Ep. 22: Haunted Dolls

Remember being little and finding comfort in a toy? Many people as children had dolls or stuffed animals they were particularly attached to, sleeping with them at night and carrying them around during the day. Mine I called, very originally, “Dolly”, and after getting her as a gift when I was about 2 years old, she came with me everywhere. There was even a time or two that a hotel had to mail her back because I’d forgotten her while on vacation, twisted up in the sheets. I would’ve been absolutely heartbroken if I’d ever lost her for good, but miraculously I never did. What was your comfort toy as a kid?

[RESPONSE]

Yeah, so the concept of the comfort toy, especially a doll, has been around for basically as long as we have historical evidence. The earliest dolls were made from whatever was available to our ancient ancestors, like clay, stone, wood, bone, or wax. Archaeological evidence places dolls as the foremost candidate for the world’s oldest known toy, with wooden paddle dolls being found in Egyptian tombs dating to as early as the 21st century BC. Dolls with movable limbs and removable clothing date back to at least the year 200 BC. Greek dolls have been discovered that were made of clay and articulated at the hips and shoulders. And Rag dolls have even existed since early Roman times, with examples being discovered dating back to 300 BC.

Now, why is this? Why is it such a seemingly instinctual thing for us humans to play with, well, little versions of ourselves? Derek Price, PhD, associate professor of psychology at Wheaton College and a child development expert, has said that the probable reasons behind this are as lofty as the survival of the species and as immediate as brain cell growth. Children love the way their parents relate to them, such as with cuddling and feeding, so they begin to do the same with dolls, in the parent role. They feel comforted by being held by their parents, and so hold their dolls in the same way to replicate this secure feeling. Babies begin to recognize themselves in mirrors and photographs sometime around or after age 2, and eventually will begin to recognize aspects of themselves in dolls, and begin to relate to them in this way. Unlike stuffed animals, which provide comfort and are recognized as not human, dolls generate empathy, because they’re made in our image, like, say, Adam from God. Taking care of dolls strengthens nurturing skills in children and helps them work through strong emotions, giving children a crucial but subconscious measure of control over their lives, something they don’t even realize they need. As children get older doll play continues to encourage the development of positive social skills and even the imagination, giving children a simple, creative outlet for imagined scenarios and stories. Through all of these things, children, in a way, begin to understand how to care for others, and thus, eventually keep humanity going.

Ok, so dolls. Great. And what?

Well, the thing is, dolls aren’t always just playthings. For basically as long as these items have existed as toys, they’ve also existed as items with spiritual and ritual values to a variety of different cultures. The use of an effigy to perform a spell on someone is documented in African, Native American, and European cultures. We all know about the practice of sticking pins in voodoo dolls, which is popularly associated with African-American Hoodoo folk culture. This is where the stories of haunted dolls begin--with curses placed on others. So along with being part of our instinctual growth as humans, we also might have an instinctual fear towards these objects being used for ill.

I think us humans are conditioned to be unsettled by things close to human, but not quite. We know that as the “uncanny valley”. It’s why a lot of people are creeped out by CGI characters in film, like Tom Hanks in The Polar Express. There’s a deadness behind the eyes that signals to us that this thing is not human, but it’s the near-approximation that unsettles us. If you have a fear of human-like figures, that’s called “automatonophobia”, which is something I actually have, to a degree. I’m personally freaked out by ventriloquist dummies, because the idea of something looking like a person and talking like a person while NOT being alive is upsetting to me. This is part of the reason these stories give me extra shivers. So let’s begin.
First we’ll discuss possibly the most famous haunted doll of all time: Annabelle. Annabelle actually has a weirdly special place in our heart--our second date was to see Annabelle: Creation, because it was either that or The Dark Tower and you couldn’t even bring yourself to watch that even for a little action.

[Response]

I mean, listen, our first kiss was also that night, so maybe haunted dolls just get you feeling super romantic.

Annabelle is yet another story related to our homestate weirdo heroes, Ed & Lorraine Warren, and eventually we’ll get through all of these peripheral tales before we cover the people themselves. Currently, Annabelle is housed at the Warren’s Occult Museum in Monroe, Connecticut. Today, since the Warrens have passed, the museum is cared for by Tony Spera, their son in law. Though you can’t gain entry anymore, all the items are apparently still there. Including Annabelle.

According to the Warrens, a nursing student gave them the doll in 1970, which is depicted in the opening scene of the film The Conjuring. This nursing student lived with another in Hartford, Connecticut, and was gifted the doll by her mother earlier that year. Weird gift to give someone who is literally a grown woman that has moved out of the house, but whatever, maybe the girl liked dolls. Soon after receiving the gift weird occurrences began to happen around the apartment. She would leave the doll sitting with legs uncrossed, go out, and come back home to find her legs intertwined. The girls discovered pieces of parchment paper with the words “help me” scribbled on it around the apartment, though no one they knew used parchment. One morning while the nurses were eating breakfast, Annabelle’s arms raised to the table. After this, one of them called a medium, who held a seance in the apartment. The medium reported sensing a spirit inside of the doll of a 6 or 7 year old girl named Annabelle who was killed outside of the apartment complex--various stories say her body was found on the field where the complex once stood, or she was killed outside of the complex in a car accident. Whatever happened, after this revelation, the girls started treating the doll as, well, a person.
One night the fiance of one of the nurses was sleeping on the couch with Annabelle apparently seated on the opposite end. He woke up in a fright, reporting “I just had the craziest nightmare. I had a dream that that doll there was crawling up my leg, and got to my neck, and was trying to strangle me to death.” He grabbed Annabelle and threw her across the room, landing on the apartment floor, and shouted that she’s “nothing more than a Raggedy Ann doll...she can’t hurt anybody.”

Tony Spera says as soon as the fiance launched the doll, he provoked the demonic presence attached to it, causing "seven psychic wounds to appear on his body — four slash marks on his chest and three on his stomach," The wounds appeared like claw marks on his flesh. This physical attack  indicated to the girls that the spirit tied to the doll was far more sinister than any 6-year-old girl. They turned to an Episcopal priest for assistance, who directed them to the Warrens. 

After speaking to the witnesses, the Warrens came to the conclusion that the doll was not possessed by a spirit, but rather, a demon, reasoning that spirits did not possess inanimate objects, only people. This inhuman spirit was not looking to stay attached to the doll, but rather, wanted to move on to a human host. The Warrens felt it appropriate that an exorcism blessing by the Episcopal priest would be done to cleanse the apartment, to fill the home with, as Ed stated, “the power of the positive and of God.” At the girls’ request, the Warrens took Annabelle the doll with them when they left, promising not to take the interstate in the case that the evil entity still possessed the doll. 

During the car ride home the car swerved and stalled at every turn, with the power steering and brakes failing. Multiple times the car came close to crashing into another until Ed reached into his bag in the back seat and produced a vial of holy water. Ed made the sign of the cross over the doll with the holy water, and the Warrens were able to arrive safely at home. 

Originally the doll was stationed in a chair, where it would levitate and fall repeatedly. Then, the Warrens began to find it in different rooms of the house where they hadn’t left it. If they left the doll locked in the outer office building they would return to the house to find it sitting upstairs in Ed’s easy chair. It also apparently showed hatred toward any clergy that entered the house. A Father Jason Bradford showed disrespect toward the doll, and upon arriving home a few hours later called Lorraine to say that his brakes had failed as he entered a busy intersection and his car was totalled, the accident being near fatal. The Warrens at this point had Annabelle’s specially made glass and wood case made, inscribed with both the Lord’s Prayer and Saint Michael’s Prayer. A sign on the front read, “POSITIVELY DO NOT OPEN!”

Ed would periodically say a binding prayer over the case, but that didn’t always contain Annabelle’s wrath. A young man visiting the Occult Museum defiantly went up to Annabelle’s case and challenged the doll to give him scratches like she’d given to others. The man and his girlfriend were laughing on his motorcycle on the way home when the man lost control and drove into a tree, dying instantly. The girlfriend survived but was hospitalized for over the year. When asked what happened, she said they had been mocking the doll when her boyfriend suddenly lost control of the bike.

Speaking of mocking the doll, we luckily have 3 different Ghost Adventures episodes in which our boys taunt the very haunted dolls we’re discussing today. The first one involves Annabelle herself. In the episode “Annabelle’s Curse”, Zak and crew film their Halloween special in Zak’s new haunted museum, full of all different allegedly haunted and cursed items, much like the Warrens’ own museum. Tony Spera brought Annabelle to the museum for this occasion, saying he wants to show as many people as possible in the Ghost Adventures audience that evil exists. Zak develops an...interesting bond with Annabelle. The “stick figure” they refer to in this clip is from a body mapping gadget they use in their investigation.

[18:43-18:54
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20:20-20:35]

Annnnd he touches her.

[20:46-21:00

Zak ends up on the floor and Spera removes Annabelle from the room. Funnily enough some paranormal world drama began between the two after the episodes aired, with Tony accusing Zak of fakery and Zak posting on Facebook that, among other annoyances, “Tony also demanded First Class air tickets ONLY for he and Annabelle. I’m sure Annabelle would have been extra demonic if she had to fly coach. HE DEMANDED A FIRST CLASS AIR TICKET FOR A DEMON! Lmao”. So that’s petty and fun.

Zak reflected on the Mystery Science Theater-style show he hosts with his crew, Ghost Adventures: Screaming Room, that he still thinks the entity possessing Annabelle left the doll’s body and is now roaming free in his haunted museum, increasing activity in the museum since then twofold. 

One last funny story comes from my own recent memory, and of course, Snopes. Back in August of last year a rumor started to spread on social media that Annabelle had supposedly escaped from the Occult Museum. Many of those who believed and spread the story commented that it made sense considering what a shitshow the year 2020 had already been. Like, of course the demon doll had escaped. Tony Spera posted a video with Annabelle snug in her case to quell the fears of the general public, saying “Annabelle did not escape. Annabelle’s alive - well, I shouldn’t say alive - Annabelle’s here, in all her infamous glory. She never left the museum.” Apparently, the story had originated from a mistranslation of an interview with Annabelle actress Annabelle Wallis on Chinese language social media sites, which confused the actress with the doll. 

In the end, it makes a lot of sense that this story captivated the public, and after 3 Annabelle movies, still does. As Lorraine Warren told USA TODAY, “Looks are deceiving. It’s not what the doll looks like that makes it scary, it’s what has been infused within the doll: evil.” 

[BREAK]

So for our next story, I encourage our listeners to first go look up a picture of Robert the Doll before we get into this story, because I feel like it’s important context. This thing is CREEPY. This doll looks like it just crawled out of your basement to kill you in your sleep.

Now, this story begins with a boy. Robert Eugene Otto was born to a prominent family in Key West, Florida, in the year 1900. When he was young, around 1904 to 1908, Otto was given a doll as a gift. There are disputes as to the actual origin of the doll - some say the family’s maid gave him the strange, straw-filled doll, possibly for a birthday, while others say Otto’s grandfather purchased the doll in Germany for him, and that it was manufactured by the Steiff Company, which also helped create the classic teddy bear. These two origin stories are actually really interesting. The first goes into detail that the Otto family mistreated the servants and maids that cared for their large manor house, now known as ”The Artist House”, and one maid was caught using voodoo and quickly fired...but not before giving the doll to young Robert. Of course, she had already cursed the doll. 

If you find the grandfather story more plausible, there’s even some weirdness attached to that, because it’s thought that the doll was never actually intended to be a doll - that, if made by Steiff, it was manufactured to actually be part of a clown or jester display. Ugh. No wonder the thing is so eerie-looking.

No matter how he got it, though, Robert Eugene Otto became quickly obsessed. He took the doll everywhere with him, which wasn’t necessarily easy, because the thing is 40” tall. It’s not the size of your typical dolly. Otto gave the doll his first name, Robert, and took on the name Eugene or Gene instead...now, of course I’ve heard over time that he did this because Robert was “the doll’s name” so he had to go by his middle name, but I couldn’t verify this online.

The Otto family and their servants would often hear Gene in his bedroom, having a conversation with a completely different voice. Loud, violent commotions would be heard coming from Gene’s bedroom on an almost nightly basis, with furniture being overturned and toys ripped apart. When a parent would come to see what was going on, Gene would be huddled on his bed in fear. He only ever had one response as to what had happened: “Robert did it.” The Otto’s didn’t quite believe a doll could’ve done all this, but sometimes they could hear an eerie disembodied giggling sound around the house, and some passersby outside of the house even claimed to see a small doll moving from window to window. If household items turned up missing, Gene blamed Robert. Something found broken? It was Robert. 

Due to the escalating issues with Gene and his attachment to Robert, the doll was eventually moved to the attic, where it remained for several years. Out of sight, out of mind, right? Well, the Ottos apparently said they heard Robert moving around the attic area frequently, and giggling in the middle of the night. Great. Gene moved away from Key West to study at the Academy of Fine Arts in Chicago, and traveled overseas to study and paint in Paris. It was there he met his wife, Annette Parker. Annette was a brilliant pianist that once even gave a command performance for the King of England. They married in May of 1930, and after Annette finished her studies abroad they moved back stateside, living in New York for a few years. When Gene’s mother became ill, he brought Annette back to Key West to live and take care of her. 

Both of Gene’s parents eventually passed on, and Gene inherited the house, and at this point, he rediscovered Robert squirrelled away in the attic. With Robert reentering the picture, Gene’s seemingly normal life of art and family turned back upside down. Annette HATED Robert. She found the doll creepy and tried to banish it back to the attic, but apparently Robert didn’t take kindly to this, because Gene said he requested the Turret Room of the house instead so he could “have a room with a view of the street”. Schoolchildren and almost anyone walking past the property would say that they often saw the doll disappear from sight before appearing again before their eyes. Many people avoided the house entirely so that they could avoid seeing Robert. 

Gene ended up spending most of his time in the Turret Room with Robert, painting and talking to the doll, until his death in 1974--with, of course, Robert by his side. Ann later said, “In the months preceding his death, and as his health failed, he spent most of his time talking to Robert.” After Gene’s death, Ann immediately moved out of the house, and it was soon purchased by a Myrtle Reuter, who rebranded it as “The Artist’s House”, giving a nod to Gene’s talents and local popularity. 

Perhaps she didn’t realize that the house came with Robert, too, since Ann had wanted absolutely nothing to do with the doll and left him when she sold the house. It seemed Robert was still up to his old tricks even after Gene’s death. People would hear little footsteps coming from the attic room above. A plumber reported hearing giggling and turned to find the doll had moved across the room on his own. A Solares Hill journalist named Malcolm Ross visited the house and said “It was like a metal bar running down my back. At first when we walked through the door, the look on his face was like a little boy being punished. It was as if he was asking himself, ‘Who are these people in my room and what are they going to do to me?’” Later, Ross noticed a change in the doll’s expression--one that looked like disdain. After this he knew, “There was some kind of intelligence there. The doll was listening to us.”

By the way, Robert isn’t the only thing lurking around the Artist’s House, either. Annette Parker Otto’s spirit apparently haunts the home to this day, which is now a guest house that you can stay in in Old Town Key West. Annette is thought to be the resident spirit of, surprisingly, the turret room. Perhaps her hatred of Robert and constant attempts to get between him and Gene and kick him out of the house cursed her to spend eternity stuck in his room. 

So, Myrtle Reuter brought Robert along when she moved out 6 years later and in 1994 donated Robert to the Fort East Martello Museum, claiming he “moved around the house on his own and was haunted.” Myrtle died just a few months later, but Robert’s activity continued. Staff at the museum noticed once Robert was put on display that cameras and electronic devices would malfunction in his presence. Apparently, Robert doesn’t appreciate when tourists take pictures of him without his permission, and people who disregard this rule or disrespect Robert soon experience misfortune, especially in the form of traffic accidents. Not long after he became an exhibit, letters began arriving from previous visitors apologizing to the doll for disrespectful behavior, and begging forgiveness. You can even find news clippings about people’s reported experiences, like one titled “Woman blames fight on Robert the Doll” in the Key West Citizen. These letters are posted all around Robert’s exhibit, taking up the entire back wall of the exhibit room behind the glass box he’s contained in--which, apparently, he can exit by himself when the museum is closed for the night. Some even leave offerings for Robert to ask for forgiveness, or maybe even get a jump on a possible curse. These have included mints, sweets, money and, occasionally, joints. “It’s completely inappropriate,” says Cori Convertito, museum curator. “We are still a museum.”

There are many ghostly stories about Robert since his time began at the museum. A few years ago, tells historian David L. Sloan, a woman on a trolley tour to the museum had had a few drinks and was being disrespectful toward robert. The doll proceeded to throw his lion stuffie at the wall of the case toward the woman, and the whole tour group saw it. 
Some claim Robert’s gaze follows them around the room when they visit his exhibit, with him either moving just his eyes or his whole head. A young girl, about 5 years old, supposedly also haunts the museum after hours. Bonnie Randolph, in an interview with Zak Bagans, told of being party to another tourist mocking Robert and her taking a picture of the doll without asking. In the week following the disrespectful incident Bonnie was involved in 2 different car accidents and broke her back falling down a set of stairs. As David L. Sloan said, “There’s no denying the experience these people are having, so Robert’s having an affect on them. Whether it’s a psychological effect or a ghostly effect, I’m not the one to say. I know the encounters I’ve had, and I’ve got no doubt in my mind that he’s real.”

Robert inspired the Child’s Play movie franchise, possibly his longest lasting legacy. He also even more directly inspired another horror film series, which started with the film Robert in 2015 and continued with one film a year through 2019: The Curse of Robert the Doll, The Toymaker, Revenge of Robert the Doll and Robert Reborn. The trailers look totally ridonkulous and I hope we can watch the movies for a later Patreon watch-along. Visually I actually find the real Robert the Doll creepier than the purposefully scary movie version, much like the Raggedy Ann Annabelle doll is eerier than the Conjuring series version. I think the blankness of his expression allows us to project all sorts of things onto it, and is the greatest reminder that this is not something living and human. Robert’s even become a bit of a social media influencer with verified Youtubers like Jessii Vee making videos like “I Hope You NEVER Meet Robert the Doll”. 

He also starred in the first episode of the Ghost Adventures spinoff show, Deadly Possessions. On this show Zak has Cori, the museum curator, visit his haunted museum with Robert in tow. So, Deadly Possessions is...a weird show. In this segment, an old man named Theodore wearing a full formal suit and top hat pops in, giving the impression he’s some sort of elderly butler to the museum? He introduced himself to Cori and then...well, take a listen.

(26:30-27:30 clip)

Yeah. Weird stuff.

For now, Robert remains the hottest attraction at the Fort East Martello museum, wearing his little sailor suit that is likely one of Gene’s childhood outfits. Go visit, if you like. And disrespect him if you DARE. 

The last doll we’ll visit is...well, it’s not just one doll. It’s a whole island full. Yes, to wrap up we’re going to visit the Island de las Munecas, or the Island of the Dolls. The Island of the Dolls is located in the channels of Xochimilco south of the center of Mexico City. Visitors to the island can find various dolls of different styles and colors all over the island, especially hanging throughout the trees. These dolls were originally placed by the former owner of the island, Don Julian Santana Barrera. Apparently in the 1950s Barrera found a young girl drowned in mysterious circumstances many years ago on the island, and was too late to save her life. Awhile later, Barrera saw a floating doll near the canals, and reasoned that this likely belonged to the deceased girl. He picked the doll up and hung it from a tree, as a way of showing respect and support to the spirit of the girl. The girl’s spirit haunted him, and he kept hanging more and more dolls from the trees in an attempt to appease her spirit, but realized too late that the dolls were becoming possessed by the spirits of other dead girls, too. 50 years later Barrera was found dead, having drowned in the same spot the little girl he couldn’t save had. Some, including Barrera’s estranged family, questioned whether the drowned girl ever existed in the first place. But one thing was certainly true--Barrera devoted the rest of his life to her memory, real or not.

Nowadays the island, which is really a floating garden covered in water lilies, has become a tourist destination for those appreciating natural beauty and, well, hauntings. It’s the largest doll collection in the world, according to the Guinness Book of Records. Some visitors to the island place offerings around Barrera’s favorite doll, which he named Agustinita, in the hope that they will receive miracles and blessings.

So, why is the island reported to be so haunted? Well, aside from the spirits of the drowned girl and Barrera himself, all the other spirits that possessed the dolls are reportedly still there. There are tales of the dolls whispering at visitors, moving their heads, limbs, and eyes, and coming to life at night. Naturally, because of these stories and the island’s natural creepiness, the Ghost Adventures boys simply had to visit.

During the boys’ first walkthrough, their tour guide tells them about some of the eerie things that reportedly happened on the island.

[9:14-9:31 clip]

Later, the creepy factor increases just as the boys set up a camera in the, quote, “possessed doll shed”.

[26:18-26:44 clip]

I don’t care if you believe in ghosts or possession or haunted dolls or whatever, that’s a big big NOPE from me. If you’d like to visit the Isla de las Munecas and the possessed doll shed, however, you can book your very own boat tour.

So that’s it right now on haunted dolls! What do you think, Sean?

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NEWS

We’re going back to our favorite place - the Bizarre Bazaar!

Making the rounds in the news this past week is the possibility that science has finally solved the mystery of the Dyatlov Pass incident!

The Dyatlov Pass incident is, in short, a 1959 event where 9 people headed into snowy Russian wilderness to hike and were never heard from again, and their bodies were found weeks later in bizarre shape - some in a baffling state of undress; some of their skulls and chests had been smashed open; others had eyes missing, and one lacked a tongue. It’s been a mystery ever since what exactly happened to the Dyatlov Pass hikers. Some theories have included aliens, Yeti, military tests, weather anomalies, murder, and more. Russian authorities stated in 2019 they believed the deaths were due to an avalanche.

Some scientists felt that didn’t explain all of the strangeness around the incident, and kept on searching for an answer. Johan Gaume, head of the Snow Avalanche Simulation Laboratory at EPFL in Switzerland, told National Geographic that he was inspired by how well the movement of snow was depicted in the 2013 Disney movie Frozen, and asked its animators how they pulled it off. He then modified the film’s snow animation code for his own avalanche simulation models, with the intention of simulating the impacts that avalanches would have on the human body.

He came to the conclusion that slabs of fast moving snow could have absolutely caused the blunt-force trauma injuries experienced by the hikers/ What happened after the avalanche is speculation, but the current thinking is that the team cut themselves out of the tent and ran toward the treeline a mile or so downslope. It’s likely the more able-bodied survivors dragged the injured out of their smothered shelter in an attempt to rescue them. Most of the group died of hypothermia, while others may have succumbed to their injuries. 

Gaume thinks the explanation his team presented is too straightforward for public tastes, however. “People don’t want it to be an avalanche, it’s too normal.” Conspiracy theories surrounding the Dyatlov Pass incident will likely stick around well into the future.

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ENDING

That’s it for this episode of Ain’t It Scary with Sean and Carrie! Like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter and Instagram @aintitscary, and check out our website at aintitscary.com. You can support the show by supporting our sponsors, and becoming a patron at www.patreon.com/aintitscary. And please, subscribe to the show and throw us a 5-star review on Apple Podcasts...we’ll be forever grateful.

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