He developed an obsession with a young Cuban-American tuberculosis patient, Elena "Helen" Milagro de Hoyos (July 31, 1909 – October 25, 1931), that carried on well after her death.

The following "Editorial Note" accompanying the autobiographical account "The Trial Bay Organ: A Product of Wit and Ingenuity" by "Carl von Cosel" in the Rosicrucian Digest[3] of March and April 1939, gives details about his stay in Australia before his internment during the Great War, as well as his subsequent return to Germany after the War:[4][5] Many years ago, Carl von Cosel travelled from India to Australia with the intention of proceeding to the South Seas Islands.

However, he became interested in engineering and electrical work there, bought property, boats, an organ, an island in the Pacific—so that he was still in Australia at the end of ten years.

Finally, she suggested that her son return to his sister in the United States ...Tanzler's account of Trial Bay Gaol, his secret building of a sailboat, etc., is confirmed by Nyanatiloka Mahathera, who mentions that he planned to escape from the Gaol with "Count Carl von Cosel" in a sailboat, and provides other information about the internment of Germans in Australia during World War I.

Leaving his family behind in Zephyrhills in 1927, he took a job as a radiology technician at the U.S. Marine Hospital in Key West, Florida under the name Carl von Cosel.

During his childhood in Germany, and later while traveling briefly in Genoa, Italy, Tanzler claimed to have been visited by visions of a dead, purported ancestor, Countess Anna Constantia von Cosel, who revealed the face of his true love, an exotic dark-haired woman, to him.

[1] Tanzler paid for her funeral, and with the permission of her family, he then commissioned the construction of an above-ground mausoleum in the Key West Cemetery, which he visited almost every night.

[8] Tanzler filled the corpse's abdominal and chest cavity with rags to keep the original form, dressed Elena's remains in stockings, jewelry, and gloves and kept the body in his bed.

She confronted Tanzler at his home, where Elena's body was eventually discovered (he was also caught dancing with her corpse in front of an open window).

Tanzler was psychiatrically examined and found mentally competent to stand trial on the charge of "wantonly and maliciously destroying a grave and removing a body without authorization.

"[1] 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 case was eventually dropped.

[1][8] Shortly after the corpse's discovery by authorities, physicians and pathologists examined Elena's body and put it on public display at the Dean-Lopez Funeral Home, where as many as 6,800 people viewed it.

[9] Elena's body was eventually returned to the Key West Cemetery where the remains were buried in an unmarked grave, in a secret location, to prevent further tampering.

[13] The facts underlying the case and the preliminary hearing drew much interest from the media at the time (most notably, from the Key West Citizen and Miami Herald) and created a sensation among the public, both regionally and nationwide.

[11] In 1944, Tanzler moved to Pasco County, Florida, close to Zephyrhills, where he wrote an autobiography that appeared in the pulp publication, Fantastic Adventures, in 1947.