Haunted America & Annabelle The Haunted Doll: A Terrifying Case

There are some down right freekishly scary things that reside in this world. Some well know and some not so. Whether you believe in the supernatural or not, many of the reported cases of paranormal activity still seem to intrigue and mystify. Hauntings are most usually related to places, houses, or cemetaries, sometimes even people, but what if an object other than these is reportedly haunted? Say a supposedly simple, benign doll for instance. Would you believe?

Annabelle was the focus of a case that famed paranormal investigators Ed and Lorraine Warren took part in during the early 1970's and is highlighted in the book The Demonologist. It has been stated that this is one of the most unusual cases of a possessed object on record.


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 appearantly moved on its own, realtively unoticible movements at first, like a change in position, but as time passed the movement became more noticible. 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.

Apparently 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 writting 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 came home to find the doll had moved again, this time it was on her bed. Donna had come to find that this was typical of the doll but some how she knew this time it was different, something wasn't right. A sense of fear came over her when she inspected the doll and saw what looked like blood drops on the back of its hands and its chest. Seamingly, from no where, a liquidy red substance had appeared on the doll. Scared and desperate Donna and Angie decide it was time to seek expert advice.

Not knowing where to turn they contcated a medium and a seance was held. Donna was then introduced to the spirit of Annabelle Higgins. The medium related the story of Annabell to both Donna and Angie. Annabelle was a young girl that resided on the property before the apartments were built. She was a young girl of only seven years old when her lifeless body was found in the field upon which the apartment complex now stands. The spirit related to the medium that she felt comfort with Donna and Angie and wanted to stay with them by moving into the doll. Feeling compassion for Annabell and her story Donna gave her permission to inhibit the doll and stay. They were to soon find out however, that Annabelle was not what she seemed.

Lou was friends with Donna and Angie and had been with them since the day the doll arrived. Lou had never been fond of the doll and on several occasions warned Donna that it was evil and to get rid it of it. Donna had a compassionate tie to the doll and not giving much credence to Lous' feelings kept it. Donnas' decision, it turns out, was a terrible mistake.

Lou awoke one night from a deep sleep and in panic. Once again he had a reoccuring bad dream. Only this time somehow, something seemed different. It was as though he was awake but couldn't move. He looked around the room but couldn't discern anything out of the ordinary and then it happened. Looking down toward his feet he saw the doll, Annabell. It began to slowly glide up his leg, moved over his chest and then stopped. Within seconds the doll was strangling him. Paralyzed and gasping for breath Lou, at the point of asphysxiation, blacked out. Lou awoke the next morning, certain it wasn't a dream, Lou was determined to rid himself of that doll and the spirit that possesed it. Lou, however, would have one more terrifying experince with Annabell.

Preparing for a road trip the next day Lou and Angie were reading over maps alone in her apartment. The apartment seemed eerily quiet. Suddenly, rustling sounds coming from Donnas room aroused fear that someone had possibly broken into the apartment. Lou determined to figure out who or what it was quietly made his way to the bedroom door. He waited for the noises to stop before entering and turning on the light. The room was empty except for Annabell whom was tossed on the floor in the corner. Lou scoured the room for forced entry but nothing was out of place. But as he got close to the doll he got the destinct impression that somebody was behind him. Spinning around he was quick to realize that nobody else was there. Then in flash he found himself grabbing for his chest, doubled over, cut and bleeding. His shirt was stained with blood and upon opening his shirt there on his chest was what looked to be 7 distinct claw marks.

Donna finally was willing to believe the spirit in the house was not that of a young girls but inhuman and demonic in nature. After Lous' experiences Donna felt it was time to seek real expert advice and contacted an Episcopal priest named Father Hegan. Father Hegan referred their case to Ed and Lorraine Warren.

Ed and Lorraine Warren immediatly took interest in the case and contacted Donna concerning the doll. The Warrens, after grueling over the case facts for hours came to the conclusion that the doll itself was not infact possessed but haunted. Spirits do not possess inanimate objects like houses or toys, they posses people. A spirit will attach itself to an object and this is what occured in the Annabelle case. The spirit moved the doll around and created the illusion of it being alive. Truly, the spirit was not looking to stay attached to the doll, it was looking to posses a human host.

The spirit or in this case an inhuman demonic spirit, was essentially in the infestation stage of the phenomenom. It first began moving the doll around the apartment by means of teleportation to arouse the occupants curiosity in hopes that they would make the predictable mistake of bringing a medium into the appartment to comunicate with it. Which the girls did. Now able to communicate through the medium, the entity preyed on the girls emotional vulnerabilities by pretending to be a rather harmless young girl with which, during the seance, managed to extract permission from Donna to haunt the apartment. Insofar as demonic is a negative spirit, it then set about causing patently negative phenomena to occur; it aroused fear through the weird movements of that doll, it brought about the materialization of disturbing handwritten notes, it left a residue of blood on the doll, and ultimately it even struck the Lou on the chest, leaving behind claw marks. The next stage of the phenomenom would have been complete human possesion. Had these experiences lasted another 2 or 3 weeks the spirit would have completely possesed if not harmed or killed one or all of the occupants in the house.

At the conclusion of the investigatio the Warrens felt it appropriate to have a recitation of an excorcism bleesing by a priest to cleanse the apartment. "The Episcopal blessing of the home is a wordy, seven page document that is distinctly positive in nature. Rather than specifically expelling evil entities from the dwelling, the emphasis is instead directed toward filling the home with the power of the positive and of God." (Ed Warren). At Donna’s request, and as a further precaution against the phenomena ever occurring in the home again, the Warrens took the big rag doll along with them when they left.

For the next few days, after the Warrens arrived home, Ed sat the doll in a chair next to his desk. The doll levitated a number of times in the beginning, then it seemed to fall inert. During the ensuing weeks, however, it began showing up in various rooms of the house. When the Warrens were away and had the doll locked up in the outer office building, they would often return to find it sitting comfortably upstairs in Ed’s easy chair when they opened the main front door. Although the phenomenom was the same as that which had occured in the apartment neither Lorraine nor Ed were ever physically attacked.

I hope you enjoyed this article and should you ever want to visit the famous Annabell she can be found at the Warren Occult Museum in Moodus, Conneticut. The museum is run by Lorraine Warren, the famous paranormal investigator, and now frequent guest on the television show "Paranormal State". Housed in a glass case at the museum you will find Annabell. Mrs. Warren relates that Annabell still moves about occasionally and is still kown to make growling noises at unsuspecting visitors.