Posted by Annabelle is perhaps the most famous of the cursed dolls, having inspired the 2014 film Annabelle, a spin-off from The Conjuring. The film is, of course, highly fictionalized but is based on the true story of Annabelle, the cursed doll.
Here is her story, according to demonologists Ed and Lorraine Warren.
Annabelle, the cursed doll
First of all, the doll is not made of ceramic like the one in the film, but is a rag doll very famous in the United States, a Raggedy Ann.
Donna, a student, received it as a gift from her mother in 1970 for her 28th birthday and put it in her bedroom.
Just a few days later, Donna’s roommate Angie said that the doll was strange, and soon after, both began to notice that it was moving on its own.
They noticed several times that it changed position, crossed its legs and arms, and often, after placing it on the living room sofa before going to university, they found it back in their bedroom, with the doors closed.
In one of these episodes, Donna noticed not only that Annabelle had changed position, but that she also had blood on her hands and chest.
In addition, the two girls began to find messages written on parchment in childish handwriting that said “help.”
The séance
The woman, frightened and not knowing what to do, decided to call a medium who wanted to hold a séance. During the séance, the medium said that inside the doll was the spirit of a 7-year-old girl, Annabelle Higgins, who had lived in the area and whose body had been found on the very land where the building in which the two girls lived had been built. She also said that the spirit claimed to be comfortable with Donna and Angie. Just like in the case of the Okiku doll, it seemed that the spirit of a little girl had chosen a toy to manifest itself. The two girls, moved by the story, gave Annabelle permission to stay in the doll with them, but they did not know what they were getting themselves into.
Lou’s accident
Angie’s boyfriend, Lou, sometimes stayed over at their place and didn’t like the doll at all, often saying that they should get rid of it.
When he slept in the girls’ apartment, he often had nightmares about Annabelle, and once he woke up suddenly with the doll trying to strangle him. In the morning, he thought it was all a dream, but he wanted to get rid of the doll anyway.
Donna, however, did not want to do so. Lou then took Annabelle and threw her across the room. As soon as he did, the young man felt a sharp pain in his chest and four marks appeared on his chest and three on his abdomen, like scratches. The wounds were so deep that blood began to show through his shirt.
The Warren mediums
Terrified, Donna decided to contact religious authorities, who advised her to contact Ed and Lorraine Warren, two demonologists. After examining the doll, they concluded that it was not the ghost of a little girl, but a demon that wanted to possess Donna’s body.
The Warrens asked the priest who had come with them, Father Cooke, to perform an exorcism and bless the house. Donna then begged them to take her with them to their occult museum. During the journey, the car malfunctioned several times, but this stopped once the doll was sprinkled with holy water. Annabelle was then placed in a glass case in the Warren’s occult museum in Connecticut.
The last victim
Even though she is locked up in a museum, Annabelle still has the power to do harm. The Warrens themselves recount a strange episode that occurred during one of their tours at the museum. A young man arrived on a motorcycle with his girlfriend and kept teasing Annabelle, lifting his shirt and challenging her to make the same scratches appear on his chest that had appeared on Lou’s. In fact, he even challenged her to do her worst, tapping his fingers on her display case. The boy was thrown out of the museum, and later the Warrens received news that three hours after leaving the museum, he had an accident on his motorcycle, crashing into a tree and losing his life.
His girlfriend survived but had to remain in the hospital for about a year. If demons and possessed dolls don’t scare you, the Warrens continue to organize tours of their museum. On February 23, 2017, the transfer of Annabelle to a portable display case was shown live so that she could be moved to the museum’s new location.
