Robert the Haunted Doll
Most haunted doll collectors and paranormal fanatics are familiar with this story.
The doll, which is allegedly cursed, has become a fixture of ghost tours in the Key West area since it was inducted into the Fort East Martello Museum. Aesthetically, Robert resembles an early 20th century American Naval officer. Contrary to popular belief, however, the doll's hair is not made of human hair, but rather, it consists of a synthetic material resembling wool yarn.
Eugene was given the doll in 1906 by a Bahamian servant who was skilled in black magic and voodoo and was displeased with the family. Soon afterward, it became clear that there was something eerie about the doll. Eugene's parents said they often heard him talking to the doll and that the doll appeared to be talking back. Although at first they assumed that Eugene was simply answering himself in a changed voice, they later believed that the doll was actually speaking.
Neighbors claimed to see the doll moving from window to window when the family was out. The Otto family swore that sometimes the doll would emit a terrifying giggle and that they caught glimpses of it running from room to room. In the night Eugene would scream, and when his parents ran to the room, they would find furniture knocked over and Eugene in bed, looking incredibly scared, telling them that "Robert did it!". In addition, guests swore that they saw Robert's expression change before their eyes.
When Eugene died in 1974, the doll was left in the attic until the house was bought again. The new family included a ten-year old girl, who became Robert's new owner. It was not long before the girl began screaming out in the night, claiming that Robert moved about the room and even attempted to attack her on multiple occasions. More than thirty years later, she still tells interviewers that the doll was alive and wanted to kill her.
The doll is annually rotated to the Old Post Office and Customhouse in October, with the museum staff claiming that strange activity in the museum increases during such times.
The doll made an appearance at Taps CON, a paranormal convention held in Clearwater, Florida in May 2008. This was the first time that it had left Key West, Florida in the 104 (at the time) years of its existence.
For individuals who visit Robert in the Fort East Martello Museum and wish to take a picture of him, according to legend, the person must ask the doll politely. If he does not agree (by tipping his head to one side), and the individual takes a picture anyway, the doll will curse the person and their family.
Most haunted doll collectors and paranormal fanatics are familiar with this story.
The doll, which is allegedly cursed, has become a fixture of ghost tours in the Key West area since it was inducted into the Fort East Martello Museum. Aesthetically, Robert resembles an early 20th century American Naval officer. Contrary to popular belief, however, the doll's hair is not made of human hair, but rather, it consists of a synthetic material resembling wool yarn.
Eugene was given the doll in 1906 by a Bahamian servant who was skilled in black magic and voodoo and was displeased with the family. Soon afterward, it became clear that there was something eerie about the doll. Eugene's parents said they often heard him talking to the doll and that the doll appeared to be talking back. Although at first they assumed that Eugene was simply answering himself in a changed voice, they later believed that the doll was actually speaking.
Neighbors claimed to see the doll moving from window to window when the family was out. The Otto family swore that sometimes the doll would emit a terrifying giggle and that they caught glimpses of it running from room to room. In the night Eugene would scream, and when his parents ran to the room, they would find furniture knocked over and Eugene in bed, looking incredibly scared, telling them that "Robert did it!". In addition, guests swore that they saw Robert's expression change before their eyes.
When Eugene died in 1974, the doll was left in the attic until the house was bought again. The new family included a ten-year old girl, who became Robert's new owner. It was not long before the girl began screaming out in the night, claiming that Robert moved about the room and even attempted to attack her on multiple occasions. More than thirty years later, she still tells interviewers that the doll was alive and wanted to kill her.
The doll is annually rotated to the Old Post Office and Customhouse in October, with the museum staff claiming that strange activity in the museum increases during such times.
The doll made an appearance at Taps CON, a paranormal convention held in Clearwater, Florida in May 2008. This was the first time that it had left Key West, Florida in the 104 (at the time) years of its existence.
For individuals who visit Robert in the Fort East Martello Museum and wish to take a picture of him, according to legend, the person must ask the doll politely. If he does not agree (by tipping his head to one side), and the individual takes a picture anyway, the doll will curse the person and their family.
Annabelle the Haunted Doll
This is the story of a Raggedy Ann doll named Annabelle.
Annabelle was the focus of a case that famed paranormal investigators Ed and Lorraine Warren took part in during the early 1970s 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 roommate Angie (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. Within that time, both Donna and Angie noticed that there appeared to be something very strange and creepy about the doll.
The doll apparently moved on its own, relatively unnoticeable movements at first, like a change in position, but as time passed the movement became more noticeable. 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 writing 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 somehow 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. Seemingly, from nowhere, a red liquid 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 contacted a medium and a séance was held. Donna was then introduced to the spirit of Annabelle Higgins. The medium related the story of Annabelle 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 Annabelle 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 Lou’s feelings, kept it. Donna’s decision, it turns out, was a terrible mistake.
Lou awoke one night from a deep sleep and in panic. Once again he had a recurring 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, Annabelle. 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 asphyxiation, blacked out. Lou awoke the next morning, certain it wasn't a dream, and Lou was determined to rid himself of that doll and the spirit that possessed it. Lou, however, would have one more terrifying experience with Annabelle.
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 Donna’s room roused fear that someone had possibly broken into the apartment. Lou, determined to figure out whom 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 Annabelle, 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 distinct 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 were what appeared to be 7 distinct claw marks.
Donna finally was willing to believe the spirit in the house was not that of a young girl, but inhuman and demonic in nature. After Lou’s' 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 immediately 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, in fact possessed, but haunted. Spirits do not possess inanimate objects like houses or toys, they possess 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.
The spirit, or in this case, an inhuman demonic spirit, was essentially in the infestation stage of the phenomenon. 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 apartment to communicate 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 séance, managed to extract permission from Donna to haunt the apartment. Insofar, as demon is a negative spirit, it then set about causing patently negative phenomena to occur; it roused 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 phenomenon would have been complete human possession. Had these experiences lasted another 2 or 3 weeks the spirit would have completely possessed, if not harmed or killed one or all of the occupants in the house.
At the conclusion of the investigation, the Warrens felt it appropriate to have a recitation of an exorcism blessing 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, and 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 phenomenon was the same as that which had occurred in the apartment neither Lorraine nor Ed were ever physically attacked.
This is the story of a Raggedy Ann doll named Annabelle.
Annabelle was the focus of a case that famed paranormal investigators Ed and Lorraine Warren took part in during the early 1970s 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 roommate Angie (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. Within that time, both Donna and Angie noticed that there appeared to be something very strange and creepy about the doll.
The doll apparently moved on its own, relatively unnoticeable movements at first, like a change in position, but as time passed the movement became more noticeable. 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 writing 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 somehow 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. Seemingly, from nowhere, a red liquid 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 contacted a medium and a séance was held. Donna was then introduced to the spirit of Annabelle Higgins. The medium related the story of Annabelle 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 Annabelle 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 Lou’s feelings, kept it. Donna’s decision, it turns out, was a terrible mistake.
Lou awoke one night from a deep sleep and in panic. Once again he had a recurring 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, Annabelle. 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 asphyxiation, blacked out. Lou awoke the next morning, certain it wasn't a dream, and Lou was determined to rid himself of that doll and the spirit that possessed it. Lou, however, would have one more terrifying experience with Annabelle.
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 Donna’s room roused fear that someone had possibly broken into the apartment. Lou, determined to figure out whom 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 Annabelle, 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 distinct 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 were what appeared to be 7 distinct claw marks.
Donna finally was willing to believe the spirit in the house was not that of a young girl, but inhuman and demonic in nature. After Lou’s' 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 immediately 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, in fact possessed, but haunted. Spirits do not possess inanimate objects like houses or toys, they possess 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.
The spirit, or in this case, an inhuman demonic spirit, was essentially in the infestation stage of the phenomenon. 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 apartment to communicate 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 séance, managed to extract permission from Donna to haunt the apartment. Insofar, as demon is a negative spirit, it then set about causing patently negative phenomena to occur; it roused 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 phenomenon would have been complete human possession. Had these experiences lasted another 2 or 3 weeks the spirit would have completely possessed, if not harmed or killed one or all of the occupants in the house.
At the conclusion of the investigation, the Warrens felt it appropriate to have a recitation of an exorcism blessing 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, and 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 phenomenon was the same as that which had occurred in the apartment neither Lorraine nor Ed were ever physically attacked.
The Curse of the Crying Boy Painting
A very famous cursed painting , which is very unlucky for anyone to hang in their homes , it is associated with fire.
The Spanish artist J Bragolin (who also went by aliases Franchot Seville and Bruno Amadio)was said to have painted a deaf and dumb Spanish street urchin by the name of Don Bonillo, who would have been between three and five years old at the time.
It is thought that Bragolin found the child wondering around the streets of Madrid.
The orphan boy had run away after seeing his parents die in a blaze and never spoke again. And because wherever he settled, fires would mysteriously break out, he became known to the locals as Diablo or devil.
Warned by a Catholic priest that the boy was jinxed, Bragolin nevertheless insisted on painting the boy and is rumoured to have tried beating the curse out of him.
When the artist's studio burnt down in a blaze he blamed the orphan boy, and Bragolin's career was likewise jinxed for evermore. For nobody would buy his paintings again after this.
It is thought that 19-year-old Don Bonillo later died in a car accident when the car he was in exploded into flames. Nobody came forward to claim his body.
These crying boy paintings were later mass reproduced in the 1980's and were readily available in places like Woolworths and Boots.
The curse of the crying boy began in Yorkshire, September 1985 when over 50 mysterious house fires were thought to have been caused by the paranormal painting. In most cases the houses were completely destroyed and only the painting remained untouched. There are a lot of myths surrounding the curse but what we do know for sure is the crying boy was a mass produced painting thought to be popular with the kind of people who left chip pans on and who discarded lit cigarette ends. It is thought that the paintings didn't burn becasue they were printed on compressed hardboard and hard to ignite. Even so, there is not a firefighter in Yorkshire who will allow one in his/her home.
A very famous cursed painting , which is very unlucky for anyone to hang in their homes , it is associated with fire.
The Spanish artist J Bragolin (who also went by aliases Franchot Seville and Bruno Amadio)was said to have painted a deaf and dumb Spanish street urchin by the name of Don Bonillo, who would have been between three and five years old at the time.
It is thought that Bragolin found the child wondering around the streets of Madrid.
The orphan boy had run away after seeing his parents die in a blaze and never spoke again. And because wherever he settled, fires would mysteriously break out, he became known to the locals as Diablo or devil.
Warned by a Catholic priest that the boy was jinxed, Bragolin nevertheless insisted on painting the boy and is rumoured to have tried beating the curse out of him.
When the artist's studio burnt down in a blaze he blamed the orphan boy, and Bragolin's career was likewise jinxed for evermore. For nobody would buy his paintings again after this.
It is thought that 19-year-old Don Bonillo later died in a car accident when the car he was in exploded into flames. Nobody came forward to claim his body.
These crying boy paintings were later mass reproduced in the 1980's and were readily available in places like Woolworths and Boots.
The curse of the crying boy began in Yorkshire, September 1985 when over 50 mysterious house fires were thought to have been caused by the paranormal painting. In most cases the houses were completely destroyed and only the painting remained untouched. There are a lot of myths surrounding the curse but what we do know for sure is the crying boy was a mass produced painting thought to be popular with the kind of people who left chip pans on and who discarded lit cigarette ends. It is thought that the paintings didn't burn becasue they were printed on compressed hardboard and hard to ignite. Even so, there is not a firefighter in Yorkshire who will allow one in his/her home.
MANDY THE HAUNTED DOLL
Mandy the Haunted Doll lives at the Quesnel Museum, which is located on the Old Cariboo Gold Rush Trail in British Columbia. There she is just one of over thirty thousand artifacts on display for the public, but there is little doubt that she is the most unique.
Mandy was donated to the museum in 1991. At that time her clothing was dirty, her body was ripped and her head was full of cracks. At that time she was estimated to be over ninety years old. The saying around the museum is, “She may seem like an ordinary antique doll, but she is much more than that.”
The woman who donated Mandy, also called Mereanda, told the museum curator that she would wake up in the middle of the night hearing a baby crying from the basement. When she investigated, she would find a window near the doll open where it had previously been closed and the curtains blowing in the breeze. The donor later told the curator that after the doll was given to the museum, she was no longer disturbed by the sounds of a baby crying in the night.
Some say Mandy has unusual powers. Many speculate that the doll has acquired these powers over the years, but since little is known of the doll’s history nothing can be said for certain. What is certain is the unusual effect she seems to have on everyone around her.
As soon as Mandy arrived at the museum, staff and volunteers began to have weird and unexplainable experiences. Lunches would disappear from the refrigerator and later be found tucked away in a drawer; footsteps were heard when no one was around; pens, books, photos and many other small items would go missing – some were never found and some turned up later. The staff passed these events off as absent-mindedness, but this did not account for everything.
Mandy did not have a permanent “home” inside the museum when she first arrived. She was placed in the museum entranceway, facing the public, and visitors would stare and talk about the doll with the cracked and broken face and sinister smile. Eventually, Mandy was moved to another part of the museum where she was carefully placed alone in a display case because museum staff had been told that she should not be placed with other dolls because she would harm them.
Since her permanent placement there have been many stories about encounters with the haunted doll. One visitor was videotaping Mandy only to have the camera light go on and off every 5 seconds. When the visitor’s camera was turned on another exhibit, it functioned just fine. (It is interesting to note that the same thing often happens when visitors try to photograph Robert the Doll in his Key West museum home.)
Some visitors are very disturbed by the doll’s eyes, which they say appear to follow them around the room. Others claim to have seen the doll actually blink, and still others say they have seen the doll in one position and minutes later she will appear to have moved.
Although they’re used to it by now, museum staff and volunteers still prefer not to be the last one working or locking up the museum at the end of the day.
Mandy the Haunted Doll lives at the Quesnel Museum, which is located on the Old Cariboo Gold Rush Trail in British Columbia. There she is just one of over thirty thousand artifacts on display for the public, but there is little doubt that she is the most unique.
Mandy was donated to the museum in 1991. At that time her clothing was dirty, her body was ripped and her head was full of cracks. At that time she was estimated to be over ninety years old. The saying around the museum is, “She may seem like an ordinary antique doll, but she is much more than that.”
The woman who donated Mandy, also called Mereanda, told the museum curator that she would wake up in the middle of the night hearing a baby crying from the basement. When she investigated, she would find a window near the doll open where it had previously been closed and the curtains blowing in the breeze. The donor later told the curator that after the doll was given to the museum, she was no longer disturbed by the sounds of a baby crying in the night.
Some say Mandy has unusual powers. Many speculate that the doll has acquired these powers over the years, but since little is known of the doll’s history nothing can be said for certain. What is certain is the unusual effect she seems to have on everyone around her.
As soon as Mandy arrived at the museum, staff and volunteers began to have weird and unexplainable experiences. Lunches would disappear from the refrigerator and later be found tucked away in a drawer; footsteps were heard when no one was around; pens, books, photos and many other small items would go missing – some were never found and some turned up later. The staff passed these events off as absent-mindedness, but this did not account for everything.
Mandy did not have a permanent “home” inside the museum when she first arrived. She was placed in the museum entranceway, facing the public, and visitors would stare and talk about the doll with the cracked and broken face and sinister smile. Eventually, Mandy was moved to another part of the museum where she was carefully placed alone in a display case because museum staff had been told that she should not be placed with other dolls because she would harm them.
Since her permanent placement there have been many stories about encounters with the haunted doll. One visitor was videotaping Mandy only to have the camera light go on and off every 5 seconds. When the visitor’s camera was turned on another exhibit, it functioned just fine. (It is interesting to note that the same thing often happens when visitors try to photograph Robert the Doll in his Key West museum home.)
Some visitors are very disturbed by the doll’s eyes, which they say appear to follow them around the room. Others claim to have seen the doll actually blink, and still others say they have seen the doll in one position and minutes later she will appear to have moved.
Although they’re used to it by now, museum staff and volunteers still prefer not to be the last one working or locking up the museum at the end of the day.
THE DEVIL BABY DOLL
There is a legend in Old New Orleans about the Devil Baby of Bourbon Street, the monster child of a Creole doyenne, adopted by Voodoo Queen Marie Laveaux and christened by Madame LaLaurie. The baby lived to plague the French Quarter and its environs for several years, though some say it still exists, at least in ghostly form, haunting the narrow streets and alleys of the old city. Some others claim that its tiny bones are moldering along with those of its Godmother Marie Laveau in her famous tomb in St. Louis Cemetery No. 1.
In years past, there were many renditions of this famous “boogeyman” (or, boogeybaby?) of New Orleans legend, the earliest of which were carved from dried, hollowed out gourds. This primitive Devil Baby dolls were often hung in the windows of old Creole cottages to frighten off the real Devil Baby who lurked in the darkness just beyond the gas lights. Other primitively carved Devil Baby dolls, complete with horns and a knotted jute tail, would sometimes appear on the stoops of unfortunate victims of the local hoodoo rootworkers. (It is said Marie Laveau frowned on the practice of leaving effigies of the Devil Baby because it made light of the “afflictions,” as she described them, of her adopted ward, the real Devil Baby.)
These early, hand-carved Devil Baby dolls are extremely rare these days. Those families in possession of such an heirloom usually have kept it hidden and have passed it down through generations, so it is hard to estimate just how many of these little effigies were in circulation.
In the early 20th century, however, other versions of the dreaded Devil Baby doll began to appear in and around New Orleans. These renditions were more doll-like, clothed in children’s garb and able to stand on their own, with a stuffed body and arms that moved slightly. The face of the Devil Baby dolls was always the same, with leering, glassy eyes and small horns protruding from the forehead. It was said that these dolls had faces that most closely resembled the actual Devil Baby; this was verified by a woman who had evidently played with the Devil Baby as a child.
These are the first dolls to truly have a “haunted” reputation. They were a “black market” item in old New Orleans, and in order to obtain one it was necessary to be well connected among secret sosyetes and practicing vodoun community. As bad luck seemed to follow the dolls – some claim because of a curse laid on them all by Marie Laveau – none of them seem to have survived this period. Only parts of one doll remained and these had been locked away until very recently.
Recently for stories about the Devil Baby posted on Haunted New Orleans and Haunted America Tours, local artist and Mardi Gras parade designer Ricardo Pustanio was able to obtain the remnants of the last known surviving Devil Baby doll (c. 1900’s). From these he was able to recreate the doll, adhering to the size and style of the original, for use in the Haunted site stories. These new Devil Baby dolls are full-size, exact replicas of the turn of the century dolls produced in old New Orleans, and, like their predecessors, there is something not quite right about them.
The handmade, sculpted dolls seem to have taken on a life of their own. Their eyes seem to follow you as you are moving about the room near them, and when they are gathered together there is sometimes the sound of whispering and rustling among them. Since the dolls were constructed with no real magical intent, the fact that they seemed to be animated by some otherworldly agent made Pustanio curious to see what would happen if he separated them.
Even though no one likes having the Devil Baby dolls around, Pustanio was able to convince a few of his friends to each take one of the dolls for safe keeping. It wasn’t long before Pustanio’s friends began to complain about having the dolls and all were anxious to return them. Evidently, even separated there is something devilish about the Devil Baby dolls.
One person claimed that the Devil Baby doll he was keeping moved on its own when no one was there. It was housed in a spare bedroom closet and each day when the unwary keeper returned from work, the closet door would be ajar and the Devil Baby would be lying halfway out, sprawled on the carpet.
Another of Pustanio’s Devil Baby dolls apparently “got loose” at night in the home of a couple who was keeping it, overturning ashtrays and littering the kitchen floor with beads from a bead-making craft kit nearby. The couple had no pets and no children; there was no other explanation for the strange occurrences.
A third Devil Baby doll was placed with famous psychic Reese at his new home in Lakeview in the days before Hurricane Katrina. Reese, a collector of rare dolls, immediately disliked the Devil Baby but reluctantly agreed to keep it. In the two weeks he had it he was continuously awoken in the night by the sound of a baby crying. By the end of the second week of the doll being in his home, Hurricane Katrina struck flooding the house with 7 feet of murky water. When Reese returned to his devastated property he was disturbed to find that the Devil Baby doll was one of the only things missing from the inside of his home.
Sylvia Cross, a paranormal investigator who specializes in possessed objects, bought her Devil Baby doll directly from Pustanio online. She thought it would be the perfect addition to her collection of spooky dolls; little did she know she had purchased the real thing. In a short time, she observed changes in the doll’s position from morning to evening; she reported the sounds of snuffling and crying coming from near the baby; and she also related that her two cats would not go near the doll, refusing to even be in the same room with it.
“Some objects,” said Cross, “are just ‘born,’ for lack of a better word, with a dark soul. I think the Devil Baby is one of those objects. If you look into its eyes you can almost discern the flicker of a trapped, unhappy soul.” Others believe the glimmer is put there by the Devil himself and that he claims every incarnation of the Devil Baby as his very own.
Cross also purchased a Voodoo Queen doll from Pustanio and she claims that it is haunted as well. Pustanio claims that only his talent and nothing magical or ghostly went into the creation of his dolls, but many still believe them to be possessed by something unexplainable and bizarre. It is interesting to note that Pustanio’s previous forays into other forms of art over the past 15 years, including painting and sculpture, are rumored to have something of the supernatural about them.
Besides his online store, Ricardo Pustanio recently allowed his Devil Baby dolls to be placed on eBay for auction as an initial showing from a large collection of New Orleans-inspired artwork. One Devil Baby doll has already changed hands on eBay several times; it seems the old saying “buyer beware” was never more appropriate!
Asked about the possibility that his artwork is haunted, Pustanio just shrugs and says, “I’ve heard about haunted dolls since I was young. We had several in our family that came down to us. But I never thought my dolls would be haunted, too.”
Ricardo Pustanio’s Devil Baby dolls, haunted or not, are in high demand. Each is one of a kind and can be made to order and dressed in baby clothes the purchaser supplies. Other dolls by Pustanio include Voodoo Queen dolls, Voodoo Zombie and Lwa dolls, and Voodoo You dolls made by the artist to look like any person the buyer wishes.
There is a legend in Old New Orleans about the Devil Baby of Bourbon Street, the monster child of a Creole doyenne, adopted by Voodoo Queen Marie Laveaux and christened by Madame LaLaurie. The baby lived to plague the French Quarter and its environs for several years, though some say it still exists, at least in ghostly form, haunting the narrow streets and alleys of the old city. Some others claim that its tiny bones are moldering along with those of its Godmother Marie Laveau in her famous tomb in St. Louis Cemetery No. 1.
In years past, there were many renditions of this famous “boogeyman” (or, boogeybaby?) of New Orleans legend, the earliest of which were carved from dried, hollowed out gourds. This primitive Devil Baby dolls were often hung in the windows of old Creole cottages to frighten off the real Devil Baby who lurked in the darkness just beyond the gas lights. Other primitively carved Devil Baby dolls, complete with horns and a knotted jute tail, would sometimes appear on the stoops of unfortunate victims of the local hoodoo rootworkers. (It is said Marie Laveau frowned on the practice of leaving effigies of the Devil Baby because it made light of the “afflictions,” as she described them, of her adopted ward, the real Devil Baby.)
These early, hand-carved Devil Baby dolls are extremely rare these days. Those families in possession of such an heirloom usually have kept it hidden and have passed it down through generations, so it is hard to estimate just how many of these little effigies were in circulation.
In the early 20th century, however, other versions of the dreaded Devil Baby doll began to appear in and around New Orleans. These renditions were more doll-like, clothed in children’s garb and able to stand on their own, with a stuffed body and arms that moved slightly. The face of the Devil Baby dolls was always the same, with leering, glassy eyes and small horns protruding from the forehead. It was said that these dolls had faces that most closely resembled the actual Devil Baby; this was verified by a woman who had evidently played with the Devil Baby as a child.
These are the first dolls to truly have a “haunted” reputation. They were a “black market” item in old New Orleans, and in order to obtain one it was necessary to be well connected among secret sosyetes and practicing vodoun community. As bad luck seemed to follow the dolls – some claim because of a curse laid on them all by Marie Laveau – none of them seem to have survived this period. Only parts of one doll remained and these had been locked away until very recently.
Recently for stories about the Devil Baby posted on Haunted New Orleans and Haunted America Tours, local artist and Mardi Gras parade designer Ricardo Pustanio was able to obtain the remnants of the last known surviving Devil Baby doll (c. 1900’s). From these he was able to recreate the doll, adhering to the size and style of the original, for use in the Haunted site stories. These new Devil Baby dolls are full-size, exact replicas of the turn of the century dolls produced in old New Orleans, and, like their predecessors, there is something not quite right about them.
The handmade, sculpted dolls seem to have taken on a life of their own. Their eyes seem to follow you as you are moving about the room near them, and when they are gathered together there is sometimes the sound of whispering and rustling among them. Since the dolls were constructed with no real magical intent, the fact that they seemed to be animated by some otherworldly agent made Pustanio curious to see what would happen if he separated them.
Even though no one likes having the Devil Baby dolls around, Pustanio was able to convince a few of his friends to each take one of the dolls for safe keeping. It wasn’t long before Pustanio’s friends began to complain about having the dolls and all were anxious to return them. Evidently, even separated there is something devilish about the Devil Baby dolls.
One person claimed that the Devil Baby doll he was keeping moved on its own when no one was there. It was housed in a spare bedroom closet and each day when the unwary keeper returned from work, the closet door would be ajar and the Devil Baby would be lying halfway out, sprawled on the carpet.
Another of Pustanio’s Devil Baby dolls apparently “got loose” at night in the home of a couple who was keeping it, overturning ashtrays and littering the kitchen floor with beads from a bead-making craft kit nearby. The couple had no pets and no children; there was no other explanation for the strange occurrences.
A third Devil Baby doll was placed with famous psychic Reese at his new home in Lakeview in the days before Hurricane Katrina. Reese, a collector of rare dolls, immediately disliked the Devil Baby but reluctantly agreed to keep it. In the two weeks he had it he was continuously awoken in the night by the sound of a baby crying. By the end of the second week of the doll being in his home, Hurricane Katrina struck flooding the house with 7 feet of murky water. When Reese returned to his devastated property he was disturbed to find that the Devil Baby doll was one of the only things missing from the inside of his home.
Sylvia Cross, a paranormal investigator who specializes in possessed objects, bought her Devil Baby doll directly from Pustanio online. She thought it would be the perfect addition to her collection of spooky dolls; little did she know she had purchased the real thing. In a short time, she observed changes in the doll’s position from morning to evening; she reported the sounds of snuffling and crying coming from near the baby; and she also related that her two cats would not go near the doll, refusing to even be in the same room with it.
“Some objects,” said Cross, “are just ‘born,’ for lack of a better word, with a dark soul. I think the Devil Baby is one of those objects. If you look into its eyes you can almost discern the flicker of a trapped, unhappy soul.” Others believe the glimmer is put there by the Devil himself and that he claims every incarnation of the Devil Baby as his very own.
Cross also purchased a Voodoo Queen doll from Pustanio and she claims that it is haunted as well. Pustanio claims that only his talent and nothing magical or ghostly went into the creation of his dolls, but many still believe them to be possessed by something unexplainable and bizarre. It is interesting to note that Pustanio’s previous forays into other forms of art over the past 15 years, including painting and sculpture, are rumored to have something of the supernatural about them.
Besides his online store, Ricardo Pustanio recently allowed his Devil Baby dolls to be placed on eBay for auction as an initial showing from a large collection of New Orleans-inspired artwork. One Devil Baby doll has already changed hands on eBay several times; it seems the old saying “buyer beware” was never more appropriate!
Asked about the possibility that his artwork is haunted, Pustanio just shrugs and says, “I’ve heard about haunted dolls since I was young. We had several in our family that came down to us. But I never thought my dolls would be haunted, too.”
Ricardo Pustanio’s Devil Baby dolls, haunted or not, are in high demand. Each is one of a kind and can be made to order and dressed in baby clothes the purchaser supplies. Other dolls by Pustanio include Voodoo Queen dolls, Voodoo Zombie and Lwa dolls, and Voodoo You dolls made by the artist to look like any person the buyer wishes.