This will be a LONG post…Ghost Adventures in the Religious Nutjobs Crazed Thread!
The entire island of Key West is haunted, people have seen ghosts walking the streets and there are a lot of places that have a ghost living there. The ones I have been around and/or had something odd happen: The Artist House, St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Club Chameleon, and La Concha Hotel. The first time I went to Key West, I took the ghost tour. It started in the lobby of the La Concha Hotel, my brother and I were by ourselves while dad hung out on Duval Street with his Army buddies. While we were waiting in the lobby, I was fixated on some strange looking fans that look like revolving paddles. Out of the corner of my eye, I remember seeing a gray cloud floating over the ceiling. When I tried to look at it, it had vanished. My brother didn’t really believe I saw anything.
Our tour guide came and he was dressed all dark with a cool looking cloak, carrying a lantern. When we got outside, he told us the La Concha has its share of ghosts; to date there had been 15 people who jumped from the roof and a bellhop was killed falling down the elevator shaft.
Dean Lopez Funeral Home
There are no ghosts here, but it does have a one disturbing story behind it. A man named Count Carl von Cosel was a prominent man in Key West; he was one of the few doctors on the island. When he was young, his grandmother came to him as a ghost and showed him his future wife; a young woman of Cuban descent with long dark hair, dark eyes and skin soft as silk. He did meet this woman many years later. Her name was Eleyna de Hoyos, a young Cuban woman who was very beautiful for the time. She was exactly what his grandmother described to her; long dark hair, dark eyes and fair soft skin. However there was only one problem. She was dying of tuberculosis.
The count, completely in love with her, tried everything in his powet to save her.
She died a few days before Halloween and he went to her funeral. He could not stop thinking about her. He visited her grave everyday, sang love songs, and read her love poems. One day he just couldn’t take it anymore; he HAD to marry this woman. He took her out of her grave, reconstructed her face using plaster and wax. He reconstructed her body by stuffing it with wax, dipping her body with embalming fluids and antiseptics and he replaced the dead rotting skin with silk. He placed her in a wedding dress and yes, he married her in a private ceremony. He managed to keep her body.....for 9 YEARS!
Neighbors found out and Eleyna’s family fought to get her body back. The doctor agreed, but one condition; he wanted two more days with his wife. Two days passed, no body; the cops found him and arrested him. The case never went to trial and they couldn’t hold him at all; he was so brilliant he passed all of the psychiatric tests with flying colors. To keep the count from getting his wife back, they cut Eleyna’s body into pieces and buried her in (supposedly) a mausoleum in a secret location. The heartbroken doctor moved to Zephyrhills, Florida and wrote out his memoirs about his love for Eleyna, how he reconstructed her body and how he screwed the dead body (in so few words). The book is available called Undying Love.
When the count died, he was found lying on top of a coffin holding a replica of Eleyna. It’s a sick story but it’s one of those normally weird things that had happened in Key West.
St. Paul’s Episcopal Church
I’ve always had a personal problem with churches, but this one I probably fear the most. There are many ghosts that inhabit the church, including the ghosts of a sea captain and his daughter and the children from Club Chameleon. When I had taken the tour, I wanted to take a picture of a beautiful statue inside of the gated graveyard in the back of the church. While the tour guide told the group the story behind it, I had stuck my hands through the bars to get a better shot. Suddenly, I had the weirdest sensation, it was as if someone with sickly hot breath was breathing on my arms and on my face. I was so freaked out by that weird feeling, quickly slipped my hands away from the bars and joined my brother again. That feeling on my arms and face stayed until we were well across the street. The next time I had returned to key West and visited that Churchyard, I gave my apology and asked if I was able to photograph the statue. That time, nothing strange happened and I didn’t feel any strange sensations.
The Ghost Tours used to take people into the churchyard, but a few years ago there was an incident and they had since stopped doing that. But I think I made this way too long enough, so end of part 1!
Mwahahaha!
