Serial Napper | True Crime for the Chronically Tired

In 1940, a woman in Key West, Florida, made a horrifying discovery. Her sister, Elena, had been dead for nine years, but her body wasn't where the family believed it had been buried. It was inside the home of Carl Tanzler, a man who claimed he'd been destined to love her. Carl had met 20-year-old Maria Elena Milagro de Hoyos while she was receiving treatment for tuberculosis. When she died in 1931, he refused to let her go. Two years later, he secretly removed her remains from a cemetery, reconstructed her body using wire, wax, and other materials, and kept her inside his home for years. But the discovery of Elena's remains was only the beginning of another disturbing chapter. As newspapers turned Carl into a tragic romantic figure, thousands of strangers lined up to see the woman at the centre of his obsession. For this episode of Serial Nightmare, we're revisiting the fairy tale of Sleeping Beauty through one of the strangest true-crime cases in American history. Sources: https://www.kwahs.org/exhibit/ghosts-of-east-martello https://www.monroecounty-fl.gov/DocumentCenter/View/22013/20180116---Historic-Jail---Historical-Structural-Report---Final-Report google.com/url?q=https://www.keyslibraries.org/post/october-6-2026 https://www.ripleys.com/stories/carl-tanzler Follow me here: ► YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/@SerialNapper/ ► Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/serialnappernik/ ► Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/SerialNapper/ ► TikTok - https://www.tiktok.com/@serialnappernik  *Go Ad-Free on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/SerialNapper * Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In November 2010, a mother, her two children and a family friend seemingly vanished from a home in Apple Valley, Ohio. The investigation would lead police from an abandoned pickup truck to a stranger in a parking lot, a trail of unusual purchases, and eventually a small house in Mount Vernon, unlike anything they expected to find. Inside, the floors were covered in leaves - and somewhere in the house, police made a discovery that completely changed the case. For this episode of Serial Nightmare, we're returning to the dark forests of Hansel and Gretel through the disturbing crimes of Matthew Hoffman, a case involving a house in the woods, a trail investigators had to follow, and two siblings whose story would end very differently from the fairy tale. Sources: https://abcnews.com/US/bodies-missing-people-found-ohio-police/story?id=12184250 https://www.cbsnews.com/news/ohio-girl-found-alive-bound-no-word-on-others/ https://www.dignitymemorial.com/obituaries/columbus-oh/tina-herrmann-10670725 https://www.legacy.com/us/obituaries/legacyremembers/tina-herrmann-maynard-obituary?id=9269815 https://vindyarchives.com/news/2010/nov/13/authorities-seeking-4-missing-from-home/ https://abcnews.com/US/missing-ohio-family-prompts-college-lockdown-search/story?id=12139637 https://www.cbsnews.com/news/ohio-family-mourned-murdered-mother-son-friend-remembered-ahead-of-funerals/ https://www.aetv.com/articles/killer-matthew-hoffman-victims-in-tree  https://transcripts.cnn.com/show/ng/date/2010-11-18/segment/01 https://tfpl.sfo2.digitaloceanspaces.com/Newspapers/Times-News_2010-11/PDF/2010_11_21.pdf https://www.wosu.org/news/2010-11-19/bodies-of-three-missing-knox-county-residents-found https://www.thehour.com/norwalk/article/Bodies-of-missing-Ohio-family-found-8297265.php https://legalclarity.org/the-tina-herrmann-murders-rescue-trial-and-aftermath/ https://websleuths.com/threads/oh-two-women-child-killed-13yo-abducted-apple-valley-10-nov-2010-9.120603/page-16 Follow me here: ► YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/@SerialNapper/ ► Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/serialnappernik/ ► Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/SerialNapper/ ► TikTok - https://www.tiktok.com/@serialnappernik  *Go Ad-Free on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/SerialNapper * Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What if the miracle everyone wanted came with a price no one bothered to tell you about? At the beginning of the twentieth century, radium seemed almost magical. It was rare, extraordinarily valuable and celebrated as a scientific breakthrough that could transform medicine, consumer products and even something as ordinary as a watch. During World War I, young women were hired to paint luminous numbers onto watches and military instruments using radium-based paint. The jobs were coveted. The pay was good, the work was considered glamorous, and the women were taught a simple technique to keep their tiny brushes sharp: Lip. Dip. Paint. They were told it was safe. Then the women began getting sick. Teeth loosened. Jaws deteriorated. Bones fractured. Mysterious illnesses appeared years after some of them had left the factories. When the women began questioning whether their work was responsible, they found themselves fighting not only for their lives, but to be believed. Sources: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/asithappens/tuesday-ferry-boat-survivor-radium-girls-author-no-possum-drop-and-more-1.2941016/remembering-mae-keane-the-last-of-the-radium-girls-1.2941019 https://www.buzzfeed.com/authorkatemoore/the-light-that-does-not-lie  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BRkeghENceY https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/madame-curies-passion-74183598/#:~:text=Marie%20extracted%20pure%20radium%20salts,purified%20and%20converted%20into%20chlorides. https://text-message.blogs.archives.gov/2018/01/04/the-radium-girls-at-the-national-archives/ https://www.dolphin-geoscience.ca/resources/death-by-numbers-the-mysterious-illness-of-the-dial-painters https://home.nps.gov/articles/000/b-reactor-health-physics-exhibit-an-order-for-safety.htm Follow me here: ► YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/@SerialNapper/ ► Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/serialnappernik/ ► Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/SerialNapper/ ► TikTok - https://www.tiktok.com/@serialnappernik  *Go Ad-Free on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/SerialNapper * Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In July 2009, fifteen-year-old Brenda Lin left her home in Sydney, Australia, for a school trip to New Caledonia. When she returned, her entire immediate family was gone. Her parents, Min and Lily Lin, her twelve-year-old brother Henry, her nine-year-old brother Terry, and her aunt Irene had all been murdered inside the family's quiet North Epping home. There was no obvious forced entry. The electricity had been cut. Nothing significant appeared to have been stolen. And whoever moved through the darkened house seemed to know exactly where they were going. At first, police looked everywhere for an explanation. An armed robbery connected to the family's business. Financial dealings in China. Organized crime. Even the possibility of professional killers. But as the investigation stretched from months into years, detectives began looking much closer to home. What followed was an extraordinary investigation involving secret surveillance, bloody shoeprints, a tiny and fiercely contested DNA stain, an alleged improvised murder weapon, undercover officers, a jailhouse informant, and a family relationship that was far more complicated than investigators first understood. Sources: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2009-07-20/sydney-murders-dead-dad-witnessed-armed-robbery/1360030 https://www.abc.net.au/lateline/archive/articles/2009/12/17/s2775222.htm https://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-05-11/xie-trial-told-blood-stain-linked-to-lin-family-murder/6461520 https://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-06-29/murdered-sydney-boys-involved-in-struggle-robert-xie-trial-hears/7552572 Follow me here: ► YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/@SerialNapper/ ► Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/serialnappernik/ ► Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/SerialNapper/ ► TikTok - https://www.tiktok.com/@serialnappernik  *Go Ad-Free on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/SerialNapper * Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

When 20-year-old Sophie Lionnet left France for London, she hoped working as an au pair would give her a little independence, help her improve her English, and allow her to build a future working with children. Instead, she found herself inside a home increasingly consumed by suspicion. Sophie's employer, Sabrina Kouider, had spent years making extraordinary accusations against a former boyfriend, Mark Walton, a former member of the original Boyzone lineup. She believed he was stalking her, hacking her accounts and somehow interfering with her life, even after he had moved thousands of miles away. Eventually, Sabrina's suspicions turned toward Sophie. There was just one rather enormous problem. Sophie had never met Mark Walton. But inside the house on Wimbledon Park Road, the truth became increasingly irrelevant. Sources: https://expressdigest.com/chilling-audio-tapes-reveal-murdered-nannys-interrogation-ordeal/ https://www.tf1info.fr/justice-faits-divers/francaise-au-pair-tuee-a-londres-sophie-lionnet-temoignages-amis-elle-etait-la-gentillesse-personnifiee-2065271.html https://www.rte.ie/news/uk/2018/0524/965702-sabrina-kouider-ouissem-medouni/ https://www.lemonde.fr/police-justice/article/2018/04/17/proces-lionnet-a-londres-j-aurais-du-lui-acheter-un-billet-et-la-renvoyer-chez-elle_5286481_1653578.html https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/mar/19/french-nannys-body-was-thrown-on-a-bonfire-jurors-told https://www.itv.com/news/london/2018-05-24/nanny-verdict-sophie-lionnet-ripe-for-exploitation-by-abusive-employers-court-told https://www.standard.co.uk/news/crime/sophie-lionnet-murder-couple-jailed-for-life-over-murder-of-french-nanny-lose-appeal-bids-a4150016.html https://decider.com/2026/09/18/the-seemingly-perfect-family-movie-true-story-sophie-lionnet-netflix-lifetime/ https://news.sky.com/story/couple-guilty-of-murdering-french-nanny-sophie-lionnet-11383710 https://www.bfmtv.com/police-justice/obseques-de-sophie-lionnet-on-va-commencer-a-faire-notre-deuil_AN-201806070035.html https://www.leparisien.fr/faits-divers/le-dernier-adieu-a-sophie-lionnet-06-06-2018-7757349.php Follow me here: ► YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/@SerialNapper/ ► Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/serialnappernik/ ► Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/SerialNapper/ ► TikTok - https://www.tiktok.com/@serialnappernik  *Go Ad-Free on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/SerialNapper * Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices