What happened
According to Ed and Lorraine Warren, the American “demonologists,” around 1970 a young nursing student in Hartford named Donna was given a Raggedy Ann rag doll. Soon she and her roommate noticed that the doll changed position, moved between rooms, and that notes in a child's handwriting were turning up in the flat. A medium they called in reportedly declared that the doll was inhabited by the spirit of a dead seven-year-old girl named Annabelle. The Warrens, however, decided it was not a child but a demon, and took the doll to their Occult Museum in Monroe, where it was placed in a wooden case with a warning not to open it. They later claimed that a priest who mocked it crashed his car and that a motorcyclist who tapped on the glass died in an accident. Since 2013 the evil doll – turned by filmmakers into a ghastly porcelain figure – has appeared in “The Conjuring” and “Annabelle” films.
Witnesses
Ed and Lorraine Warren, who told the story in, among other places, Gerald Brittle's book “The Demonologist” (1980); the doll's original owners are known only by the first names the Warrens gave.
Explanations and hypotheses
The entire story rests solely on the Warrens' accounts – there is no independent testimony or documentation. Sceptics such as science writer Sharon A. Hill note that many of the legends around the Warrens were of their own making, and religious studies scholar Joseph Laycock calls Annabelle an interesting case of pop culture shaping modern folklore. In 2019 the museum was closed over zoning violations, and the doll is sometimes shown at touring exhibitions.
Legend A story handed down through generations – it can be neither confirmed nor disproved.
Sources
- Gerald Brittle, The Demonologist: The Extraordinary Career of Ed and Lorraine Warren (1980; iUniverse, 2002)
- Adam Levine, Tellers of Eerie Tales: 'Ghostbusters' Speak at Rutgers (Gloucester County Times, 1987)
- Joseph Laycock, The Paranormal to Pop Culture Pipeline (Religion Dispatches, 2014)
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