Obsession and horror in Key West: The story of the fake count that lived with a cadaver

Sarah Moreno, Jessica Serrano, Esther Piccolino

A fake German count, a young Cuban woman dying of tuberculosis, a Venezuelan poet who was also a priest and was in love with a nun and an old bolero sung by artists as different as María Teresa Vera or Ana Gabriel come to play in Miami Oculto’s latest podcast. This week’s episode takes us over the Seven Mile Bridge and stops at Key West.

Watch the video with English Subtitles here:

The macabre story begins when Carl Tanzler – an X-ray technician in his fifties and compulsive liar with delusions of grandeur who called himself Carl Von Cosel – saw a young Cuban woman named Elena Milagros Hoyos enter the X-ray room of the Marine Hospital for the first time.

Carl Von Cosel became obsessed with the young Elena Hoyos, and held her remains captive for seven years. The coroner’s reports indicate that he had sexual relations with her corpse
Carl Von Cosel became obsessed with the young Elena Hoyos, and held her remains captive for seven years. The coroner’s reports indicate that he had sexual relations with her corpse

Elena was so pretty that tourists stopped her on the street to admire her in 1930s Key West. But no matter how many machines Von Cosel tried to invent to cure her or how many gifts he gave her to win her over, Elena’s fate was sealed. At the age of 22 she died of tuberculosis, but that is where the story begins, becoming one of the most bizarre and complicated cases of necrophilia in history.

What did the fake count do every night in front of the mausoleum he had built for Elena? What was up with that strange “doll” that the town’s children discovered one day when looking through the window of a little house on Flagler Street? Why was she dressed as a bride? What does the bolero “Boda Negra” by composer Alberto Villalón have to do with all this? How are the stories of the poet priest, that of a Havana journalist who slept with the corpse of his beloved, and that of Elena Hoyos connected?

All these questions are addressed in this episode of the podcast with special guest, writer Daína Chaviano who has explored that hidden Miami, which she confesses always interested her more than “the sunny Miami full of reconstructed beauties.”

We talked about zombies, vampires and “intelligent” ghosts; of a haunted house in Coconut Grove that ended up in her novel “La isla de los amores infinitos” (The Island of Infinite Love), and why the story of Elena and Von Cosel is still so relevant after almost a century.

Listen to the podcast in Spanish here:

Tune in on Tuesdays to watch the episodes on YouTube and the el Nuevo Herald website. Find all the episodes of the Miami Oculto podcast on your favorite audio platform:Spotify Podcast, Apple Podcasts, and Amazon Music.

Advertisement