W hen Carl Tanzler met Maria Elena Milagros de Hoyos, she was 20 years old. She had gone for a medical examination in the same hospital where Carl was working as a radiologist. Carl’s heart skipped a bit once he saw Elena; it was love at first sight.

The Atlas Obscura reports that prior to meeting Elena, Carl had been “plagued by visions of a beautiful dark-haired woman who was destined to be the love of his life.” For him, seeing and meeting Elena was confirmation that she was the beauty he had seen in his dreams.

Elena was subsequently diagnosed with tuberculosis which was considered to be a fatal disease in the early 1900s. Carl didn’t want her to die and he believed that a lot could be done to save her life. He paid for different experimental treatments and homemade tonics for her. He also showered Elena with a lot of love. He bought expensive gifts, clothes and jewelry for her, although there is no evidence that she reciprocated his acts of love.

Despite her prognosis, Carl nursed the hope that she was the love of his life and they would be together forever. Carl was much older than Elena, but none of that mattered.

Elena eventually succumbed to her illness and died in 1931 at the age of 22. Carl was devastated, but did his best to ensure that she was buried in an expensive stone mausoleum. He catered for Elena’s funeral expenses, but still had a key to the place where she was buried. With her family’s consent, he got a mortician to clean her body before putting it in the tomb.

Elena’s family had no knowledge that Carl kept a key to the mausoleum. For about two years, he made it a point of duty to visit Elena’s deceased body.

Due to his obsession with Elena’s dead body, Carl’s behaviour was deemed creepy by everyone around him. In the midst of it all, he was fired from his job and could no longer visit the mausoleum like before.

Unknown to everyone else, Carl had moved Elena’s body to his house and was living with the corpse. As the Catalyst reports it:

“He kept the body in his house, undetected for seven years, fastening the crumbing bones together with wire and coat hangers, and replacing the decomposing skin with silk cloth soaked in wax. He added glass eyes, and packed rags into the emptied-out body cavity…”

Long after Elena had died, Carl did everything possible to ensure that she still looked like a living person. He used hooks, plaster, strings and wax to fix her body parts together. He usually added generous amounts of disinfectants, preserving agents and perfumes to keep away the rotten odour. Until Carl’s secret was finally discovered, he shared the same bed with Elena.

After some time, people began to suspect Carl’s unusual acts of buying perfume and women’s clothing. A young boy had also seen him dancing with what seemed like a giant doll.

Carl had once recounted that Elena’s ghost appeared to him and asked that he should remove her from the grave and marry her. Excitedly, he had called a friend to tell him about Elena’s decision to marry him. The friend assumed that it was all a joke and that Elena’s passing had badly affected him.

Rumors reached Elena’s Sister, Florinda, and she confronted Carl about the stories she was hearing. It was a great shock for her when she saw her sister’s body in Carl’s house. Immediately, she called the police and Carl was put on trial for “wantonly and maliciously destroying a grave and removing a body without authorization.”

Once his little secret was exposed, the trial gathered so much attention and Elena’s body was put on public display for everyone to see. During questioning, Carl had indicated that he intended using an airship to take Elena into the stratosphere so that radiation would bring her back to life.

Carl was later released when it was evident that the statute of limitation on the charge had expired due to the length of time between the grave robbery and when he was caught.

Elena was eventually buried properly in an unmarked grave.

As soon as the details of Carl’s relationship with Elena came to light, there were different interpretations from people. While some called him a lunatic grave robber, a twisted doctor and an obsessed caretaker because of his elopement with the corpse, others interpreted his story to be that of an endearing love struck person.

Indeed, it was an extreme act and a general question on the lips of many was: “how can a sane person kidnap the body of a woman and use it as both a mad scientist experiment … and a housewife?”

Carl requested to have Elena’s body back, but his request was refused. Instead, she was put in a funeral home. Some years later, Carl’s autobiography had details of his deep love for Elena. He died in 1952 at the age of 75.

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