Originally submitted by LFN member Constantine

Doing research into other areas, I came across the case of Annabelle, the  haunted doll.  This was a case from the 1970’s. The case has a supposedly  haunted Raggedy Ann doll.   The case was attended by two famous demonologists  named Lorraine and Ed Warren. The case was referred to them from an Episcopal priest named Father Cooke. The claims were of two young nurses who had  communicated with what they thought to be a human spirit. There was also a report that one of the girls’ friends had been attacked physically. At the time of the referral activity was still in progress.

 The story starts a bit before, a year before the Warrens were called.  The Mother of the doll’s owner purchased the then antique doll for her daughter’s birthday.  The owner was in college, about to graduate from a nurses program.  She had a small presentment with which she shared with another nurse.  As the doll was the size of a four year old child, she placed it on her bed.  The owner didn’t collect dolls, the gift was more of a novel decoration.

However shortly afterwards the roommates started to notice all was not right with the doll.  It started out small.  The owner would leave the doll sitting on the side of the bed with the arms and legs straight.  When they would come home from work, the arms and legs would be crossed. In her interview with the warrens The client stated:

"I put it on my bed each morning after the bed was made. The arms would be off to its sides and its legs would be straight out-just like it’s sitting there now. But when we’d come home at night, the arms and legs would be positioned in different gestures. For instance, its legs would be
crossed at the ankles, or its arms would be folded in its lap. After a week or so, this made us suspicious. So to test it, I purposely crossed its arms and legs in the morning to see if it really was moving. And sure enough, every night when we’d come back home, the arms and legs would be uncrossed and the thing would be sitting there in any of a dozen different postures." 

This activity continue for some time. Then the activity started to ramp up. The roommate
added:

"The doll also changed rooms by itself. We came home one night and the Annabelle doll was sitting in a chair by the front door. It was kneeling! The funny thing about it was, when we tried to make the doll kneel, it’d just fall over. It couldn’t kneel. Other times we’d find it sitting on the sofa, although when we left the apartment in the morning it’d be in Donna’s room with the door closed!"

Soon afterwards the doll started to communicate with the roommates. The client stated: “It would leave us little notes and messages. The handwriting looked to be that of a small child."  The messages were left on a parchment type paper that the roommates did not have in the house.  The notes meant nothing to the clients.  They would often say HELP US or HELP LOU.  The clients stated “but Lou wasn’t in any kind of jeopardy at the time. And who us was-we didn’t know. Still, the thing that was weird was that the notes would be written in pencil, but when we tried to find one, there was not one pencil in the apartment! And the paper it wrote on was parchment. I tore the apartment apart, looking for parchment paper, but again neither of us had any such thing.’’

The roommates thought that someone might have a door key and were playing tricks on them.  They did little things like put marks on the windows and arrange the rugs so that if any one came in they would be able to tell.  In the world of espionage, these tells are common. Despite their attempt, never once did it turn out to be some joker. One story they related was during the

Christmas season:

 "Christmas, we found a little chocolate boot on the stereo that none of us had bought. Presumably it came from Annabelle"  Another story  "One time a statue lifted up across the room," The client recalled, "then it tumbled in the air and fell on the floor. None of us were near the statue-it was on the other side of the room. That incident frightened us totally." They were still skeptical of the doll being alive and were willing to live with it until one night.

"The Annabelle doll was sitting on Donna’s bed, as was usual. When we came home one night, there was blood on the back of its hand, and there were three drops of blood on its chest!" "God, that really scared us,"  stated the roommates. So they wanted answers.  Not knowing what to do, they got into contact with a medium. The Medium conducted a séance in the home.  The results of which, in the roommates words:  So Angie and I got in touch with a woman who’s a medium. That was about a month, or maybe six weeks after all this stuff started to happen. We learned that a little girl died on this property," Donna told the Warrens. "She was seven years old and her name was Annabelle Higgins. The Annabelle spirit said she played in the fields long ago before these apartments were built. They were happy times for her. She told us. Because everyone around here was grown-up, and only concerned with their jobs, there was no one she could relate to, except us. Annabelle felt that we would be able to understand her. That’s why she began moving the rag doll. All Annabelle wanted was to be loved, and so she asked if she could stay with us and move into the doll. What could we do? So we said yes."  The clients reasoning was "It seemed harmless enough. We’re nurses, you know, we see suffering every day. We
had compassion. Anyway, we called the doll Annabelle from that time on."

Ed warren later summed up the situation. "All right, before you go any further, let’s back up a minute," Ed requested. "First you got the doll for you birthday. After a while the doll began to move – or at least change places enough for you to notice it. This made you curious, so you decided to have a séance, and a spirit came across that called itself Annabelle Higgins. This supposed little girl was seven years old and asked if it could come live with you by possessing the toy doll. You said yes, out of compassion. Then you renamed the doll Annabelle."   Have you seen the ghost of a little girl at any time in this apartment?" Ed asked. "No," both the girls answered.

"Let me ask you something else."

Ed went on. "Didn’t you think that maybe you shouldn’t have given the doll so much recognition?" It wasn’t a doll!" the client corrected him. "It was the spirit of Annabelle we cared about!" "That’s right," said the roommate. Ed added "I mean, before you knew anything about Annabelle?" "How were we to know anything?" the client asked. "But looking back on it now, maybe we shouldn’t have given the doll so much credence. But really, we saw the thing as being no more than a harmless mascot. I t never hurt anything…at least until the other day." "Do you still think what’s moving the doll is the spirit of a little girl?" Lorraine queried. "What else could it be?" the roommate said in reply. "It’s a damn voodoo doll, that’s what it is," Lou blurted out. "I told them about that thing a long time ago. The doll was just taking advantage of them…"

Now we get to Lou.  Lou was a friend of the girls prior to the dolls entrance into the story. Lou awoke one night at this place from a deep sleep and in panic. Once again he had a recurring bad dream. Only this time somehow, something seemed different.  In Lou’s words: “While I was lying there, I saw myself wake up. Something seemed wrong to me. I looked around the room, but nothing was out of place. But then when I looked down toward my feet, I saw the rag doll, Annabelle. It was slowly gliding up my body. It moved over my chest and stopped. Than it put its arms out. One arm touched one side of my neck, the other touched the other side like it was making an electrical connection. Then I saw myself being strangled. I might as well have been pushing on a wall, because it wouldn’t move. It was literally strangling me to death, I couldn’t help myself, no matter how hard I tried."

There were more physical attacks.  He was over the apartment getting ready to take a trip. About 10 or 11 o‘clock Lou and the roommate were reading over maps.  They heard sounds in Donna’s room that made us think that someone had broken into the apartment. Lou tiptoed over to the door, as he did this the sounds stopped. When he switched on the light no one was there, no one except  the Annabelle doll. The doll was tossed on the floor in a corner. Lou went in alone and walked over to the thing to see if anything unusual had happened. Lou recalls:  “But as I got close to the doll, I got the distinct impression that somebody was behind me. I swung around instantly and, well…."

"He won’t talk about that part," said the roommate. "When Lou turned around there wasn’t anybody there, but he suddenly yelled and grabbed for his chest. He was doubled over, cut and bleeding when I got to him. Blood was all over his shirt. Lou was shaking and scared and we went back out into the living room. We then opened his shirt and there on his chest was what looked to be sort a of claw mark!"
 
There were seven cuts in the claw mark.  Three vertical, and four horizontal. The marks were seen by the client as well. Each of the marks hurt like burns, Lou did not lose consciousness, they did not get any pictures.  The wounds healed almost immediately, being gone by the day after.  This is what prompted them to contact a member of the clergy. They contacted an Episcopal priest named Father Hegan.  Father came and listened to the situation and believed it was , in fact a spiritual matter.  At that time he didn’t want to speculate on the situation.  He did contact and refer them to a Father Cooke, who was higher up in the church.

Father also contacted the Warrens, which brings them into the story.  The Warrens, after grueling over the case facts for hours came to the conclusion that the doll itself was not in fact 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 occurred 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 possess a human host. 

They brought in Father Cooke to perform and Exorcism. Ed stated,”To begin with, there is no Annabelle! There never was. You were duped. However, we are dealing with a spirit here. The teleportation of the doll while you were out of the apartment, the appearance of notes written on parchment, the manifestation of three symbolic drops of blood, plus the gestures the doll made are all meaningful. They tell me there was intent, which means there was an intelligence behind the activity. But ghosts, human spirits, plain and simply can’t bring on phenomena of this nature and intensity. They don’t have the power. Instead, what has happened is something inhuman has taken over here. Demonic. Ordinarily people aren’t bothered by inhuman demonic spirits, unless they do something to bring the force into their lives. Your first mistake was to give the doll recognition, that is the reason why the spirit moved into the doll to, draw attention to itself. Once it had your attention, it exploited you, it simply brought you fear and even injury. Inhuman spirits, enjoy inflicting pain, it’s negative. Your next mistake was calling in a medium, The demonic has to somehow get your permission to interfere in your life. Unfortunately, through your own free will, you gave it that permission.

Ed continued the doll is not possessed “Spirits don’t possess things, spirits possess people. Instead, the spirits simply moved the doll around and gave it the illusion of being alive. Now, what happened to Lou earlier this week was bound to occur sooner or later. In fact, you all were in jeopardy of coming under possession by this spirit, this is what the thing was really after. But Lou didn’t believe in the charade, so he was an ongoing threat to the entity. There was bound to be a showdown. Had the spirit been given another week or two, you might have been killed."

Due to the activity, the Warrens concluded they were still in the infestation stage of the phenomenon and that the only way to remove it was thru the power of the exorcism blessing. The Episcopal blessing  does not focus on the expulsion evil entities from the home it instead focus on filling the home with the power of God and positive energy. There was no trouble or mishap during the procedure and upon finishing  Father Cooke blessed the individuals who were present, and declared all was well. Lorraine also confirmed that the apartment and people were free from the inhuman spirit entity. 

At Donna’s request the Warrens took the Raggedy Ann doll along with them. Ed decided it was safer to avoid traveling on the interstate, in case the entity had not been separated from the rag doll. His hunch was correct. In no time at all, Ed and Lorraine felt themselves the object of vicious hatred. Then, at each dangerous curve in the road, their new car began to stall, causing the power steering and breaks to fail. The third time the car stalled along the road, Ed reached into his black bag, took out a vial, and threw a sprinkling of holy water on the rag doll, making the sin of the cross over it. The disturbance in the car stopped immediately, allowing the Warrens to reach home safely.

The activity with Annabelle did not stop with the warrens bringing the doll home.  But that  is a story for another day. The doll still resides at the Warren Occult Museum in Connecticut. If you go, be careful, most of the objects were involved in demonic activity and are the total opposite of holy. One young man person who mocked the doll on a tour, died on a motorcycle accident on his way home.

Andrew Hagerty

Resource:

http://www.nightwatchparanormal.com/annabelle-the-doll.html