6 More Restless Corpses

Many people are so fascinated with earthly remains that they want to view them long after death. To some, it's a sign of devotion to the person who once inhabited the body. For others, it's just plain morbid curiosity. And for a few, it's something even stranger. More stories can be found in the previous post 6 Restless Corpses.

Bernadette Soubirous is St. Bernadette of Lourdes. Her 18 visions led to the establishment of a chapel at the grotto in Lourdes, France, and her later sainthood. She died at age 35 in 1879 and was buried. Her body was exhumed three times, in 1909, 1919, and finally in 1925. The church declared her body to be "incorruptible", as it showed no signs of decomposition. The face was discolored, so a wax mask was added. St. Bernadette was canonized in 1933. She remains on display in a glass-topped coffin at the Chapel of St. Bernadette in Nevers, France. (image credit: PETF)

Samuel P. Dinsmoor built the Garden of Eden in Lucas, Kansas. He spent his life building the concrete compound adorned with statuary illustrating the Bible. It is open to the public as a tourist attraction, including the remains of Dinsmoor in a concrete coffin with a glass lid, where his body has been since his death in 1932. Dinsmoor prepared for his death to be a part of the attraction. He sold a double-exposed photograph of himself looking at his "corpse" as a postcard. The photo now hangs in his mausoleum.

Continue reading for more restless corpses. Some images may be disturbing to the sensitive.

Rosalia Lombardo

died in Italy at the age of 2 and was interred in the Capuchin catacombs in Palermo. She has lain in a glass-topped coffin since 1920, showing little signs of decomposition, earning her the nickname "Sleeping Beauty". Some people believe that Rosalia's mummy opens and closes her eyes,

which you can see here

, but it's an optical illusion. The same cannot be said for the

thousands of others

on display in the catacombs. Although she has always been in her final resting place, she is included here because she is on view to so many visitors.

Sylvester is the nickname of the mummy of an unnamed man who died in the late 19th century from a gunshot wound and was preserved with arsenic. His body was retrieved from a dentist's attic in

1955

. He is on display at Ye Olde Curiosity Shop in Seattle. In 2001, Sylvester and his "companion" Sylvia were

scanned

at the University of Washington Medical Center. Although Sylvia was found to be quite desiccated, Sylvester is remarkably preserved. (image credit:

Joe Mabel

)

Floyd Collins

was a lifelong caver in Western Kentucky. He was trapped by falling rock that wedged his body inside Sand Cave in 1925, and he died two weeks later. Collins' life and death make a fascinating story, which continued

after

his death. Rescuers reached his body several days after he died and decided it was too dangerous to move him. Collins stayed in Sand Cave for two months until his brother and friends retrieved his body (pictured). He was buried on family land for two years, but after the homestead was sold, the new owner dug up Collin's body and exhibited it under glass inside Crystal Cave for tourists. The body was

stolen in 1929

and found with a leg missing. Afterwards, the coffin was chained inside the cave. In 1961, the cave was purchased by the National Park Service as part of Mammoth Cave National Park. Collins' family had objected to his display in the cave for decades, and he was finally buried in a nearby cemetery in 1989, 64 years after his death. See more photographs

here

.

Maria Elena Milagro "Helen" de Hoyos was a Cuban-American tuberculosis victim. She was only 21 when she died in 1931. At a hospital in Key West, she met a radiologist named

Carl Tanzler

(also known as Carl von Cosel) who was smitten with Hoyos. He treated her with various therapies and paid for her funeral and mausoleum, which he visited every night. In 1933, he retrieved Hoyos' corpse and took it to his home, where he lived with it for seven years, even sleeping with it in his bed. He made gradual repairs to the decomposing corpse, covering it with wax and plaster and wiring parts together as they separated. Hoyos' sister discovered Tanzler's secret in 1940. He was charged with grave tampering, but the

statute of limitations

had passed. Hoyos was reburied in an undisclosed location. Tanzler then built himself a wax effigy that resembled Hoyos, and lived with it in his home until his death in 1952. He wrote an autobiography that appeared in a pulp fiction periodical. You can see photographs of Hoyos at

Wikipedia

.

Further reading: 6 Restless Corpses and 6 Restless Corpses: Heads of State Edition.