HauntBound archive · catalog record
Reported phenomena — as catalogued
In October 1940, nearly 6,800 people paid to view Elena de Hoyos's reconstructed body in this funeral home's chapel — two years after radiologist Carl Tanzler had removed her from her tomb and kept her in his home for seven years.
418 Simonton St, Key West, FL 33040
Research updated June 2026
Age
All Ages
Cost
Free
Exterior drive-by or walk-by only; the funeral home is an operating business and not open for public tours.
Access
Wheelchair OK
Street-level sidewalk access
Equipment
Photos OK
Est. 1869 · Carl Tanzler — Elena de Hoyos Case · 1940 Public Viewing — 6,800 Visitors · One of Key West's Oldest Continuous Businesses · True Crime — Post-Mortem Obsession
Dean-Lopez Funeral Home traces its founding to 1869, predating most of Key West's surviving commercial institutions. Operating continuously from 418 Simonton Street, it has served the island's families through yellow fever epidemics, multiple hurricanes, and the social transformations of the 20th century.
The event that placed Dean-Lopez in the national historical record occurred in October 1940. Elena Milagro de Hoyos — a Cuban-American woman born in Key West in 1909 — had died of tuberculosis at her parents' home on October 25, 1931. Carl Tanzler, a German-born radiology technologist working at the U.S. Marine Hospital, had met Elena during her treatment in April 1930. He paid for her funeral and commissioned an above-ground mausoleum in the Key West Cemetery, which he visited almost every night after her death.
In April 1933, Tanzler removed Elena's body from the mausoleum and brought her remains to his home on Flagler Avenue. For the next seven years, he preserved and maintained the remains, using wire, plaster, wax, silk, and glass eyes to reconstruct her appearance. Elena's sister Nana discovered the situation in October 1940 after receiving reports from neighbors. Tanzler was arrested; the statute of limitations had expired on any grave-robbing charge, and he was ultimately released.
Elena's remains were examined by physicians and then placed on public display at the Dean-Lopez Funeral Home chapel. According to records, as many as 6,800 people viewed the body over several days, many paying $1 for the experience — an enormous number for Key West's population at the time. The remains were subsequently buried in an undisclosed location to prevent further disturbance.
Sources
The Dean-Lopez Funeral Home's connection to Key West's paranormal lore runs through the Carl Tanzler case rather than through any independent haunting reports at 418 Simonton Street itself. The 1940 public viewing of Elena's remains — attended by thousands of people in the span of a few days — was an event with no modern precedent, and the site appears on Key West ghost tours as a documented location in a story that was already, by any measure, deeply strange.
Elena de Hoyos was 21 years old when she died of tuberculosis. The circumstances of what Tanzler did to her body between 1933 and 1940 are documented in medical and legal records. Ghost tour operators in Key West include the Dean-Lopez chapel as the location where the public encountered those remains in what amounted to an ad hoc exhibition.
Paranormal accounts associated with Elena herself are more typically centered on the Key West Cemetery, where her mausoleum still exists, than at the funeral home. The Tanzler case is occasionally cited in discussions of haunting as an example of extreme attachment creating residual spiritual presence, but specific phenomena at 418 Simonton Street are not independently documented in the sources consulted for this entry.
Notable Entities
The Dean-Lopez Funeral Home at 418 Simonton Street has operated at this address since 1869. The building is not open for public tours, but the exterior is visible from the street and the site is a documented stop on Key West's walking ghost tours due to its connection to the Carl Tanzler case.
Every HauntBound history is researched from documented sources. We clearly separate verified historical fact from paranormal folklore.
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