Boo_ep011

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:00:35]:
Are we ready? Are you plugged in? Close enough.

Kat [00:00:40]:
Sure.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:00:43]:
Box of Oddities. We are so glad to have you back. I want to thank those who have got in touch with us through our email@curatorheboxofoddities.com it's fun to read these suggestions for show topics and just the comments, Right?

Kat [00:01:00]:
And in one instance, we got a beautiful piece of art that we're very excited about. Not too long ago, we mentioned the freak flag, and it's kind of stuck. And it resonated with some. And big thanks to Stephanie from Albuquerque, who sent us a beautiful freak flag that we have posted on the infowebs.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:01:27]:
We should make T shirts out of that.

Kat [00:01:29]:
Yeah, you know, that would be fun.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:01:31]:
I think that'd be great because. Yeah, a few episodes ago, you said something about flyer, freak flag, and we started to get people calling themselves freaks on our social media. And so I think we should go with it.

Kat [00:01:42]:
I like it.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:01:43]:
All right. So from now on, we're all freaks. And we mean that in a good way, obviously. Obviously.

Kat [00:01:51]:
And some of us more than others. We were having a lovely discussion the other day, and I was reminded of a wonderful instance in which your freakdom really shone, and it involved a towel bar.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:02:09]:
That was a discussion that we had privately that I was not planning on sharing.

Kat [00:02:16]:
That's too bad, because you're gonna. It's so much fun. Please share. It's okay, so. All right, well, I'll tell it then. Okay. So you were with a friend, man, and. No, you tell it. You're better. Cause you have the.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:02:34]:
Tell it. Okay, all right. I guess it's only fair because I revealed that at one point, you kept a poop chart for the guests that came to your house.

Kat [00:02:44]:
I didn't keep. They filled it out. They filled it out themselves.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:02:47]:
That's true. You had a clipboard hanging on the wall. Anyway, so I made you tell that story. So I guess this is only fair. A friend of mine, my buddy Jeff, was visiting, and we were out. We had dinner, and we had a few snappy cocktails, of course, as you do. And so we got a room at this really quaint little boutique hotel in the downtown area. And by the time we got to the room, all of the pad thai was really starting to gurgle around in my lower intestinal region. So I excused myself, and I went into the bathroom. And this is an older building, which apparently didn't have very good plumbing.

Kat [00:03:28]:
Old plumbing. Old plumbing. Narrow pipes.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:03:31]:
Very narrow pipes. And so I just destroyed that flush. I destroyed it. And you know that feeling you get when you're in a public restroom and you realize that you have clogged the toilet beyond all repair, where probably they're gonna have to bring an entire plumbing team in.

Kat [00:03:54]:
The water starts to ris. Does your blood pressure.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:03:58]:
Yes. Yeah. Oh, no. All you can see is just the paper on the top swirling around and not going anywhere. I couldn't decide whether to try to flush it again or not, because then I'm asking for all kinds of trouble, but I can't leave it there. And I'm looking around in the bathroom. There's no plunger.

Kat [00:04:21]:
No.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:04:21]:
No plunger. And my buddy Jeff's in the other room. Hey. Hey. What, did you die in there? Hey, Elvis. Hey.

Kat [00:04:30]:
So how'd you solve this problem?

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:04:33]:
Well, that's the funny thing. My Yankee ingenuity kicked in.

Kat [00:04:37]:
Right, Maynard? Through and through.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:04:39]:
Right. So I disassembled the towel rack, and I used the bar to break up the turds with the. With the towel bar. And so that worked out pretty well. And I got it all flushed down, and then I just rinsed the towel bar off in the shower and hung it back up again.

Kat [00:04:57]:
Interestingly enough, not long after, they remodeled that whole hotel.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:05:01]:
They did.

Kat [00:05:01]:
And I feel like it was directly related.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:05:05]:
Hotel impossible came in.

Kat [00:05:08]:
Yep. They were like, something's.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:05:10]:
Something's really. Well, let's start with the towel rack and go from there.

Kat [00:05:16]:
The funny thing is, you told me that story, and for the longest time, I thought you were joking. You should think it was a true.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:05:23]:
Story because you lie a lot, but it's true. You can ask my buddy Jeff, who lives in Santa Rosa, California. Now. He had to leave the state.

Kat [00:05:31]:
Well, yes, of course. I don't blame him.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:05:34]:
Miss you, buddy. Okay, so I actually considered going to the hardware store and buying a new replacement towel rack, but I figured I'd just rinse it off.

Kat [00:05:47]:
Sure. Yeah, that's the same. Sure. It's the same thing.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:05:52]:
Oh, good Lord. Okay, so every week, we each come up with a strange, bizarre, unusual story that we surprise each other with. And last week, I went first. So do you want to go first this week?

Kat [00:06:05]:
Sure. Okay.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:06:06]:
All right.

Kat [00:06:07]:
Yes. Okay. Yeah. Because we're bad at Finding ways to pick who goes first. So I think this back and forth thing is working. Working.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:06:14]:
Well, we actually had a suggestion from one of our podcast listeners who sent it to us at curator. The boxofodities.com said we should have special box of oddity coins minted that we could flip, and then also we could give them away.

Kat [00:06:30]:
That's a really cute idea.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:06:31]:
Yeah. But that.

Kat [00:06:32]:
What would heads and tails be? A skull.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:06:34]:
Well, yeah.

Kat [00:06:35]:
And an ass.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:06:37]:
Yeah.

Kat [00:06:38]:
Yep.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:06:40]:
A fine tushy skull. I win, ass, you lose. Or you could just have, like, the box would be closed on one side and the box of oddities would be open on the other.

Kat [00:06:51]:
Oh, that's much more tasteful.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:06:54]:
Okay, so what do you have for me?

Kat [00:06:57]:
Okay, this is a couple of different things that I've pulled together to create one story that I like to call ridiculous failed legislation.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:07:08]:
Awesome. Like stupid laws that they tried to pass.

Kat [00:07:12]:
Exactly. Okay, now there's. There is a wealth of information about this.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:07:17]:
Is this on the federal level or the state level or both? Both. Okay, cool.

Kat [00:07:20]:
And there have been tons of bills proposed that were meant to be tongue in cheek. You know, they're. You know, you want this? Well, how about I ask for this? And it's uber ridiculous, and it's just to point out the hypocrisy or ridiculousness of someone else's proposed bill. Okay. And that's that we're not going to. To go over. I skipped over those and went over the. The bills that were proposed in by people who just had really interesting ideas. I found no shortage of opportunity to share those.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:07:56]:
Oh, this is fascinating.

Kat [00:07:58]:
All right, so all of the information that I got for these was from three sources. Bustle, Buzzfeed, and the Daily Beast. Though if you just hit up the googs with ridiculous laws or proposed legislation, it's a fun little rabbit hole. So a hopeful imperial ambition from the House of Representatives politician, Lucas Miller. In 1893. Lucas Miller was a very optimistic man, and he proposed that the United States be renamed, which we were actually just discussing this the other day, that the United States of America doesn't really have a name because it's just a label. We are the United States of America. It's not right. It's not like a name name. It's just a description.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:08:52]:
And we call ourselves Americans and we say this is America, but we're just part of the Americas.

Kat [00:08:59]:
Exactly. So this guy Miller proposed that the United States be renamed as the United States of the Earth because he believed that the republic would grow through the admission of new states into the union until eventually the entire Earth would be part of it. He wanted, like, a Roman Empire kind of deal. He wanted to take over the world just bit by bit, and he should just be proactive about it, and we should just go ahead and call it the United States of the Earth, because eventually it's going to happen anyway.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:09:35]:
That would make it really hard to build a wall, you know, to keep people out.

Kat [00:09:40]:
It's true. It does sound like a ridiculous proposal, but it's very inclusive and I like that.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:09:47]:
I like the spirit behind that and certainly his enthusiasm.

Kat [00:09:52]:
I appreciate it. Plus, like I said, very optimistic. Lucas Miller, 2020. I'm in. Though really, no one really bought into this. And the bill failed long before fake news became a phrase. Poor Ralph Shorty of Oklahoma was the victim of a scare campaign of the sort that your great aunt forwards to you in your email and you have to just delete because, honest to God, I've told you, stop email. I don't need these emails. I'm not gonna chain letter and I'm not gonna read. Listen, I appreciate the flower, but I don't, you know. Yeah, you know what, Ruth? You're sweet. You're sweet, but you're clogging up my inbox.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:10:39]:
And who needs a clogged inbox?

Kat [00:10:41]:
No one.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:10:41]:
No one.

Kat [00:10:42]:
You have to break it up with a towel.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:10:43]:
With a towel bar.

Kat [00:10:45]:
You knew what I was doing.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:10:47]:
Of course. All right, it's a race for the punchline with Kat and Jethro.

Kat [00:10:53]:
So in 2012, Ralph Shorty proposed a bill that banned any aborted fetuses from being used in any food in Oklahoma.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:11:03]:
I think that that's probably wise.

Kat [00:11:05]:
Now, there was no such practice in place. Obviously, that doesn't go on. But he got this idea that food producers were extracting stem cells from aborted fetuses, using them for research on their products. And in that way, it meant that they would end up in finished food.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:11:25]:
And what year was this?

Kat [00:11:27]:
2012.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:11:28]:
2012. Wow.

Kat [00:11:29]:
So it didn't matter that that's really not how product research works or how abortion works or how food works, but he was just really. He wanted to make sure that you weren't eating fetus Doritos. And, yeah, no one else thought that was going to be a problem. So they were like, yeah, how about no, get out.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:11:53]:
Yeah, no. Fetus pizza, please.

Kat [00:11:56]:
Fetus pizza. Oh, can you share that story?

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:12:01]:
A friend of mine who was in radio and he had to do a live commercial for a restaurant called Feta's Pizza. And you can figure it out from there.

Kat [00:12:16]:
Yeah, okay.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:12:18]:
It's out of business now, by the way.

Kat [00:12:22]:
All right, so there was a bill introduced by State Representative Ted Gassman. This was actually not that long ago in Iowa. He proposed that if you wanted to get a divorce, you had to prove that your spouse had committed a crime, had abandoned your family, or had committed adultery before you would be granted a divorce. So he introduced this legislation and when asked what the rationale was, because that's, I mean, that's very extreme, he said that his daughter and son in law recently divorced and he was worried that his 16 year old granddaughter was going to become promiscuous as a result.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:13:13]:
I see. So we should all. Yeah, yep. Okay.

Kat [00:13:18]:
That's one of those instances where you go, oh, okay. Why don't you go have a seat and fill out these forms. Cause no, no, North Carolina, this one's not. Sadly, it's not as unbelievable as some of the others. North Carolina in 2013 tried to establish Christianity as the official state religion. House Resolution 494 would have allowed the state to establish an official religion, even though, I mean, the Constitution.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:14:00]:
Yeah, yeah, there is that little monkey wrench in the works.

Kat [00:14:06]:
Yeah. But there were. They actually produced a few proposals that year that were a little wonky. So I don't know what was going on there.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:14:13]:
When you say the phrase state religion, just images of Nazis pops into my head.

Kat [00:14:21]:
Right.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:14:22]:
You know, it's the state religion. Oh, good Lord.

Kat [00:14:27]:
Yeah. So, okay, this is a Fun1. In 1884, water hyacinths had been brought to New Orleans and had been distributed as gifts by the Japanese delegation to an international Cotton Exposition. And the people in New Orleans loved the frilly pale lavender flowers that they produced. And hyacinths reproduce very rapidly. This story that I was reading, by the way, keeps referring to people from New Orleans, but they don't say people from New Orleans. They say New Orleans.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:15:07]:
New Orleans.

Kat [00:15:08]:
New Orleans. I don't know how to say it, so I'm just gonna keep saying people from New Orleans. New Orleans.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:15:18]:
Whatever.

Kat [00:15:19]:
Those flowers multiplied rapidly and this was an issue. Eventually they started clogging up systems. They needed to find a solution for this invasive system.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:15:30]:
A towel bar.

Kat [00:15:31]:
It was really intense. I'm just gonna keep powering through.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:15:34]:
Do it, do it.

Kat [00:15:35]:
And at this time, there was also a food crisis going on in the city. People weren't getting enough food of various types, but mainly meat, because there was such rapid expansion in the city. There weren't farms producing enough meat. For people, even though that's debatable how much meat you really need. But that's another discussion.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:16:03]:
Says the ancestor of a cannibal.

Kat [00:16:07]:
That's a different kind of meat. It sure is. A couple of guys got together in an effort to solve both of these problems. And In March of 1910, HR 23261 was proposed. And that bill would appropriate $250,000 for. For the importation of African animals of various types. They wanted to bring in gazelles, an antelope, and mainly hippopotamus. The hippo bill, as the public would come to understand it, was introduced by Congressman Robert Broussard. And the idea was this would solve both problems. Hippo ranching. We're going to start eating hippo meat. You will love it. And the hippos will take care of that nasty hyacinth problem because they'll eat all of the greenery. Nom, nom, nom, nom. And then you will slaughter them and feed them to your family.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:17:16]:
That's pretty extreme.

Kat [00:17:18]:
It was beautiful.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:17:19]:
So they're going to solve the problem of an aggressive infestation of an invasive species by bringing in another foreign species.

Kat [00:17:30]:
An aggressive foreign species. Absolutely. And my favorite part about this story, and it's really interesting, the whole series of events that came about, but I'm not going to go through the whole thing. But one of the things that I really enjoyed about it was the effort by these men to sell it. So basically, it was the reason you don't eat hippo meat right now is because you don't know it's the appropriate thing to do. You.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:18:00]:
You just don't know.

Kat [00:18:01]:
You aren't floofy pants enough to eat hippo meat right now, but you could be.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:18:07]:
But you need floofy pants to eat hippo meat. So now we're going to introduce HR237, the Floofy Pants bill.

Kat [00:18:14]:
Yeah. Now, don't get me wrong. Right around Thanksgiving time, I need floofy pants in order.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:18:22]:
Or just sweatpants.

Kat [00:18:25]:
That's what I call my sweatpants.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:18:26]:
Nice.

Kat [00:18:27]:
My floofy pants. That is the story of how we almost came to eat hippo meat on a regular basis because two men wanted to solve a hyacinth problem and they.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:18:41]:
Got elected to Congress.

Kat [00:18:43]:
I love it.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:18:43]:
That's amazing.

Kat [00:18:44]:
I love it. It was the late 1800s, and they wanted $250,000 to import these invasive species to deal with the invasive species project.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:18:56]:
That's a lot of money.

Kat [00:18:58]:
It absolutely is. So there you go. That is the Story of. Well, it's multiple stories. You know, what just happened.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:19:07]:
It reminds me of some of the articles that I've read about ridiculous laws that did get passed.

Kat [00:19:13]:
Oh, gosh, yeah.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:19:14]:
That are still on the books. And for example, there was one, I think, still to this day, it's illegal to shoot jackrabbits from the back of a trolley in Seattle.

Kat [00:19:24]:
Yeah, the blue laws. That's how I found these stories was I was looking up blue laws because I posted on Instagram about a blue law from Maine, which is where we live, by the way.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:19:39]:
Home of Stephen King.

Kat [00:19:40]:
Yeah. Oh, my gosh, yes. Have you read the Girl who Loved Tom Gordon? It's so good. It's a magical story. Anyway, we'll probably talk about blue laws at some point.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:19:49]:
All right, that's gonna. Gonna be great.

Kat [00:19:51]:
This is a test of the box of oddities. Emergency Broadcast System. This is only a test. Had this been an actual box of oddities, I'd be talking a lot faster.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:20:02]:
All right, time for that thing in the middle. Today, five weird things that were left behind in hotel rooms.

Kat [00:20:07]:
Number five. A shark.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:20:09]:
A shark?

Kat [00:20:12]:
Oh, did you want. Did you. Is that not enough information for you?

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:20:18]:
Was it a live shark?

Kat [00:20:19]:
The hotel cleaner, like in the tub? Hotel cleaners found a baby shark in one of the bathtubs. Swimming in tap water.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:20:26]:
No.

Kat [00:20:26]:
In desperate need, by the way of salt water, the shark was returned to its natural habitat.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:20:32]:
Number four, a prosthetic leg. Yep. One of the hotel staff members at the Fairmont Queen Elizabeth Hotel in Quebec found a prosthetic limb underneath the hotel bed.

Kat [00:20:44]:
How do you not notice that?

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:20:45]:
Really? You think it would be easy to return it to the owner? Just look for whoever it was hopping to their car with their luggage.

Kat [00:20:51]:
Should have called the bellhop. A collection of prosthetic legs with different shoes.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:20:58]:
No, no, this was a different hotel. I'm hoping.

Kat [00:21:02]:
Yes.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:21:03]:
Okay.

Kat [00:21:03]:
And there was a custom made suitcase for those legs to sit in. Nestle in, if you will.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:21:11]:
Number two, an inflatable sheep. Somebody took an inflatable sheep to the Travel Lodge.

Kat [00:21:17]:
And number one, also found at a Travel Lodge, a house made of bread.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:21:23]:
A bread house.

Kat [00:21:24]:
A bread house.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:21:26]:
She's a bread house.

Kat [00:21:29]:
She's carby.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:21:30]:
Carby makes your gut hang out.

Kat [00:21:35]:
The box of oddities with Cat and Jethro Gilligan Toth.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:21:41]:
All right, we're back. I'm sorry I'm punchy today. I'm sorry I'm a little over tired.

Kat [00:21:46]:
Yeah, well, you've not been sleeping well lately. It makes sense.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:21:50]:
I'VE been having nightmares. I've had really weird nightmares lately.

Kat [00:21:53]:
I know.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:21:54]:
I don't know what that's all about.

Kat [00:21:55]:
Well, you said you had a bad dream about our puppy, Willy.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:21:59]:
Yes. Yeah. You know, I don't. Yeah. Willie was in an accident and it was awful. Oh, that's horrible. Yeah. I didn't know what kind of accident it was. It's one of those dreams where. I know. I knew that something had happened, but I didn't understand the details of the dream. I just woke up really sad until I saw his cute little smushy pug face staring at me. And then I was woke. I was. Okay.

Kat [00:22:23]:
I had a dream the other night that we bought our friend's house and they left us a nice collection of stoneware.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:22:30]:
Well, that pretty much sums up our relationship, doesn't it?

Kat [00:22:32]:
It was so pretty. Some really nice pieces. Thanks, Paul and Di.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:22:37]:
Alrighty. This is. This is gonna be wicked gross. Are you ready for this?

Kat [00:22:41]:
Yes.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:22:42]:
Okay.

Kat [00:22:43]:
What kind of gross. Wait, what do I need to prepare myself for?

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:22:46]:
Not just. You're gonna just have to listen.

Kat [00:22:50]:
Okay.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:22:50]:
Okay. What do you do when the woman you love dies at an early age? Well, of course, you dig her up and you live with her.

Kat [00:23:02]:
Aww.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:23:03]:
Yep. Yep. We're gonna talk about George Carl Tanzler, also known as Carl Tanzler Von Cossel, also known as Count Carl Tanzler Von Cossel from Tampa, Florida.

Kat [00:23:15]:
Wait.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:23:15]:
Among other places.

Kat [00:23:18]:
Usually a Count Von Tanzler doesn't come from Tampa.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:23:22]:
Yeah, it's not really a Tampa Bay name that you would expect to hear there. He was born in Germany and he was eccentric. Shall we say? He was a doctor, among other things.

Kat [00:23:40]:
I'm sorry, did I tell you the other day that my mom told me that she was eccentric? She was like. Someone at the grocery store called me eccentric, and I think that that suits me. And I was like, no, mom, you're just weird. You have to be rich to be eccentric.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:23:55]:
That's right.

Kat [00:23:56]:
Yes.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:23:56]:
Yeah. Only rich, weird people are eccentric. Middle class weird people are just weird. Or in our case, freaks.

Kat [00:24:05]:
Ma'am.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:24:07]:
So he was born in Germany and he loved pipe organs, among other things. I'm just looking at his bio here.

Kat [00:24:13]:
Loved pipe organs.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:24:14]:
Yep, he loved them.

Kat [00:24:15]:
That's what I want on my tombstone.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:24:16]:
Loved pipe organs.

Kat [00:24:17]:
Here lies cat. Loved pipe organs. I'm sorry. Okay, go ahead.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:24:22]:
Yep, there was a. He wrote an autobiographical article for the Rosicrucian Digest. And the editorial notes that described who he was kind of gave you a little insight. Many Years ago, Carl von Cossel traveled from India to Australia with the intention of proceeding to the South Seas Islands. He paused in Australia to pick up some pipe organs on his ship. But before he could get to the island that he wanted to go to, Pipe Oregon Island, Pipe Organ island, war broke out and he was put in by the British military, a concentration camp for, quote, safekeeping, along with many officers from India and China who were prisoners of war. So after World War I, he decided ultimately to immigrate to the United states. That was 1926, sailing from Rotterdam to Havana, Cuba, and from Cuba to Zephyr Hills, Florida, which is just on the outskirts of Tampa. It's now a big retirement community.

Kat [00:25:30]:
Yeah. And they have bottled water that comes from there.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:25:33]:
He lived there for a while with his family, and then in 27, 1927, he took a job as a radiology technician at the US Marine Hospital in Key West, Florida, under the name Count Carl Tanzler Von Cossel.

Kat [00:25:49]:
I just love it. Count Von Tassel, radiologist, pipe organist. There's just so many titles.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:25:57]:
He loves the pipe organism. So on April 22, 1932, while he was working at the Marine Hospital in Key west, and this is according. This information is according to Wikipedia. I'm getting this all from Wikipedia. I've read many sources, but Wikipedia has everything that I needed here to tell the story. Tanzler met Maria Elena Malagro de Hoyas, who is a local Cuban American woman.

Kat [00:26:21]:
Can I just take a moment and remark on your amazing r. Trilling. I'm so happy about what just happened.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:26:31]:
Thank you. So Maria Elena Milagro del Hoyas was a local Cuban American woman who had been brought to the hospital by her mother for an examination. And Tanzler immediately recognized her as a beautiful dark haired woman that he had had a vision of years before in a dream.

Kat [00:26:53]:
Oh.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:26:54]:
He had this vision that he would meet this woman and she would be the love of his life. And so he looked for her all these years and then boom, there she was.

Kat [00:27:04]:
That's really nice.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:27:04]:
The sad thing was she had tuberculosis. She had the consumption, sure. Yup.

Kat [00:27:10]:
Beautiful raven haired lady coughing up blood.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:27:13]:
Alena was the daughter of a local cigar maker, Pancho Hoyas. What a great name.

Kat [00:27:18]:
It is a wonderful name, Pancho.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:27:21]:
So Hoyas had been diagnosed with tuberculosis, typical fatal disease at the time, certainly. And it eventually claimed the lives of almost her entire immediate family. Everybody just wiped out by. By tb. Tanzler, with his self professed medical knowledge, attempted to treat and cure Hoyas with various medicines as well as X rays and electrical equipment and all kinds of stuff that was brought into the Hoyas home. And he just continued to fall deeper and deeper in love with her. He would bring her lavish gifts, jewelry, clothing, to profess his love to her.

Kat [00:27:59]:
Well, that's really nice. See, that's how you love a woman. That's how you tell a woman that you love her. That's what you should do when you love a person. You buy them nice things and surprise them with nice things. That's what you do when you love a person.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:28:19]:
What just happened?

Kat [00:28:22]:
Bring me nice things.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:28:23]:
Okay. I feel hypnotized now. The sad thing is there's no evidence that she reciprocated any affection toward him.

Kat [00:28:34]:
Didn't dig him.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:28:35]:
No. Despite Tanzler's best effort, she died of tuberculosis at her family's home on October 25, 1933. Tanzler paid for her funeral, and with the permission of her family, he commissioned this construction of this lavish mausoleum in the Key West Cemetery. And he would go and visit the mausoleum every night.

Kat [00:29:00]:
Oh, that's so sad.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:29:02]:
He would creep through the cemetery where she was buried and sit there and sing her love songs at her grave. But then that wasn't enough. So In April of 1933, he crept back into the cemetery and dug her up. And moved her out in a. In a toy wagon. Yeah. Yeah. He dug her up, and then he carted her through the cemetery after dark on a Radio Flyer, took her to his house. He reportedly said that Hoya's spirit would come to him when he would sit by her grave and sing the songs.

Kat [00:29:39]:
So was it like a time management thing? Like he might as well just bring her home?

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:29:42]:
Sure. Yeah.

Kat [00:29:44]:
It gets exhausting going out to the cemetery every night. She got the commute.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:29:49]:
Yeah. I think it's important if you're gonna be a corpse snatcher, to observe. You know, you need to work smarter.

Kat [00:29:55]:
Not harder.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:29:55]:
Not harder. Yeah, exactly. So he gets her home, and he, you know, she's kind of decomposed at this point. So he freshens up the body. He connects the bones together with coat hangers.

Kat [00:30:10]:
I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I have a Sony question.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:30:13]:
Go ahead.

Kat [00:30:13]:
How long had she been buried at this point, do you know?

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:30:16]:
From October of 31 through April of 33.

Kat [00:30:22]:
Oh, no.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:30:24]:
So a year and a half.

Kat [00:30:25]:
So it wasn't just a couple days then?

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:30:27]:
No, it was like a year and a half.

Kat [00:30:29]:
Oh.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:30:30]:
So she was a little soupy by then.

Kat [00:30:35]:
So he connected her body back with coat hangers. Wire coat hangers.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:30:39]:
Wire coat hangers.

Kat [00:30:40]:
Because we know that's a. No, no.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:30:42]:
Yeah. He also replaced her eyes with glass eyes.

Kat [00:30:46]:
Sure. Yeah.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:30:47]:
And then as the skin continued to decompose, he replaced it with silk cloth soaked in wax and plaster of Paris.

Kat [00:30:57]:
That's all right. That's very ingenuitive.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:30:59]:
Her hair had fallen out. Sure, sure, sure. So he. He made a wig out of the hair. And also, I guess her family had given him some of her hair when she died. Yeah, I don't know. So he made a. He made. He made a wig for her.

Kat [00:31:16]:
Note to self. Tell family not to hand out chunks of my hair after death.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:31:24]:
Danzler filled the corpse's abdominal and chest cavity with old rags.

Kat [00:31:29]:
Oh.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:31:29]:
To keep the original form. He dressed Hoyas remains in sexy stockings, jewelry and gloves and kept the body in his bed right next to him. He also used copious amounts. It says here of. Because I would never use the word copious. Copious amounts of perfume, disinfectants and preserving agents to mask the odor and forestall the corpses decomp.

Kat [00:31:55]:
So, wait, was she just wearing sexy stockings?

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:31:58]:
No, she had. It looks like a kimono. I'm looking at a picture. You want to see it?

Kat [00:32:01]:
Yes, please.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:32:01]:
Okay. Come on over here. We'll post this on social media. That's what she looked like. Oh, so she's got, like, a kimono on or something like that?

Kat [00:32:10]:
Yes. A what now?

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:32:11]:
A kimono. Is that what they call us? Like, the Japanese bathrobes?

Kat [00:32:15]:
Nope.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:32:16]:
What do they call it?

Kat [00:32:17]:
Kimono.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:32:18]:
Kimono. Looks like she has one of them Japanese bathrobes on.

Kat [00:32:23]:
She looks like Jason Voorhees.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:32:26]:
Get back in your seat.

Kat [00:32:29]:
Okay.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:32:30]:
So he had her in his house for, like, seven years. And in October of 1940, Hoyo's sister heard rumors of Tanzler disinterring the body of her sister and moving it on home. So, because of that, Hoyo's body was eventually discovered. Florida notified the authorities. Tanzler was arrested and detained. He was psychologically examined and found mentally competent to stand trial on the charge of wantonly and maliciously destroying a grave and removing a body without authorization. I don't.

Kat [00:33:05]:
I mean, malicious is a. Is a tough word to use.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:33:09]:
Mm. He lovingly destroyed a grave and removed a body without authorization. Lovingly.

Kat [00:33:15]:
You know how I feel about intent.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:33:17]:
He used a toy wagon.

Kat [00:33:21]:
It's so sad.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:33:24]:
Yet he was competent to stand trial. After a preliminary hearing on October 9, 1940, at the Monroe County Courthouse in Key West, Tanzler was held to Answer on the charge. But the charge was eventually dropped and he was released as the statute of limitations had come to expire.

Kat [00:33:42]:
Just like Maria.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:33:44]:
After they found her, the authorities found her. The body was examined by physicians and pathologists. And what do you do with a woman's mortal remains after she's been dug.

Kat [00:33:56]:
Up, covered with wax, semi taxidermied.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:34:00]:
What is the best way to show respect and love for this person's mortal remains? Well, you put it on display at the Dean Lopez Funeral Home.

Kat [00:34:11]:
No.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:34:12]:
Why? Where it was viewed by as many as 6,800 people.

Kat [00:34:17]:
Why, though?

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:34:18]:
I don't know. Make a buck. Hoyas's body was eventually returned to the Key West Cemetery, where the remains were buried in a unmarked grave in a secret location to prevent further tampering. Doesn't really end there.

Kat [00:34:31]:
Oh, no. Did her spirit in her stockings call to him?

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:34:35]:
Yes, apparently.

Kat [00:34:37]:
No.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:34:37]:
No. What he did was he was so sad by this that he had made a death mask of her. Okay. So he used that to create a life size effigy of her out of wax and things like that.

Kat [00:34:52]:
He liked his wax.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:34:54]:
So he didn't have the body there. He had this effigy that he made that was life size. And when he died in 1952, his body was found in the arms of this effigy lying behind a pipe organization. Yeah. Yeah. Yep. He was lying behind his pipe organ, but he was fit to stand trial. Now, here's where it gets weird, because up until now, this is all.

Kat [00:35:28]:
And they go, well, here's where it.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:35:29]:
Gets weird, by the way, after it happened, after they. After he died and they found this effigy. Apparently, it was written, although this has never been proven, but it was written that Tanzler had switched the bodies and that he had the remains secretly returned to him, and that he died with the real body of Hoyos behind the pipe organ.

Kat [00:35:52]:
I don't believe that.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:35:53]:
Well, that's. That's the urban legend.

Kat [00:35:55]:
That's the rumor.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:35:56]:
Yeah. Now, the big question is, did he have sex with the body?

Kat [00:36:00]:
Oh, is that the big question?

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:36:03]:
Well, it was never proven. You know, there was no real.

Kat [00:36:08]:
I mean, how do you tell.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:36:09]:
It was not brought up. There was no evidence of necrophilia presented in the 1940 preliminary hearing, however. But apparently some physician's proof surfaced in 1972, over 30 years after the case had been dismissed. How can I put this? They discovered a cardboard tube in her vagina.

Kat [00:36:30]:
I'm sorry. I mean, yeah. Ew. I mean, yeah. Well, I mean, yeah, Ew.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:36:36]:
Right, right.

Kat [00:36:37]:
But also, like, what are you doing with your life that 30 years later you're investigating a corpse's vagina hole? Like, what. What's going on there?

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:36:47]:
Doctors, I think. I think they had found it before the trial, but the evidence was not presented.

Kat [00:36:54]:
Oh, do you think because it was so sensitive, maybe it was 1940 and they were like, we're not going to talk about her toilet paper tub. Right, Yeah, I get it.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:37:03]:
And so, in 72, going over previous records, they had discovered this. So. So it suggests that perhaps that was the case maybe for Count Carl Tanzler Von Cossel. Look at his. Look. Can you look at his picture?

Kat [00:37:20]:
Hold on.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:37:21]:
Look at his big handlebar mustache.

Kat [00:37:23]:
That's not what I pictured at all.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:37:25]:
You were picturing, like, a serial killer kind of guy, right?

Kat [00:37:28]:
No, I mean, he looks like a serial killer for sure. He looks like Albert Fish.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:37:31]:
He does kind of look like Albert Fish.

Kat [00:37:33]:
No, he looks like a. Like a. Like a. Like a Colonel Sanders on a diet.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:37:40]:
He does.

Kat [00:37:41]:
Gets a lot of exercise with all that skulking around cemeteries.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:37:45]:
Yeah. And pulling wagons full of corpses. All the wagon pulling and all the.

Kat [00:37:50]:
Anyway.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:37:51]:
Yeah.

Kat [00:37:52]:
Wow. That was fascinating.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:37:54]:
Isn't that bizarre?

Kat [00:37:55]:
That was upsetting and wrong and fascinating. I am. I am disgusted and thrilled that you shared it.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:38:04]:
Well, you know, like we say, the box of oddities is not for everyone, but we're glad you're here, and we feel as though you're part of our community if you enjoy weird stories like this.

Kat [00:38:17]:
Right. I mean, not that you should have enjoyed what just happened, but if you're.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:38:22]:
Interested in weird stories like this, then you can come here and there's no judgment.

Kat [00:38:28]:
No, you're welcome here.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:38:29]:
You're welcome here, you freak. And we say freak with all the love in the world.

Kat [00:38:35]:
You know it.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:38:35]:
Our website is the boxofodddedities.com. there you can find all of our social media links, or as you like to call it, our Sochmead.

Kat [00:38:46]:
Yep. Yeah, that's what I call it. That's also where you can click to send us an email if you've got complaints about all of what just happened.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:38:56]:
Yeah. Oh, Lordy. You're answering these emails, not me.

Kat [00:39:04]:
I'm. I'm so. I'm just. I'm loving doing this, and I'm having so much fun with it.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:39:08]:
And I am, too. And it's great. Yeah, you know, it's really fun is. Is watching where we're getting downloads from. You know, Turkey.

Kat [00:39:18]:
I saw Turkey.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:39:20]:
Turkey. We got. We got downloads in Turkey? Where else? What's that Russian place?

Kat [00:39:25]:
The Ukraine.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:39:26]:
The Ukraine? I wasn't expecting that. Yeah, the Ukraine. Brazil? The Netherlands. This week we got our first downloads from the Netherlands. Why does that make sense?

Kat [00:39:38]:
I'm just kidding.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:39:41]:
Wherever you are, we love you. And we'll see you next Tuesday.

Kat [00:39:45]:
I love it. Keep flying that freak flag.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:39:49]:
Fly it high.

Kat [00:39:50]:
And so let it be known that the Box of Oddities belongs to you. And its fate is in your hands. Therefore, it's been requested by those I report to to beseech you for assistance. The Box of Oddities is free. We ask but one thing of you to provide a five star rating and a positive review. True, that is two things. However. Tis merely a five star rating and a positive review also. Subscribe to us. Okay, so three things is all we ask. Three things and three things only. Henceforth, the Box of Oddities commits to the telling of stories. Stories of the strange, the bizarre, the unexpected. We wish to offer our deeply felt gratitude and appreciation for. For your patronage. The boxofodities.com Copyright 2018. All rights reserved.