There is a house in Connecticut belonging to a pair of the most famous paranormal investigators
in the world.
They have tackled countless cases of the supernatural, and taken the most dangerous objects they’ve
found and placed them in a museum.
You can look around, but there’s one exhibit everyone gives a wide berth.
It’s surrounded by warnings not to touch, and if you talk to anyone they’ll tell you
it’s the exhibit they’re the most scared of.
But it doesn’t look like much.
It’s an old, worn doll from the popular Raggedy Ann line of ragdolls.
But this doll has a long, haunted history.
And her name is Annabelle.
You probably know the name Annabelle from a popular series of movies, called The Conjuring
Universe and based on the adventures of real-life paranormal investigators Ed and Lorraine Warren.
The Warrens have since passed on, but their legacy is only growing thanks to their museum
and the movies based on their lives.
The Conjuring Universe has released seven films with three more planned, but few creatures
and objects from it have captured people’s imagination more than Annabelle.
The haunted doll was the first spinoff from the series, but she was very different there.
The filmmaker couldn’t use Raggedy Ann without the license, so they created a new porcelain
doll to represent Annabelle, and she was no less dangerous.
But the real Annabelle is safely locked up in Connecticut, where she can’t hurt anyone
- right?
Annabelle is just a doll, and many people don’t think there’s much to fear.
But the story of how she wound up at the Warren’s tells a very different story.
And that’s why they’re careful to make sure she doesn’t get away.
But how could a doll even escape?
Unlike other famous evil dolls like Chucky from the Child’s Play series, she’s not
mobile - although she’s been said to move unpredictably, that’s stopped once she was
put in a glass cage at the Warren museum.
Mostly.
But could the dangerous doll make her escape again and wreak havoc?
Right now, as long as people follow instructions, the danger seems to be minimal.
It’s not easy to escape a locked glass cage.
Keeping her locked up is easy.
Getting her locked up again...much more difficult.
To see how difficult, we’ve got to look back at how she got locked up in that cage
in the first place.
She might not look like much, but her unfortunate roommates found out just how dangerous she
could be.
The year was 1970 when the Warrens got the call that would be their defining case.
A young nurse named Donna celebrated her 28th birthday, and as a gift from her mother she
received the doll that would become Annabelle.
The significance of the doll is unknown, but Donna loved it and brought it home to the
apartment she shared with another nurse, Angie.
They put it on the sofa in their living room, and she cheered up their apartment a little.
She would be waiting as a dose of whimsy whenever they or a visitor entered the house.
There was just one problem.
Annabelle never seemed to stay where they put her.
They would put her in her spot on the sofa before leaving for work, and then she would
be somewhere else - somewhere impossible, like behind a locked door.
But that was just the start, as they soon started finding notes around the home saying
“Help Me”.
Was it some sort of prank?
Making it more creepy, the notes were written on parchment paper - which the women didn’t
even have in their apartment!
Annabelle was acting weirder and weirder, and the women were starting to become uncomfortable
having the doll in their home.
But the odd doll wasn’t hurting anyone.
That was about to change.
Annabelle did not like visitors.
Angie’s boyfriend, Lou, would come and go in the apartment since Angie had given him
a key.
One day, he was in and heard someone in her room.
He decided to check - and found only the doll on the floor.
He turned to leave - and suddenly felt a sharp pain on his chest.
When he looked under his shirt, he found bloody claw marks, as if he had been attacked by
a wild animal.
But there was no one else in the room - and making things even stranger, he reported that
the claw marks vanished without a trace in only two days.
Was Lou attacked by a demonic force?
Did he hallucinate the whole thing?
Or was it a supernatural force making him think he was attacked?
The women were getting more and more scared.
It was time to call for help.
They called in a local medium first, and she claimed the doll was inhabited by the spirit
of a seven-year-old girl named Annabelle Higgins whose body was found on the site.
She told them the spirit was peaceful and just wanted to be loved, and they should leave
the doll in their home and treat it well.
That did not cause the supernatural occurrences to decrease - in fact, they got worse.
The women called local priests for help to do an exorcism, and the priest got in contact
with the Warrens.
The paranormal investigators believed the doll was not a benevolent spirit.
It was something much more dangerous.
The Warrens had done multiple exorcisms and they saw the telltale signs of demonic possession
- teleporting, threatening notes, and seemingly impossible attacks on intruders.
They brought a priest with them, and the priest blessed the women’s apartment and claimed
it was cleansed of any demonic energy.
The Warrens felt the doll was still a possible danger, and volunteered to take it home with
them.
This would lead to the most dangerous car ride of their lives.
Whatever was inside Annabelle, it was far from gone.
As soon as they put the doll in the backseat, strange things seemed to happen.
The car itself seemed possessed, as the power steering and brakes would turn off - not randomly,
but at the points that would be most dangerous, like when they would be driving in narrow
curves.
The doll was trying to kill them, and the only way they were able to get home was by
sprinkling holy water around the doll.
They were able to get the doll home and lock it up, seemingly ending its threat.
After all, what could a doll do from behind a glass cage?
It turns out, a lot.
Annabelle has not been out of her cage since, despite debunked rumors that she’s escaped.
But that doesn’t mean she’s unable to hurt people.
Many rumors abound that getting too close to her can cause bad - often fatal - luck.
Annabelle seems to have a special hatred for religious figures, and when a visiting priest
mocked her and claimed she was a hoax, he may have found out just how wrong he was.
His brakes mysteriously went out on the way home, and he was nearly killed in a car accident.
The Warrens were always very careful about keeping people away from the cage with many
warnings that Annabelle wasn’t to be trifled with.
Most people obeyed.
One man didn’t - and paid the price.
A rowdy young man visited the museum one day, and despite the warnings, didn’t seem to
be scared of the supernatural forces in the exhibits at all.
He went so far as to get close up to Annabelle’s cage, laugh at her, and even knock on her
cage.
The staff immediately asked him to leave, and he and his girlfriend got on his motorcycle
- and on the way home, he lost control of the bike and hit a tree.
She survived, but he was killed instantly.
The Warrens believe this was Annabelle’s first murder.
As long as Annabelle stays locked up and people respect the rules, it’s unlikely she’ll
hurt anyone else - but what if she didn’t stay locked up?
Earlier this year, rumors started to circulate that she was on the loose and had escaped
the occult museum in Connecticut.
A killer doll on the loose would make sense for 2020, but there were a few problems with
the idea.
First up, the museum isn’t currently open since the death of Lorraine Warren, and son-in-law
Tony Spera has yet to reopen it.
Second...it’s an inanimate object!
It can’t escape on its own.
In the decades the Annabelle doll has been locked up, no one has seen it move.
The only way it could escape is with help.
Annabelle is a collector’s item, and one that would likely sell for millions on the
black market.
This makes the closed museum an inviting target for thieves.
That’s where the biggest danger for an unleashed Annabelle comes from.
Say a black market artifacts dealer decided to try to make his name by grabbing the most
dangerous doll in history.
He would break into the closed museum, and all it would take was a crowbar to free Annabelle
from her glass prison.
How much danger could she do on the loose?
History shows, maybe a lot.
But there’s an equally good chance that the danger would be confined entirely to one
person - the unfortunate man who decided it was a good idea to steal her.
When confined to a home, Annabelle seems to have many powers.
She can teleport, she can write on parchment and leave clues, and she may even be able
to attack people with psychic claws.
But she seems to be far more dangerous in a moving vehicle.
She can alter the vehicle’s movement and cause accidents.
So if the thief wanted to get home alive so he could sell the doll, he’d better be prepared
- with holy water and the same rituals that the Warrens used to transport the doll in
1970.
A non-believer who just wanted the money would likely find themselves wrapped around a tree.
A smart thief, though, could lead to the doll doing a lot of damage.
Say the thief came prepared.
He snatched Annabelle and put her in a box treated with holy water, and was able to transport
her home before he arranged a sale.
There’s no report of Annabelle being able to escape a glass box, so he would likely
be safe - but that can’t be said for anyone who paid the hefty price she would command
on the black market.
Unless the buyer was as well-versed in demonic possession as the Warrens, they would likely
take the doll’s powers lightly.
If they made it home, they would wind up with the same supernatural phenomena that Donna
and Angie experienced - the doll teleporting, leaving them creepy messages, and maybe even
hurting visitors.
That could lead anyone to try to get rid of her.
And that’s where Annabelle’s biggest danger lies.
The doll never seems to appear exactly where it’s supposed to be.
So if someone decided to dump the doll, it’s very possible it could find its way out of
a garbage can and into view of a little girl who wanted to take it home.
And the cycle begins again.
Would the next family know who to call to get rid of the threat?
Or would they call the police instead to try to get rid of this threat?
That conversation is likely to go well.
“Officers, I need your help to remove an evil doll from my home”.
The odds are the family would be left to their own devices unless they knew a local medium
or religious figure who could help.
And even if the police believed them, that might just be the beginning.
The police deal in facts, and they aren’t experienced in dealing with the supernatural.
However, Annabelle is a highly expensive stolen object, and if a family came into possession
of it, the police would be interested.
They’d take the doll into their possession, take it to their station, and file it as stolen
property.
While they tried to get ahold of the rightful owner, the doll would be left alone in the
station - in the same place as countless pieces of evidence, weapons belonging to both the
police and those confiscated from criminals, and surrounded by both dozens of officers
and the many people being held in the cells.
If Annabelle wound up in a police station, there’s no telling the kind of chaos she
could cause.
Should we be on the lookout for Annabelle, coming to a neighborhood near you?
Probably not.
Tony Spera has posted recent footage proving that she’s right where she belongs in the
closed Warren museum.
While a theft is possible, the valuable objects within are guarded well until they can reopen
to the public.
And even if she was taken, the doll is famous enough that the odds are any theft would be
quickly followed up on not only by the police but by people well versed in her threat to
contain her safely.
And that’s assuming everything about her story is true.
The original story took place fifty years ago, and the people who witnessed it are either
dead or can’t be reached.
And the Priest and motorcyclist’s accidents could have been tragic coincidences.
But just to be safe, if you see a stray Raggedy Ann doll hanging around where it shouldn’t
be, it’s probably best to handle with care.
Or just keep on walking.
Now check out “Real Story of Demon Possession”, for more strange supernatural phenomenon or
watch this video instead.