4 Famous Haunted Dolls
Let’s face it: Dolls can be really creepy. The older they are, the more rundown they are, the creepier they get, and when you throw a haunting into the mix, dolls can border on terrifying. Here are a few stories of haunted dolls spanning from the beginning of the 20th Century into our modern era. Some you’ve probably heard of, but do you know about them all? Do you know the full extent of their reach into people’s lives, or the real histories behind their movies?
Okiku
In 1918, a 17-year-old boy named Eikichi Suzuki was shopping when he saw a doll that looked exactly like his sister. This doll, known in Japan as a ichimatsu doll, was specifically fashioned to look like a human child. Standing at 16 inches tall and made with human hair, this one just happened to look like his two-year-old sister Okiku, so he purchased it and took it home to her immediately.
Okiku and her doll, which she gave her name, were inseparable until a year later, when Okiku sadly passed from a terrible fever. Her parents put the doll on the family altar to honor her, and soon they learned that the two hadn’t parted ways after all. They noticed that the doll’s hair, once shoulder length in a blunt bob, was now uneven and longer than it was before. The human hair on its head was growing. The family, of course, assumed that Okiku’s spirit had attached to the doll she adored in life. In some more extreme versions of the story, they also experienced poltergeist activity, but from what I can tell, that seems to be added for scare factor.
In 1938, the family decided to move away from their town, and they decided that Okiku should stay behind rather than making the trip with them. As a result, they made the decision to take Okiku to nearby Mannenji Temple in Iwamizawa City. They informed the priests about the doll’s history, and the doll has lived at the temple ever since in a custom shrine built especially for her.
Okiku’s story doesn’t end there, though. Even at the temple, her hair has continued to grow; the priests allow her hair to reach knee length before cutting it to shoulder length again. Pictures surround her shrine of her hair at varying lengths, and at one point, samples of her hair were cut and sent away for testing. They came back as the hair of a child (thought the chain of custody, of course, leaves something to be desired, so there’s no telling if the results are correct or not). Recently, some people even claim that Okiku’s mouth, once closed, is beginning to open, and that small teeth are beginning to sprout where there weren’t any before.
Robert the Doll
Just 14 years before Okiku, another doll was made in another child’s image and given his name. Robert the Doll was handmade by the Steiff Company in 1904 for Robert Eugene Otto, a child living in Key West, Florida, and was likely made to look just like him. Standing at 40 inches tall, the cloth doll was dressed in a sailor suit and had a painted jester’s face that has faded with time. Gene gave the doll his first name because he usually went by Gene, a shortened version of his middle name.
Robert’s activity began early. Whenever Gene would be confronted for misbehaving, he would blame Robert for it; before long, Gene’s parents noticed they could hear a second, different voice responding when Gene would talk to Robert, and that the doll’s facial expressions would sometimes change while they were in the room. Gene took Robert with him everywhere, and the current running theory is that Gene dumped so much of his childhood energy into Robert that it imparted him with some semblance of life.
After Gene’s parents died, he and his wife Anne moved into his childhood home. Robert was still there, too, but Anne couldn’t stand the doll, so Gene promised her he’d lock his childhood friend away in the attic. Robert didn’t take too kindly to that; visitors would hear footsteps crisscrossing the attic, and sometimes children would catch Robert staring out the attic window at them, or even mocking them through it. The activity continued even after Gene died; the footsteps and sightings continued, and at one point, a plumber turned to find Robert had moved around the room of his own volition. When one man badmouthed Gene in Robert’s presence, Robert’s facial expression twisted with disdain.
In 1974, a woman named Myrtle Reuter bought the house and became Robert’s companion by default. She took Robert with her when she moved out in 1980, and by 1994, Robert had grown to be too much for her; she donated him to the Fort East Martello Museum and warned them that he moved around her house on his own. Myrtle died a few months later, and Robert has been at the museum ever since, still exerting his energy over visitors to the museum. Cameras often malfunction in his presence, and you must ask permission to take Robert’s photo, or he’ll exact his revenge. To this day, apologetic letters are hung up in the museum, sent in by visitors who didn’t ask Robert’s permission and lived to regret it.
Peggy the Doll
Peggy is by far the newest doll on the Haunted Objects scene, but she’s certainly made an impact already. Her origin is largely unclear, but she first appeared in 2014 when Jayne Harris, a British woman who ran a website called Haunted Dolls, posted photos and videos of Peggy online. Peggy was given to Jayne by her previous owner who had bought the doll at a sale. Almost immediately, she started experiencing paranormal activity in her home; she’d hear footsteps at night and wake up at 3 am to something in her room. As her health started to suffer, she called in a priest to bless the house twice, but nothing happened. Peggy continued to make things worse, so the woman googled “Haunted Objects” and discovered Jayne Harris’s website.
After Jayne posted the first photos of Peggy, people started emailing in with health issues of their own. People reported panic attacks, migraines, and nausea, and one woman named Katrin Reedik even had a heart attack just minutes after watching Peggy’s video. Computers froze on her photo, lightbulbs blew out, and rooms went cold. Even while researching this article, I felt nauseous; Morgan, owner of Inked Goddess Creations, has seen Peggy in person, and though she went with four skeptics, every single one of them followed the instructions to the letter.
It’s no surprise that Zak Bagans took an instant interest in Peggy. He first showed her on his show Deadly Possessions where he interviewed Jayne and made Katrin confront Peggy for the final time. She now resides in his Haunted Museum, and guests are instructed to say hello when they enter, goodbye when they leave, and not to look her in the eye.
Annabelle
The Conjuring movies have undoubtedly made Annabelle the most famous haunted doll in existence, but contrary to what they would have you believe, Annabelle is actually a Raggedy Ann doll, not a creepy cracked porcelain one. Despite her unassuming appearance, though, Annabelle is not one to be underestimated.
Purchased in 1970 as a graduation gift, Annabelle found a home with nurse Donna and her roommate Angie. Immediately after coming home, Annabelle started moving. At first, the changes were slight, just small shifts in her position while nobody was looking, but soon, they found her in completely different rooms, crossing her legs, standing on her own two feet, or behind closed doors. The girls started to find the handwriting of a small child on parchment paper they didn’t own; the writing read “Help Us” or sometimes “Help Lou”. Lou was Angie and Donna’s friend, and he had a contentious relationship with Annabelle from the second the two met. He was convinced she was evil and should be removed from the house, and his gut instinct was proved correct when he spent the night at the apartment. He experience sleep paralysis that night, during which Annabelle drifted up onto his chest and suffocated him until he blacked out.
Annabelle’s behavior continued to escalate. Donna woke up one night to the doll sitting on her bed beside her, covered in tiny droplets of blood, and that was her final straw. She called in a medium to conduct a seance. According to the medium, Annabelle lived on the property before the apartments had been constructed; she was murdered at seven years old and had attached to the doll because she was looking for a physical form. Donna told Annabelle she was welcome to inhabit the doll and live in the apartment with them.
That turned out to be a mistake. Annabelle continued to get worse, and at one point, Lou was scratched to the point of drawing blood by something he couldn’t see after he chased Annabelle into a room. On his back were three vertical and four horizontal claw marks that healed completely within two days. Realizing something was wrong, Donna brought in a priest who contacted another priest who contact Ed and Lorraine Warren of the Conjuring fame. The Warrens concluded that Annabelle had lied about her origin; she wasn’t a little girl, but instead was an inhuman (possible demonic) presence that was manipulating the doll. Donna had given that presence a foothold in her life when she gave it permission to live in her home, and Annabelle was currently in her “infestation” stage with the end goal of possessing a human host.
The Warrens “filled the house with the presence of God” and took Annabelle with them when they left. On the drive home, the presence manipulating the doll tried to crash the car; the power steering and the brakes both failed, and she continued to mess with the car until Ed doused her with holy water. Annabelle continued haunting their home as well; she’d be locked away in the office just to reappear in Ed’s easy chair. Before long, the Warrens realized they needed to construct a special box to hold her, but that didn’t stop her from exerting her influence over other people. She absolutely despised clergymen, crashing one man’s car in the middle of an intersection after he told her she was incapable of hurting anybody. Legend says she also killed a motorcyclist and badly injured his girlfriend after they taunted her to her face and all the way home; and, of course, there’s the recent death of Dan Rivera, who was touring with Annabelle. It’s hard to say just how much is the presence and just how much is coincidence, but one thing’s for sure: It all makes a great story.