The True Life Story of Annabelle the Haunted Doll

The doll seems so harmless sitting inside its purpose built cabinet. Just a collection of shapes cut from fabric in jolly hues.

It's identical to any number of other Raggedy Ann dolls - that type habitually bought for children, propped upon their beds, cuddled with impunity, until the colors fade with age and the stitching wears thin. Nobody usually gets hurt.

On the contrary, Raggedy Ann dolls are there for consolation in the night. Lifeless they may be, but they receive so much love and faith in their security, that it's reflected back in kind. They cannot, and do not, move an inch. Their big eyes do not blink. But they radiate well-being all the same.

Annabelle could be cuddled. Removed from her padlocked cabinet, she could easily be taken to a child's bed and hugged until the dawn. But no-one is ever going to do that.

Even if there was no curator to keep her behind glass, there's a sign to give anyone pause: 'WARNING Positively do not open'. A large white cross sits above her head, a legacy of the exorcism performed upon her. Then there's a lock to pick. Without the story it seems like overkill, yet still would ring instinctual warning bells about ever giving her to a child. Or anyone really. Best to let lie and walk away.

For those who do know the history, the shudder is even more pronounced. The walking away is faster and turns into a sprint. The cabinet is not touched. Here then is that history, so you know to do the same.

It worried them. Not because the doll was moving per se. Dolls don't move on their own. That this one was doing just that implied that someone was entering their apartment while they were away, and messing with Donna's bed. 

However, the more they considered it, the more unlikely that scenario seemed. They set out to gain more evidence before reporting it, for fear that the warden or police would think them silly women scared by their own shadow. 

Next day, before setting out, Donna crossed her Raggedy Ann doll's legs, in the position that she usually discovered her, then carefully marked precisely where she sat. Meanwhile Angie was booby-trapping all doors and windows. Nobody would be harmed by coming inside, but they'd certainly trigger pointers to prove that they'd been there.

Returning home from classes, the women were relieved to find that nothing had been tampered with at any entrance point. But their bonhomie soon turned to wide-eyed wonder. Stepping into her bedroom, Donna couldn't help but notice that her Raggedy Doll's legs were now uncrossed and the toy was moved slightly along from its marked spot.

Neither woman was particularly thinking of the supernatural in the movement of the doll. Unlike Angie's fiance Lou Carlo, who declared that the thing gave him the creeps.

What he hadn't mentioned was that the Raggedy Doll had begun to feature in his recurring nightmares, though he didn't even live in the low rise apartment.

Meanwhile, Donna and Angie continued with their experiments, trying to discern the logical explanation behind its frequent position switches, whenever no-one was watching. The freakier thing was that these changes were becoming ever more noticeable.

The Raggedy Doll wasn't just having its legs crossed or uncrossed, but was being moved into another room. They'd leave with it sitting on Donna's bed and return to find it on the sofa, but with no obvious way for anyone to have entered their apartment.

Then there was the time when they opened their front door to find the doll kneeling on a chair in the hallway. Fine and all par for the course in their experience now, except that Raggedy Ann legs are too soft to kneel. After moving her once, each woman in turn kept trying to get the doll to emulate that kneeling stance. They couldn't do it. The doll's legs gave out every time.

Next came the notes. Words scrawled in a childish hand, in pencil on parchment, and left around the apartment. 'Help us', they read or 'help Lou', which was unsettling. It was weird enough that they didn't have a young child to write them, but neither did they own a pencil nor parchment between them. 

Donna became paranoid, tearing up the apartment in search of that stash of parchment, because it had to be coming from somewhere! But she never found a single sheet of it, but for that used to write SOS pleas for them to find.

There were other phenomena too, like the statue which rose into the air and fell with a crash while both ladies were nowhere close. Or the little chocolate boot which appeared over Christmas, though everyone swore that they'd not brought it into the students' home.

If it was worrying them, it was downright freaking out Lou. But then he had a whole new dimension occur following the nightmares, which he still hadn't told them about.

There was blood on the doll. Donna found it that way, sitting sedately upon her bed, after she and Angie returned home from college. Three drops of blood on its chest, staining the whiteness of the Raggedy Ann apron; a smear of blood on the back of the doll's hand.

For six weeks, the two women had lived with the movement, the notes, the bizarre levitation and Lou's deep unease. But this seemed different. This finally signaled to the student nurses that they needed help.

Until now the intruder theory had been dominant, but they'd never once found any sign that anyone had been in. None of their markers nor booby traps had ever been triggered. Prepared finally to countenance the supernatural, Donna and Angie contacted a medium.

The psychic visited their low rise apartment and instantly felt a presence. "There was nothing to be scared of," She told them. "It's just a little girl."

Annabelle Higgins had lived close by before any of these buildings were there. She played happily in the fields which had once been on this site. At seven years old, she'd been killed. Her ghost went on playing, and she was still here. A Raggedy Ann doll was such a delightful toy for a child.

Compassion filled the nurses. They wanted to help her. Through the medium, the ghostly girl gave her request: could she 'move into' the doll? Could she possess it?  The answer was an unequivocal 'yes'.

Thereon, it wasn't just a doll. It was Annabelle. She was seven and she wanted to play. The nurses afforded the toy a little more love and attention, but otherwise it was business as usual. Donna left Annabelle on her bed every morning. Each evening it could be anywhere in their apartment. They began to expect it. They addressed the doll by name and inquired after her well-being. Just to be polite.

It never responded verbally. Just stared with unblinking black eyes.

Lou and Angie were in her room, poring over maps in readiness for a trip that he was planning for the next day. Donna was away from the apartment.

Which is why it was so disturbing, when they heard the heavy tread of what sounded like footsteps emanating from her room.

Lou rose from his seat and dashed through to investigate, while Angie held back. Both were convinced he'd find a man in there - a burglar - the steps had seemed to suggest it. But there was nothing. The room was empty, but for Annabelle cast into a corner.

He made his way towards her, always uneasy in her presence. But close by he experienced the overwhelming sensation that someone was standing right behind him, their gaze boring into the back of his head. Lou twisted around. There was nobody there. Then a weight felt about his chest. A series of sharp pains slicing into his skin. He swiveled instantly around. Nobody there!

Annabelle sat undisturbed, yet every instinct rang the knowledge that she was the cause of the grid of scratches now etched into his chest.

There was this that was strange about those wounds too - they healed so fast. Angie and Donna both saw them, treated them, but by the next day they had all gone without trace.

By now, everyone was concerned enough to want this finished. Donna and Angie contacted their local Episcopal priest Father Hegan, whom both women knew well. Unsure how to approach this one, he called in his superior Father Cooke, who in turn brought in Ed and Lorraine Warren.

The couple were noted ghost-hunters and demonologists in the state of Connecticut.

Donna and Angie invited the Warrens into their apartment. Along with Lou, they recounted the story so far. Lorraine Warren, herself a psychic, immediately declared that there was no Annabelle Higgins. But there was a demonic presence and they were only making it stronger with all of the attention.

The students were confused. "There's a demon in the doll?"

"No." Ed clarified. "Demons possess people, not things." It was merely moving the doll around to make it seem haunted. Mostly it was external and still there in their apartment. Upon his urging, the women called Father Cooke, who immediately drove across to join them. He performed an exorcism blessing.

Nevertheless, and perhaps understandably, Donna did not want the Raggedy Ann doll in her home anymore. The Warrens took it away.

Ed recalled how Annabelle sat on a chair beside his desk, so he could observe it while he worked. He caught the doll levitating on more than one occasion, and witnessed a black spirit cat apparently emerging from it.

One day, he left a police officer in his office, while he sought out files in another room. The police officer shrieked bringing them all running. Until now highly skeptical of the supernatural, he seemed shaken to the core. "That doll! It's real!"  He never said what had occurred while he was alone with Annabelle, but it made a believer of him.

The Warrens own Catholic priest was equally disdainful of the toy. Father Jason Bradford picked it up and shook it, warning Annabelle face to face, "You are just a rag doll, Annabelle. You can't hurt anything."  Filled with presentiment dread, Lorraine Warren asked him to take care upon his drive home. Father Bradford's car brakes failed upon that journey. His vehicle was a total wreck, a write off, but he survived.

Unlike the young man, filled with bravado and the wish to impress the lady at his side.

By now, Annabelle's propensity to appear anywhere in the Warren house had caused them to lock her in a purpose built cabinet.  It was placed within their erstwhile storage rooms for occult or  preternaturally tainted items, now a museum of the same. Upon hearing her story, the youth banged upon her cabinet's glass frontage. "Scratch me! If you can scratch, scratch me!"

Nothing happened.

At least nothing happened until the couple were heading home upon their motorbike. The engine seized and it seemed like something took the steering. The young woman was thrown with barely a scratch. Her boyfriend was killed outright.

Annabelle still sits in her bespoke cabinet, only now a legend has been hung upon it - "Warning Positively Do Not Open", and who now would be daft enough to do that?