By Dara Barnwell
A little girl walks by on a busy street clutching her mom’s hand. In the other hand she clutches a raggedy doll that haphazardly drags along the sidewalk. As you look closer something seems to make the hairs on the back of your neck stand up. The doll turns its head and seems to stare right at you.
What is it about dolls that seem inherently creepy? Is it their soulless gaze? Their constant companionship with an innocent and defenseless child?
Dolls have been around since tribal women tied grasses together in the shape of a person to occupy their little girls. Overtime their human shape and looks have evolved until they seem almost lifelike. Boys too have a love of dolls….ahem…excuse me, action figures. But sometimes, these playthings take on a sinister role in a child’s life.
In the late 1800s a little girl named Jane Bielawski received a doll as a gift. Being a poor child, living in a New York tenement, the doll soon became her constant companion, whom she named “Missy”. But soon things took a terrifying turn. Several of Jane’s young friends were killed. As the police investigated they came to find that little Jane was present at everyone of them. The police decided to question the little girl and as they began Jane became hysterical, screaming that the doll, Missy, was responsible. She tried several times to rid of herself of the doll-even throwing it out of a 5th story window-but each time the doll seemed to return to her.
The police didn’t buy it, however, and Jane was locked up in Bloomingdale Asylum. She maintained that it was the doll who did it even up to her dying day. Evil entity or convenient scapegoat?
In 1906 little Robert Eugene Otto was given a gift by a Bahamian servant that worked for his parents. The gift was soon named Robert after the little boy who owned it. Eugene took Robert with him everywhere, but soon his parents began to notice eerie phenomena. After the little boy was tucked in to bed, his parents often heard their son talking to someone in his room. They listened closely and could hear someone talking back! A hurried and terrified search later they could never find another person. Eugene was usually found cowering in a corner while Robert was perched in a rocking chair looking quite innocent. Eugene always insisted Robert was talking to him.
A few times when Eugene’s parents insisted Eugene leave the doll at home for an outing, the neighbors reported seeing the doll watching them from an upstairs window and even moving! Household objects would be found tossed around Eugene’s room and his toy room, some of the toys mutilated. Whenever these acts took place Eugene would insist Robert did it.
As the phenomena began to worsen and servants began to leave the house to find employ elsewhere, the family decided it was time to do something. The took Robert away from Eugene and locked him in a box in the attic. There he remained even after the family moved.
Eugene grew up, married and became a painter. Sadly, his father died and Eugene was willed his childhood home. The newly married couple decided the spacious home would be perfect for them. They moved in and while going through the contents, Eugene found Robert. After all this time, Eugene still felt an attachment to the doll and promptly began to take it with him everywhere they went. He even put it in a chair in the corner of their bedroom where Robert could watch over them while they slept. His wife began to despise the doll. She promptly moved him back to the attic, or turret room, and locked the door.
Servants and neighbors swore the doll took on a life of it’s own. The servants could hear it’s sinister giggles behind the locked door and neighbors swore it moved from window to window in the attic.
Not long after, the marriage soured and the couple died, leaving the house empty. A new family bought it, only to leave the house in a hurry one night when Robert was found at the foot of the master bed, holding a kitchen knife.
Robert is now found at the East Martello Museum in Key West, Florida. He sits on a small chair behind a glass case but apparently is still very evil. It’s said that you must ask Robert for permission before taking his picture or he will curse you. The film will be bad or your camera will stop working or worse. The museum receives hundreds of apology letters to Robert from visitors who felt they were cursed by Robert. The museum staff even claim that Robert moves his position constantly. He was the doll “Chucky” from the Child’s Play movies, was based on.
In 1970 a mother purchased an antique Raggedy Ann Doll from a hobby store. The doll was a present for her daughter Donna on her birthday. Donna, at the time, was a student in college, preparing to graduate with her nursing degree and resided in a tiny apartment with her room mate Anngie (a nurse as well). Pleased with the doll Donna placed it on her bed as a decoration and didn’t give it a second thought until a few days later. With in that time both Donna and Angie noticed that there appeared to be something very strange and creepy about the doll. The doll apparently moved on its own, relatively unnoticeable movements at first, like a change in position, but as time passed the movement became more noticeable. Donna and Angie would come home to find the doll in a completely different room from which they had left it . Sometimes the doll would be found crossed legged on the couch with its arms folded , other times it was found upright, standing on its feet, leaning against a chair in the dining room. Several times Donna, placing the doll on the couch before leaving for work, would return home to find the doll back in her room on the bed with the door closed.
Annabelle the doll not only moved but could write too. About a month into their experiences Donna and Angie began to find penciled messages on parchment paper that read “Help Us” and “Help Lou”. The hand writing looked to belong to that of a small child. The creepy part about the messages was not the wording but the way they were written. At the time Donna had never kept parchment paper, on which the notes were written, in the house, so where did it come from?
One night, Donna found that the doll had moved again and even found a speck of blood on her. Fearing the worst the women decided to call in a psychic medium. The psychic medium made contact with the spirit in the doll and claimed to be a little girl named Annabelle who died in a fire where there apartment complex now stood. Feeling bad for the little girl’s spirit they gave the entity permission to inhabit the doll and live with them. BAD MOVE!
Things got much worse after that. A man named Lou, was friends with Donna and Angie and had been with them through all of the strange phenomena. The doll gave him the heebie jeebies and he did his best to stay away from it. But one night he claimed to have a frightening dream in which the doll climbed up his prone body and began to choke him. He awoke in a panic.
The next day, as he and Angie were planning a road trip, they suddenly heard rustling noises coming from Donna’s room. Thinking that someone had broke in without their notice, Lou rushed in to find nothing wrong in Donna’s room but did find Annabelle thrown into a corner. As he began to walk closer to the doll he felt like someone had walked up behind him. He turned around, finding no one, but suddenly doubled over in pain. His shirt was stained with blood and on closer inspection he found seven cuts or scratches across his chest. By the next day they were almost gone.
Donna was finally willing to believe all was not as it seemed and contacted an Episcopalian priest. He in turn called Ed and Lorraine Warren (the famous paranormal investigators from the Amityville house) . After doing an investigation they concluded that an inhuman spirit was manipulating the doll. They took Annabelle into their possession and added her to their cursed collection. There she resides to this day, behind a glass case specially made for her and is blessed by a priest periodically.
Maybe take a closer look at those yard sale toys next time, huh? Good night.
©2024 Dara Barnwell
Eerie Rift 