues with wax covered with plaster of Paris. He achieved this by molding the wax to recreate the alluring feminine features and curves of her body. He was able to place the wax carefully over the bones, then covered the wax with a layer of plaster of Paris and then a layer of silken cloth, which when dried, he painted to look like flesh. He said he studied the ancient Egyptian style of mummification, and with this in mind, stuffed her body with rags impregnated with perfume and spices to fill out the body and to help disguise the distinctive smell of the rotting corpse.
When her skeleton started to disarticulate, he wired the bones together at the joints which would also help in keeping her "flexible" so he could move her, pose her body and redress her whenever he wanted. He made her a wig out of her own hair which had fallen out due to the tuberculosis treatments. Her waxen death mask, like the body, was similarly covered with plaster and silk, for her eyes, he inserted glass eyes, they were realistically blown and probably imported from Germany as was the custom at the time.
He dressed the corpse in various bridal costumes, sometimes in a flowing silken robe and covered by a traditional Spanish silk shawl, black in color, embroidered with red roses and decorated with long fringe along all four sides. He kept her adorned with jewelry and entwined flowers in her hair. Tanzler had told deputies he serenaded her nightly with a pipe organ he constructed and that he planned to fly away with her in an airplane he was building when she returned to life.
Harris then asked, "Did you have the idea her spirit would unite with her body and commune with you?
Von Cosel still claimed that Elena continued to come to life and talked with him, saying, "And so it did. Many times she gave me advice, even technical advice about the organ. When I don't know what to do next in repairing it, she tells me. She told me this trouble was coming. She asked me to hide her. I asked her what for. In a week's time the trouble came. I knew while she was talking she did not want to tell me the details."
Louis A. Harris, who volunteered to represent Von Cosel legally, said he believed the old man would die if the body were buried. He said, I think it would be a crime to take the old man's dream away from him. His actions are proof that love is stronger than death." At the hearing, Harris asked him, "How would it affect you if that body were to be taken from you?" Von Cosel said, "I would feel lost. I promised her I would keep and protect her the rest of my life, even with my own life, against destruction."
The chief witness against him at the hearing was Florinda, the only close relative still living at the time. She said that Von Cosel was the only one who had the key to the vault, and that he refused to open it at her insistence when she became suspicious Elena had been removed. Instead, Von Cosel told her, they should "talk it over." Florinda and her husband went to Von Cosel's two room shack, really just part of what was once a garage repair shop in an isolated area in Key West.
Once there, Florinda said she caught sight of "the old wooden bed her father had given Elena when she was ill." She lifted up the gauzy canopy and saw the reconstructed feet of her dead sister. "That's Elena," Von Cosel told her, "I beg you to leave her to me. See how pretty she looks. Touch her little hands." Disgusted, Florinda drew back from Von Cosel, but her husband took the suggestion and touched Elena's hands. He reported that they were "chalky, like plaster of Paris." They noted that one hand was wearing a wedding ring, a wrist wore a watch, and there were gold bracelets on each wrist. Florinda told Von Cosel, "You have caused us a lot of trouble. People talk about us. They say you have a bed, a ring, you talk to her." To which he replied, "You don't have to think about people."
Florinda said she gave Von Cosel an ultimatum, put Elena's remains back in the vault within a week or she would file proceedings against him. At the end of the week, Elena was not placed in the vault, and acting on her threat, went to the authorities and obtained the warrant which resulted in Von Cosel's arrest.
The custodian of the cemetery said that he found the glass door on the front of the vault broken and reporting this fact to Florinda, it turned out to be the catalyst that prompted Florinda to question Von Cosel. Otto Bethel, sexton for the cemetery, verified dates in the case.
Reginald Pritchard, operator of the funeral home employed by Von Cosel to conduct Elena's funeral and later disinter her body for replacement in the vault, was the only defense witness in addition to the prisoner himself. Pritchard said that Elena's father, before he died, had signed an authorization for the disinterment to be performed under Von Cosel's supervision and at his own expense. Pritchard was asked by the court to describe how the remains looked at the present time. He said, "If I went to see a wax figure, I would see the same thing."
Examination by the morticians at the funeral home, where the body was taken, said the body was nearly all artificial. Benjamin Sawyer, mortician, said that the body was not embalmed and that there could have been nothing but a skeleton left when Von Cosel took the remains. The autopsy proved indeed, that the remains were just bones covered with wax and plaster of Paris, held together with wire coat hangers and other wires. Von Cosel said he had preserved the body using a synthetic wax, but other doctors said salt water was the embalming agent.
They said Von Cosel had done an excellent job of preserving a likeness of the girl with papier-mache and wax. Her face was molded in a death mask so detailed and fitted with the glass eyes, that during the autopsy, the girl still looked strangely alive. On her head was a matted wig of short, straight hair, dark brown in color. The girl's relatives agreed that the likeness was startling and recognized the wax preserved features immediately. So lifelike, that no doubt, in the darkened bedroom, looking into her face with her glass eyes reflecting the light around them, Von Cosel truly believed she was alive.
Dr. William R. Warren, city health officer, and Dr. Harry C. Galey, received permission from Judge Esquinaldo to examine the effigy. Asked if the physicians had given him a report on their examination, Esquinaldo said that he had been informed by Dr. Warren that Elena's skeleton was the foundation around with the wax figure had been modeled. The bones, some decayed and others still decaying, were wrapped with gauze bandage and other absorbent material.
During an interview in 1972, one of the two doctors who were present at Maria’s autopsy in 1940, Dr. Julio DePoo, recalled how they discovered a paper tube inserted into the corpse’s vaginal canal. There was cotton stuffed into the bottom of the tube, which when examined under microscope revealed evidence of sperm. This meant that Von Cosel had performed sexual intercourse with the body at least once. Judge Esquinaldo said that "It was the worst case of necrophilia I've ever known or read about. If you saw the state of that corpse after eight years, you wouldn't be able to sleep for days."
Enrique Esquinaldo, Jr., who was the attorney for Elena's family and the brother of Judge Esquinaldo, said, "They said it was a spiritual love, but it was not. He was a necrophile - a lover of the dead. he was a perverted bastard." Esquinaldo also said he could produce picture of the nude form to prove his assertion.
Dr. DePoo, who was the examining doctor for the defense, said, "I was on Von Cosel's side until the day I made the examination in the funeral home. The breasts, they they really felt real - soft. In the area of the vagina, we found a tube, wide enough to permit sexual intercourse. In the bottom of the tube, we found cotton. And in the examination of the cotton, we found sperm. Then I knew we were dealing with a sexual pervert." These details, originally found in 1940, were strictly kept a secret as authorities felt the public did not need to know of such necrophiliac horrors. While the newspapers tried to play off the affair as platonic, most residents probably had their doubts.
In a 1940 newspaper article, Florinda slyly alluded to the scientist's necrophiliac tendencies, saying, "He is no idealist. Instead of being lauded, he should be condemned." She was determined to see to it that Von Cosel saw punishment for what she considered "one of the most outrageous crimes this world has ever known." "Von Cosel is guilty of a most heinous crime. He should be put away. Would a sane man sleep beside an effigy for seven years? Why is it that the doctors who examined the wax image did not make public their findings? I understand that the two doctors who declared him sane later examined the body. I wonder if their opinion is the same since the thorough examination of the body."
Harris told the justice that the statute of limitations had reached effect on the grave mutilation charge against Von Cosel and urged dismissal of the charge. Allan Cleare, Jr, county solicitor, contended prosecution was not barred by the statute of limitations because the body had been concealed by Von Cosel. At the three hour hearing, Von Cosel told spectators that in his mind, Elena really isn't gone, "I know she is always with me. She is right here with me in this hall." He then said, "I can do better."
A ballad was composed by Orlando B. Esquinaldo, brother of the justice of the peace in the hearing.
A SISTER'S DETERMINATION:
Florinda, ordered that the body be kept at the Lopez Funeral Home until the day she was to be buried. She also wanted justice for Elena and see that Von Cosel got punished. She told people who were sympathetic to Von Cosel's obsessive love:
"Would your sentiments be the same if the body was that of one of your loved ones? I am convinced that the man was driven insane by his desire for Elena. He could not have her in life, so he stole her body and imaged her to the best of his ability. It is hard to conceive, but I am firmly convinced that his removal of the body was not motivated by a desire to restore life, but was the act of a man driven insane by his love for Elena."
"I want it known that when he says Elena was his wife, that he speaks an untruth. He claims her as his wife, he testified at the hearing, because she promised to marry him. My sister made no such promise. She never loved him. She was only nice to him because my mother told her that she should be kind to those who were kind to her. She looked upon Von Cosel as a grandfather and when he proposed marriage, she always told him, 'You are too old, Why you are old enough to be my grandfather. What's more, I do not love you.'"
"I will start from the beginning and tell the true story of how Elena came to meet this old man, who has brought so much unpleasantness to me. he met my sister when she went to the hospital where he was then employed to have some x-rays made. Her husband paid for the x-rays. After she returned to our home, von Cosel asked permission to call, saying he was interested in Elena's illness from a medical standpoint. He wanted to treat my sister with a machine he had, but she and my parents objected because he was not a doctor."
Florinda explained what happened when Von Cosel would visit, "He would pester my sister about marrying him. He became so persistent that we asked him to stay away from the house. He did remain away for several months and then one day he returned. He started bringing my sister gifts. He gave her a ring, wrist watch and some bar pins worth about $600. During that time my father ordered him to remain away from our home, he wrote a letter to my father in which he stated, if a wedding did not occur in our family before Christmas that there would be a funeral."
Florinda continued, "On the day that Elena died, he arrived at the house shortly after her death. He had an ultra-violet ray machine which he used on her before our family physician arrived and pronounced Elena dead. He desired to continue working on the body, insisting he could restore life, but my father refused. After Elena's death, on his urgent request, we rented him the room that she had occupied for $5 a month. We had to furnish him with tea, toast, scrambled eggs and fish for a small payment and he never did pay us promptly."
"Came the day that he lost his job at the hospital. He engaged my husband to drive a truck which towed his airplane to the building on Rest Beach where he was to live. Elena's body was transported in the cabin of the plane, he testified at the hearing. They drove by my home and I was sitting on the porch with my father and mother. Little did we realize that Elena's body was in that plane. My father accepted an invitation from Von Cosel to ride on the truck. He states that my father gave him Elena's body. That is an untruth. He asked father could he have the body disinterred and placed in a vault and my father, after consulting with my mother, granted that permission. If father gave him permission to do with the body as he saw fit, why did he not tell my father the day he moved the body in the plane that it was there? He asked for and was given all the jewelry and even the bed that he bought for Elena."
She believed that Von Cosel was deliberately seeking public sympathy.
"Von Cosel has told many untruths to gain sympathy since his arrest. When he says he has not heard from his wife in 11 years, he does not speak the truth. Boxes of fruit and postal cards would come to my home from his wife at Zephyrhills while he was living at home. He talked to me about his wife and two daughters. He said he was divorced. He told authorities at first that his wife was in Germany, Now that she has turned up in Florida, he says he thought she obtained a divorce."
ELENA'S REBURIAL,1940:
Von Cosel firmly believed that the body would be returned to him and repeatedly begged the authorities to return the corpse to him, but he was vehemently refused each time. His chief concern was that the body would be buried underground again. Judge Lord, in company of Deputy Sheriffs Bernard Waite, Ray Elwood and Leon Roberts, told Von Cosel that Florinda had decided to rebury her sister's remains and that they would not be returned to him. Angrily, Von Cosel said that "I will carry the fight to the highest courts in the land if I live long enough, to obtain sufficient funds to regain her. She is mine. Her father gave her to me. I am more entitled to her than her sister."
Judge Lord informed Von Cosel of an excerpt from the common law volume, reciting: "The unauthorized disinterring of the body of a deceased human being is an indictable offense, both at common law and by statute, regardless of the motive, or purpose." In response, Von Cosel said, "I might be in error for removing the body without permission of the health authorities, but that does not mean that it is not mine, to do with it as I see best. Her father gave her to me."
Again, he was denied to right to her body. He protested the court saying, "They can't do this to me. Why, it is not fair. It will mean termination of my career - the end of everything for me and, besides, it will mean breaking faith with Elena." He kept saying that they could not "do this awful thing to me. This is condemning me. If the law says I cannot have her, I must abide by it, but I will carry on my fight. I must have her."
On Nov 12, 1940, Von Cosel pleaded with Judge William V. Albury, after he had been informed that Elena's body was to be reburied. "Please, judge, let me have Elena, or let me see her once more. I would like to have it back," he cried. Judge Albury ordered a nolle prosse of the charge against Von Cosel, after Cleare said that the man was immune to prosecution because of the statutes of limitation, sternly admonished the man for his persistency to obtain the body and informed him that he was not to have, or even see the body again. It was Florinda's express request that Von Cosel never see the body of her sister again.
A Key West police officer claimed he helped rebury Elena Mesa. Bienvenido Perez, a close friend of Elena's family, said that she was placed in an unmarked grave in the city cemetery. Otto Bethel, the graveyard sexton, had a grave opened. It was a routine job for the workmen, who, ignorant to what was about to happen, asked no questions.
Elena's waxen effigy was to be broken down into small pieces so that if Von Cosel ever did find her, it would be impossible for him to reassemble her remains. Perez said that he carefully sawed Elena's bones into pieces, gently placed them in a little casket usually used for babies, and gingerly carried it to a spot under the roadway in the cemetery. Perez said that he, an undertaker named Benny Sawyer, and sexton, Otto Bethel, "buried her after midnight, October 1940, in a secret unmarked grave because her family were afraid that maniac might come and dig her up again." Newspapers claimed that the body was buried at 3:30pm on Dec 18, 1940.
The newspapers stated that Elena's body was quietly buried in secret, but unsubstantiated reports persisted that Von Cosel had mysteriously recovered it again.
Perez refused to point out the exact spot because of a promise to the girl's sister on her death-bed. In a 1966 interview, he only said that the cemetery road runs over Elena's remains, adding, "and I will carry the secret of the exact location to my grave." Perez told his story the day after Von Cosel was buried in a simple grave at Zephyrhills in August 1952. Perez also kept the scrapbooks full of Elena's photos originally found in 1940, after the case was dismissed. He had told people that reporters and curiosity seekers for years tried to ask him where the scrapbooks were stored and where he buried Elena's remains. He did not reveal the information and really did take the secrets to his grave.
Louis Harris, Von Cosel's lawyer at the hearing, said that if his client had sufficient money to fight the issue through the State Supreme Court, he felt sure he could obtain Elena's remains. He based his assertion solely on his client's claim that the body was given to him by the girl's father. This act on the part of the father has been denied by Florinda. In December, 1940, Von Cosel planned a court fight to regain Elena's remains as he said he wished to replace it in the vault from which he had removed it. He said he would go to court when he had sufficient funds and claim that Elena's father gave her body to him.
A MOVIE? ABOUT THE WEIRD CASE?:
Herbert Taryton, native of Springfield, OH was a retired movie producer, business executive and adventurer who told a wild tale to the Springfield News-Sun in 196. He told the newspaper people that in 1940, he was one of the top executives of a documentary and service firm in Coral Gables, Florida. News came about of a case of a German scientist who was being held in jail on grave robbing charges . The odd facts of the case were that the grave had originally contained the remains of a young woman who the German was obsessed with and whose corpse he lived with for seven years. The case got even weirder when Taryton found out that Von Cosel claimed he was trying to bring the body back to life using chemical fluids, electro shocks and x-ray treatments. Upon knowing these unusual details, he felt it would make a fantastic movie as the truth really was stranger than fiction.
Learning that the dead woman was originally from Cuba, Taryton saw the possibility of making a movie about the case which could then be distributed through theatres across Latin America. Mr. Taryton arranged bail for Von Cosel and as we learned earlier, two of Von Cosel's friends went and paid the bond. When Von Cosel was released, he met with Taryton and a contract was signed between himself and Taryton's firm, Colonade Studios, who would produce the film. A small token of appreciation, in the form of a cash payment, along with a share in the profits of the film showings was the basis of the agreement which allowed Taryton all rights to the story of both Von Cosel's past life as well as his lab experiments on Elena's body.
Von Cosel told Taryton that he held nine degrees from various German learning institutions. He carried on many experiments at the University of Leipzig under his given name, Karl Tanzler. He said that this work was mainly in the study of cellular life. Von Cosel believed that the secret of life must lie in the minute cells of the body, which, if properly controlled, nourished and prevented from dying, could all human beings to become immortal.
Von Cosel told him that some years later, he was in Vienna, Austria, visiting a cemetery when he saw the beautiful statue of a young woman which affected him so deeply, that he could not get the haunting image from his mind. He said that years later, when he was in Australia, a vision of a young woman came to him while he was playing his pipe organ. He claimed it was the same woman from the statue from the cemetery. He said that the vision lasted about eight days, and then it was gone, but he never forgot the face.
Many years later, he told Taryton that he was working as an assistant pathologist in the Public Health Hospital in Key West. He was given a blood sample one day to analyze and his report was the donor was sure to die if subjected to an operation. He said the blood analysis indicated many diseases and that death was inevitable. Because of the unusual condition of the blood, he said he became curious as to its owner. He went to visit with the patient and said he immediately recognized her as the girl from his haunting visions. Von Cosel claimed the patient had come from a very poor family, and went to them and asked for the right to take care of her. With permission granted, he then built a small room onto his home and laboratory in which he cared for her.
Von Cosel claimed that because Elena's family was destitute, and "due to her somewhat shady past" she was not permitted to be buried on consecrated ground. So he said her burial ended up taking place in the equivalent of Potter's Field. Von Cosel said this did not go along with his wishes, and with permission from her family, he removed her body to a country burial ground where he had purchased a plot and erected a vault for her. A panel on the side gave her name, Elena Milagros Hoyos, and date of birth in 1909 and the death date of 1931. He said that when her body was disinterred from the ground, he had her placed into a solid copper tank that was in two parts with rubber gaskets which could tightly seal when joined together.
The scientist told Taryton that he had installed a telephone in the vault do he could talk to Elena everyday. But after several years, he became convinced that she did not wish to remain there and decided to figure out a way to get her to his home instead. Owing to the fact that he could not transport the body from the tomb without being seen, he decided to rent a run down house that adjoined the cemetery. He then brought a lot of metal drums and other large objects to the house. Some, he left stored in the yard around the house. His plan was to have his neighbors notice that he was bringing them to the property then taking them away at various times so that it would seem a common sight, nothing out of the ordinary for the scientist.
One night, he entered the tomb and removed Elena's body, secreted in the copper tank. He lugged the heavy tank it inside of a toy wagon, and when he got home, he pushed it through a window. He figured it was simple to store the tank alongside his oil drums and other objects he was bringing to and from the house. Now that the body was safely at his home, he was then able to perform his experiments in his lab. These efforts included an immersion in an expensive fluid that Von Cosel said he had imported from Germany, saying that many of which the import duty alone cost $25 a pint. He would then subject the corpse to shock treatments and x-rays. He said he had certain therapy apparatus which would exercise her arms and legs. He admitted that he dressed her in expensive gowns and placed her body on a canopied bed, and placing the organ in the room so he could serenade her.
Members of Elena's family and friends suspected something was wrong when the scientist stopped visiting the tomb. Someone broke into the laboratory where her body was found in its canopied bed. This gruesome discovery led to an alleged demand for money in payment for keeping Von Cosel's secret of having the corpse. But in 1939, when the second world war started, it was impossible for him to get his regular remittances from Germany that had helped to pay for his experiments as well as for the alleged extortion. When the hush payments stopped, a report was made to the authorities about his removal of the body from the tomb. Von Cosel was charged and placed in jail. It was at this time, that Taryton arrived on the scene.
Taryton said he arranged bail for Von Cosel. The making of the movie followed shortly after Von Cosel's release. Taryton said it was at this point that he was contacted to see of Von Cosel was being paid $50,000 for the story rights as rumored. Von Cosel then told Taryton of the alleged extortion from Elena's family. To complicate matters further, Taryton said that since Elena's family was Cuban, an inquiry was started in Havana over the movie and its possible showing there. This caused a complicated legal battle which required certain changes in the story line.
At the hearing in Havana, Taryton said it was necessary for him to bring his movie negatives and make any story changes there in that city. He said he had to hire a Cuban film company for this and legal complications that followed caused him to abandon the entire project and leave behind the 7,000 feet of film in Cuba. He claimed that all he was able to get out was a number of still photos taken from the movie negatives.
The bizarre case created so much interest in Cuba, where Elena and her family once hailed, that "by order of the Cuban Department of Justice, two Cuban lawyers, each representing the two sides of the controversial Von Cosel case, arrived in Key West on Oct 22, 1940 to conduct an investigation of the case and the proposed film. The interest was so high in Cuba, that broadcasting stations featured the events in dramas (called novellas) almost nightly since the facts were brought to public attention on Oct 6. With the realization that the case had "two sides", Cuban officials ordered all broadcasts stopped until a check could be made on later angles developing. The two lawyers sent to Key West were Dr. Carlos M. Palma, famous criminal lawyer in Havana, and Miss Margarita Pinto. A large delegation of Key West's Cuban population planned to welcome the visitors.
The Cuban newspaper Avance, which operated radio station COCO, sent Francisco Meluza Otero (1894-1987), staff member, to Key West for two days to obtain first-hand information. Station COCO conducted what they called the "popular jury" program. Cases were submitted by actors over the station and decision left to the listeners, basically a "court of public opinion" arguing the merits of the case, pro and con. The station decided that they needed more information on the case as they felt it was an unusual controversy, even though the case had been presented over the radio and in newspaper columns.
In July 1946, Florinda, like her sister, succumbed to tuberculosis. The sister, said to be the last relative of the lovely Cuban, died at the age of 40
TANZLER'S MOVE TO ZEPHYRHILLS, 1941:
Charges were dismissed against Tanzler due to the statute of limitations running out. Public sentiment was said to be a catalyst that forced Von Cosel to leave Key West. It may have been the opinion of his neighbors who no longer wanted to have their town associated with a crazy freak, that they sought help from the city in order to get rid of him. The land that Von Cosel's shack was on, was owned by the city, so he had no legal right to dwell there and as a result, he was evicted for squatting. So in 1941, he moved to a home two miles from Zephyrhills.
Four hours after leaving Key West, the empty vault in which Elena was first interred was destroyed to bits by a mysterious dynamite explosion. Amado (Chico) Fernandez, who lived three blocks from the cemetery remembered that he was awakened by the blast, which rattled his home. "Next morning we found the tomb in shambles," said Fernandez. "A lot of people hated to see it destroyed. It was very unusual."
At the time, county solicitor Allan B, Cleare, jr, said that, as far as he could learn, there was nothing to indicate positively that Von Cosel had anything to do with the explosion that wrecked the tomb. Cleare and Peace Justice Enrique Esquinaldo went to the city cemetery scene of the explosion, but found nothing that could be construed as evidence. Von Cosel left the city at 9pm, Monday, more than four hours before the blaze early Saturday morning.
However residents were convinced that the culprit was none other than Von Cosel himself, leaving behind a time bomb in retaliation for not being able to take Elena back home with him. He figured he paid for the vault, and knew her body would never occupy it again. I believe he was also sending the family a message.
In March of 1943, the Key West Fire Department responded to an alarm about 8:30pm at the upper end of Flagler Avenue. Arriving on the scene, the firemen discovered a blaze in an old single-story frame structure that was being used as a storehouse for cement and other materials used in building operations. The alarm was sounded from Box 341, Naval Radio Station. The building was completely destroyed and the "flames swept for a great distance through the bushes and brush surrounding the structure." The wide area covered by the fire kept the firemen busy for a great length of time in extinguishing the "creeping blaze." The house destroyed by the fire was formerly occupied by Von Cosel.
In 1943, he wrote to the clerk of the criminal court from his then-present home in Zephyrhills to send him an official record of the outcome of his case as he had made an application for naturalization papers and the court record was needed.
In 1948, a Key West undertaker, Reginald Pritchard, visited the old scientist at Zephyrhills. Pritchard himself, died in 1951, but was quoted as telling friends upon his return to Key West, that Von Cosel had not only a waxen effigy, he also had the remains of Elena's actual body in his Zephyrhills home, that Von Cosel supposedly had dug up from the secret grave.
Von Cosel wrote an autobiography, actually a logbook, in which he claimed he received nine degrees from a Leipzig university in German, and had nobility. According to the logbook found in Von Cosel's house, it disclosed he had studied in Germany and had once lived in Australia. He referred to Australian royalty among his ancestry and wrote of his future greatness. But most of all, he wrote page after page about the beautiful Elena. In his log, Von Cosel related how he had dreamed of a girl during his youth and at times had visions of his dream girl. It was a "dream come true" when he met her when she came to the United States Marine Hospital at Key West where he was working as a laboratory technician, for tuberculosis treatment. How they planned a trip around the world, according to his log, and he built a wooden airplane, presumably for this purpose.
The log book stated Elena died in Key West on Oct 25, 1931, after having known Von Cosel for about a year. He recorded that he “had hopes that, despite the extensive damage, the lesions would heal again. I had hopes that, when Elena was out of danger, we would get married. As long as she lived I never abandoned hope.” Von Cosel added, “Elena, my darling, we are alone on this shore. He who has given you to me, will not reject our souls, united as they are in His undying love.”
The last entry in his logbook stated, “Human jealousy has robbed me of the body of my Elena, yet divine happiness is flowing through me for she has survived death. Forever and ever, she is with me.” This was entered when the authorities did not give him back Elena's corpse when it was found in 1940.
He received his American citizenship in 1950.
VON COSEL'S DEATH - AUGUST 1952:
On August , Von Cosel was found dead in his small frame house he occupied since he was evicted from the home in which he had kept the body of Elena for seven years. The circumstances of the 83 year old man's death was dismal.
A neighbor, George A. Pattison lived across the country road from von Cosel's home and was the neighbor who notified authorities when the old man had not been seen for about three weeks. He was last seen alive on July 22, 1952. Pattison noticed that a large amount of von Cosel's mail was accumulating, there were no signs of life around the house, the house was locked and no one had seen Von Cosel take one of his usual walks into town. Sheriffs went to investigate and found the doors were indeed locked, the electric lights were on and von Cosels' badly decomposing body was found near the front door. Deputy Sheriff Gene Rossi said that due to the advanced state of decomposition, it looked that von Cosel "must have died about three weeks ago." Coroner LL Johns said death resulted from natural causes for the man who said that he would never die because he had died before.
Little attention was paid to Von Cosel as his neighbors regarded him as an eccentric who sported a white van dyke style beard and usually wore woolen suits without a shirt. He occasionally walked the two miles to town to buy groceries and freely talked with those he met. "He was an unusual man," said Deputy Sheriff Rossi, "He used to say he would never die because he had died once and didn't like it." He came to Zephyrhills and used the name Dr. Karl Tanzler. Rossie added, however, he had identified himself as Von Cosel and had that name in small letters on his mail box. His only known survivor was his widow, Doris Tanzler.
It was said he was selling postcards of Elena until his death.
A modest funeral on August 15, 1952 was held for von Cosel who was buried in a simple grave next to his sister in a family plot at the Zephyrhills Cemetery. Von Cosel moved to Zephyrhills eight years prior from Key West, Florida, where he was tried on a charge of removing the body from its grave without permission.Charges were dismissed and he was evicted from the Key West property a year later, who made a small fortune charging sightseers a small admission to tour the shack-like dwelling. As he drove away, an explosion destroyed the vault in which Elena had first ben interred.
Not far from the house, a handful of neighbors watched while Tanzler was buried beside his daughter, Crystal, who had died in her teenage years. Tanzler's ex-wife, Doris, a nurse in Huntington Woods, Michigan, was unable to attend.
On August, 20, 1952, in Dade City, Florida, County Judge AJ Hayward, Jr, appointed George A. Pattison curator of the estate of Karl Tanzler von Cosel, the eccentric German chemist and x ray tech, who was found dead a week prior in his junk filled cottage near Zephyrhills. Hayward said the curator would preserve the estate as it is until Von Cosel's alleged wife, then living in Huntington Woods, Michigan, arrives to start administration proceedings, probably in October.
The life sized effigy of Elena Hoyos Mesa, a wax replica of her body and head, was still inside the cluttered house, resting in a crude casket atop a desk in one room of the shack. Sheriff Deputy Gene Rossi who saw the figure said it apparently made of wax and was wrapped in silken robes. "I wouldn't swear it's not real." Although her body was a shapeless mass of cloth and silken robes, the wax replicas were skillfully made and the features.
In a preliminary survey of the contents of the shack, officers waded through a hodge-podge of electrical and blood transfusion equipment with which von Cosel apparently attempted to bring life back to Elena. The rusted airplane in which he built to fly around the world with her stood, disintegrating and falling to pieces in his backyard.
OCTOBER 1952:
On Oct. 31, 1952, Dade City, Florida, the widow of Karl Tanzler von Cosel, the eccentric German chemist and x-ray technician found dead in his Zephyrhills home in August 1952, arrived from Huntington Woods, Michigan to settle his estate.
The widow who went by the name of Mrs Doris Tanzler, would first have to probate the estate of Von Cosel's sister, Ella Augusta Duzan, who died in Zephyrhills in 1943 and in whose name the property still stood. An affidavit in the public records states Carl G. Tanzler, the name used by von Cosel in that county, was the only brother of Ella Duzan and had possession of the property since 1942. the contents of the cottage include: THE LIFE SIZED PLASTIC EFFIGY OF ELENA HOYOS MESA. Among the rubbish is the electrical and blood transfusion equipment with which he was determined to restore Elena back to life.
George A. Pattison of Zephyrhills, who was appointed curator of the estate is finishing an inventory of the elderly man's possessions. The small home is on a five acre tract on a country road near Zephyrhills.
On May 11, 1977, Mrs. Doris A. Tanzler was buried in the Oakside Cemetery in Zephyrhills after her funeral at the Chapel of the Lair-Kelly Funeral Home. Her obituary said she was 87 years old and was a resident of Zephyrhills for 50 years. She was survived by a daughter, Mrs. Ann Bucey, of Portland, Oregon.
