Haunted Vessel: Carl Tanzler and the Human Doll

*Warning: This story is both creepy and extremely disturbing.  More so than the ones I normally post.  It deals with a dead body and a very deranged doctor, so please take that into account before you read.*

Carl Tanzler was a doctor at the United States Marine Hospital in Key West, Florida in their tuberculosis wing.  He met Maria Elena Milagro "Helen" de Hoyos in 1930, when she was admitted to the ward suffering from tuberculosis.  Medical treatments for many illnesses, tuberculosis included weren't what they are today, and Maria died a year later.

Carl was by all accounts very obsessive about Maria in life, and this attention did not end with her death.  After all his treatments had failed and she passed, Carl eventually stole her body from its grave.  He spent every waking moment trying to preserve the body of his "love."  He used innumerable preservatives, perfumes, and eventually much more frightening methods.

He replaced her skin with silk soaked in plaster, strung her bones with piano wire, stuffed her full of rags, and even made a wig out of her own hair as it fell out.  There were also reports of sexual abuse of the corpse, but these were not verified at his trial.  In the end, Maria became more doll than human, her face appearing painted on to her own "skin."

By the time Carl was found out and tried, the statute of limitations on grave robbing and desecration had already expired, and he was not punished for his crimes.  Maria suffered further as her body was examined by scientists and then put on display
for the public.  She was eventually reburied in an unmarked grave.


*Information and images from: Weird Worm, and Carl's Wikipedia article.