Let me set the mood.
Florida. 1930s.
Hot, sticky, weird-as-ever Florida.
Our main character? Carl Tanzler - a German-born radiology tech, moustache like a Bond villain and delusions that make Freud look well-adjusted.

He believed he was destined by fate to meet his true love. Not romantically. Psychically. He said she came to him in dreams. She was young, dark-haired, and perfect.

And then?
He met her.
Her name was Maria Elena Milagro de Hoyos, a beautiful 22-year-old Cuban-American woman.

Spoiler alert: she was real.
Bigger spoiler: she was dying of tuberculosis.

💔 She Dies. But His Love? Doesn’t.

Carl tried to save her. Potions. X-rays. Home remedies.
Girl still died.
Was buried in Key West Cemetery.
Carl - being the normal, healthy-minded gentleman he totally wasn’t - visited her tomb daily. For two years.

And then?
He stole her corpse.
YEP. In the dead of night.
Dug her up.
Took her home.
And that’s when things got... putridly poetic.

Corpse Couture, Baby

Carl didn’t just prop her up and cry over her.
No no - he tried to keep her “alive”. In the most horrifying, Frankenstein-meets-Necrophilia kind of way:

• He used coat hangers and piano wire to hold her bones together.

• Stuffed her body with rags to keep her shape.

• Replaced her skin with wax and silk.

• Put glass eyes in her sockets.

• Sprayed her with perfume and disinfectants every day to mask the rot.

• And yes, honey - he SLEPT with her.
  (Use your imagination. Or don’t. I respect your sanity.)

He even made her wedding dress and had a plan to eventually launch her into space so radiation could bring her back to life. (No, really. That was the endgame.)

😱 So How Did He Get Caught?

Elena’s sister got suspicious and eventually saw Carl through a window... dancing with her sister’s corpse.

Naturally, police were called.
They found the “doll” in his bed.
They found the remains.
They found his “love shrine.”
They found literally every red flag ever made.

Was He Arrested?

Yes… but also no.
He was charged with grave robbing, but the statute of limitations had expired.
And here’s the most batsht insane part* - some people in Key West considered it a tragic love story.
Carl even had fans.

HE HAD FANS.
PEOPLE. WERE. ROMANTICIZING. THIS.

🖤 Moral of this necro-nightmare?
If your “soulmate” sleeps with your corpse, uses wax for your face, and dances with you under moonlight…
It’s not love.
It’s a psychological thriller with a side of decay.

Would YOU be flattered or frightened beyond all recognition if someone loved you past the point of rigor mortis?

And more importantly - do we burn the wax-faced doll or throw it into the sea and forget humanity?