Strange Tale of the Possessed Raggedy Ann Doll

In 1970 a loving mother doting on her only daughter, purchased a Raggedy Ann doll from an antique store. The cute red-headed doll was a present for her daughter Donna who was at that time residing with her roommate Angie in a small apartment and preparing to graduate from college. Thinking nothing more of the doll than a sign of affection from her mother, she placed the doll on her bed in her room and basically forgot about it. And thus began one of the most unusual cases of a possessed object on record.

As time passed, Angie and Donna noticed a strangeness about the doll. The young ladies reported the doll would move, relatively unnoticeable movements at first, like a change in position, but as time passed, the movement became more noticeable. The doll was once found standing upright, leaning against a chair with its legs crossed. After awhile the girls said the doll would actually change rooms! It would be left in the living room before they locked up and left for work or school and upon returning it would be found on Donna's bed in her room. 

A few weeks later, Donna began to find penciled messages written on old-fashioned parchment paper. The alarming messages looked like they were written in the handwriting of a small child, scribbled and almost illegible. The messages clearly stated "Help Us" or "Help Lou". Donna didn't have any idea exactly who the "us" was and she had no clue where the paper came from as she had never kept parchment paper in the  apartment nor had she ever used that type of paper herself. Could it have been conjured out of the air by the doll itself? Could a cloth doll possibly be writing messages?

Donna returned home one evening to find the doll had moved once again. This time though, Donna felt as though something was really off. A menacing presence seemed to emulate from the doll and she had the deepest urge to inspect it. What she found would haunt her forever.

The doll had blood on it. Blood was on both the back of its hands and its chest. Now completely scared and desperate for help, Donna decided it was time to seek an expert.

Determined to get to the bottom of things, Donna contacted a medium who agreed to hold a seance. During the seance, it was revealed there was a spirit that had taken up residence in the doll. Her name was Annabelle Higgins. From what the medium could determine, Annabelle Higgins was a young girl of only 7 years when her lifeless body was found in the field upon which the apartment complex Donna resided in was built . The spirit basically took up residence with the doll and it wanted to stay. Upon hearing this, seeing no harm in it and feeling sorry for what the spirit had experienced in life, Donna agreed it could stay. The true nature of this entity however, had yet to be revealed.

Lou, Donna's boyfriend, was less than thrilled with the doll. On numerous occasions Lou warned Donna the doll felt threatening and sinister. Something was off and Lou knew it. Lou's dislike of the doll was well known. He was destined to have more than one terrifying experience with Annabelle.

Lou awoke one night from a deep sleep and in panic. Once again he had a reoccurring 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. He 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, while waiting for Donna to return from work, Lou and Angie were reading over maps alone in the apartment. The apartment seemed eerily quiet. Suddenly, rustling sounds coming from Donna's 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 Annabelle whom was tossed on the floor in the corner. 

Lou scoured the room for forced entry but found nothing out of place. As he got close to the doll however, he felt that somebody was behind him. Spinning around he was quick to realize that nobody else was there. Then in a flash, he found himself grabbing for his chest, doubled over, cut and bleeding. His shirt was stained with blood and upon opening it, there on his chest was what looked to be 7 distinct claw marks, three vertically and four horizontally, all were hot like burns. These scratches healed very quickly, half gone the next day, fully gone by day two. 

Had the entity finally revealed it's true nature? Due to Lou's experiences, the doll was no longer believed to be a docile spirit but inhuman and demonic in nature. Donna decided to contact a priest, Father Hegan. With his help, their case was referred to the world famous paranormal investigators Ed and Lorraine Warren.

"Ed and Lorraine Warren immediately took interest in the case and contacted Donna concerning the doll. The Warrens, after speaking with Donna, Angie, and Lou, came to the immediate conclusion that the doll itself was not in fact possessed but manipulated by an inhuman presence. Spirits do not possess inanimate objects like houses or toys, they posses people. An inhuman spirit can attach itself to a place or object and this is what occurred in the Annabelle case. This spirit manipulated the doll and created the illusion of it being alive in order to get recognition. Truly, the spirit was not looking to stay attached to the doll, it was looking to posses a human host.

The 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 give it recognition.Then, predictably, the mistake of bringing a medium into the apartment to communicate with it. The inhuman spirit now able to communicate through the medium, preyed on the girls emotional vulnerabilities by pretending to be a rather harmless, lost young girl which, during the seance, was allowed permission from Donna to haunt the apartment. It then set about causing negative phenomena to occur; it aroused fear through the weird movements of the doll, the symbolic drops of blood on the doll, and ultimately it even attacked Lou, leaving behind the symbolic mark of the beast. The next stage of the infestation phenomenon would have been complete human possession. Had these experiences lasted another 2 or 3 more weeks the spirit would have completely possessed, if not harmed or killed one or all of the occupants in the house."

An actual exorcism was performed on the doll before the Warren's left, hoping it would rid Annabelle of the infectious demon. At the conclusion of the investigation, Ed and Loraine decided the best course of action to prevent the spirit from doing further harm was to relieve Donna of its presence and take the doll home with them as they weren't completely sure if the doll had been exorcised of the entity.

If you want to visit Annabell, she can be found at the Warren Occult Museum in Moodus, Connecticut. There, housed in a permanently locked glass case, you will find Annabell. Be aware though, museum workers report Annabell still moves about occasionally and is known to make growling noises at visitors.