Today we’re delving into the true story of one of the world’s most infamous haunted objects: Annabelle – the Doll That Waits. In this episode, we’ll explore the verified facts and firsthand accounts surrounding the real Annabelle doll, a seemingly innocent Raggedy Ann that has been blamed for terrifying paranormal encounters for over half a century. This is a narrator-only journey into Annabelle’s history – from the first eerie incidents in a student nurse’s apartment, to the investigation by Ed and Lorraine Warren, and finally to the doll’s current resting place behind glass. No embellishments, no fictional flourish – just the real documented story and claims behind Annabelle. So dim the lights, get comfortable, and let’s begin.
An Ordinary Doll with an Ominous Warning
If you were to see the real Annabelle doll today, you might not sense anything amiss at first. She’s a classic Raggedy Ann doll with red yarn hair and a sweet half-smile stitched on her face. Annabelle now sits sealed inside a wooden glass-front case, upon which the Lord’s Prayer and Saint Michael’s Prayer are inscribed. Beneath the case lies a boldly worded sign: “Warning: Positively do not open.” This warning isn’t there for aesthetics – it’s there because of the doll’s disturbing reputation.
To the casual visitor, Annabelle’s cheerful grin and button eyes look perfectly ordinary, even nostalgic. But according to those who have encountered her, this doll is anything but ordinary. Since her first alleged haunting in 1970, Annabelle has been accused of wreaking supernatural havoc – demonic possession, physical attacks, and at least two near-death experiences have all been attributed to this “evil” doll. Her infamy even inspired a hit horror film series (though the movie version, with its porcelain features, is quite different from the humble rag doll locked in the case).
So what happened back in 1970 to put Annabelle on the map as one of the world’s most haunted dolls? How did a child’s toy become the center of a terrifying true tale? Let’s rewind to where it all began – with a thoughtful gift and a series of unexplained events that would escalate beyond anything the recipient could have imagined.
A Nurse’s Birthday Gift and Unexplained Occurrences
Our story begins in 1970. A young woman named Donna (identified in some sources as “Deirdre”) was turning 28 and training to be a nurse. For her birthday, Donna’s mother bought her a present that seemed, at the time, both thoughtful and utterly ordinary – a large Raggedy Ann doll. Donna was delighted with the cute, classic doll and brought it back to the apartment in Hartford, Connecticut that she shared with her roommate, Angie, who was also a nurse.
At first, Annabelle (as the doll would come to be known) was a benign decoration. Donna would keep the doll propped up on the sofa in their living room, adding a bit of whimsical charm to the place. But it wasn’t long before the two roommates began to notice things that made them question their own eyes. The doll didn’t always stay where they left her. In fact, Donna would swear that she had left Annabelle sitting on the living room couch, yet on several occasions she’d come home from work to find the doll in Donna’s bedroom instead – with the door mysteriously closed. No one else had been home.
Then things grew stranger. The women started discovering handwritten messages around the apartment, scrawled on what looked like old parchment paper. The notes bore pleas like “Help Me” – as if written by a distressed child. This was puzzling and creepy for a couple of reasons. For one, the handwriting looked as though it could have come from a small child. And perhaps more unsettling: neither Donna nor Angie kept any parchment paper in the apartment. Where was this paper coming from? Who (or what) was writing these cries for help?
As you might imagine, the bizarre occurrences left the two young nurses rattled. They felt like they were living in a real-life ghost story – and in a sense, they were. Still, at this point the disturbances were mild enough that Donna and Angie weren’t sure what to do. They tried to rationalize them: Perhaps one of them had moved the doll and forgotten? Perhaps the notes were someone’s idea of a prank? But those guesses couldn’t explain everything. And soon, events took a turn from weird to actively dangerous.
One afternoon, Donna’s friend Lou (sometimes described as Angie’s boyfriend) was taking a nap in the apartment while Donna was out. By this time, both Donna and Angie had grown increasingly uneasy with the doll, and Lou had been vocal about thinking they should get rid of Annabelle. As the story goes, Lou was asleep when he was abruptly jarred awake by a terrifying experience. He later said it felt like someone was in the room with him. He heard rustling sounds coming from Donna’s bedroom, as if an intruder had broken in. Lou got up and went to investigate. The room was empty – except for Annabelle, who was lying on the floor face-down in the corner.
As he approached the doll, Lou suddenly felt a searing pain in his chest. Looking down, he discovered bloody claw marks slashed across his chest – roughly seven distinct scratches, as he later described it. The wounds were hot and burned, as if inflicted by invisible claws. Everyone present was stunned. Strangely, the claw-like scratches healed very quickly, vanishing entirely in just a couple of days. But the message was clear: something was very wrong in that apartment, and it seemed to be centered on the doll.
This violent incident was the final straw. What had been a series of unsettling pranks was now physical harm. Donna and Angie could no longer pretend that Annabelle’s antics were just in their imaginations. They needed help – and they needed it fast.
The Séance and the Spirit of “Annabelle”
With nowhere else to turn, Donna and Angie decided to consult a professional medium for answers. They invited a local psychic medium to their apartment, hoping she could shed light on the bizarre happenings. As they all gathered, the medium began a séance – attempting to communicate with whatever spirit might have been inhabiting the doll or the apartment.
During the séance, the medium made contact (or at least, claimed to) with an otherworldly presence. She informed the young women that the doll was inhabited by the spirit of a deceased girl named Annabelle Higgins. According to the medium, Annabelle Higgins was a seven-year-old girl (some versions say she was six) who had lived long ago on the property before the apartment complex was built. The story went that Annabelle Higgins had died tragically on that site. If true, this might explain the childish handwriting on the “Help Me” notes. The medium conveyed that Annabelle’s spirit had lingered and found refuge in the doll.
Crucially, the medium described Annabelle’s spirit as benevolent – a lost, lonely little girl with no evil intentions. She was drawn to Donna and Angie, the medium said, because she admired them and wanted to stay with them, feeling safe and cared for. Through the medium, the spirit “asked” for permission to reside in the doll and live with the young women.
Donna and Angie were both compassionate people – they were training to be nurses, after all. The idea of a lonely child’s ghost inhabiting the doll tugged at their hearts. By this point, they were also desperate for an explanation for the strange events. Believing they might now understand what was happening, the roommates agreed to let the spirit stay. In their minds, they weren’t dealing with a demon or a malevolent ghost; they thought they had a sort of unusual but innocent “guest” – the spirit of little Annabelle. They even started referring to the Raggedy Ann doll by the name “Annabelle” from then on.
For a short while, this seemed to bring a sense of relief. At least now Donna and Angie thought they knew what was going on: a little ghost just looking for love. Unfortunately, their act of kindness may have been exactly the opening that the entity was looking for. According to the account that would later be given to paranormal investigators, the worst was yet to come. The disturbances not only continued, but began to escalate. Donna later said that it felt like whatever was in the doll had been lying in wait, and inviting the “spirit” to stay signaled permission for a darker presence to step forward.
By now, the increasingly frightened women felt out of their depth. This was no longer a sweet story of a ghost girl – it was something unpredictable and threatening. So in a final bid for help, they reached out to a priest, hoping for a more authoritative intervention.
Enter Ed and Lorraine Warren
Donna’s next call was to an Episcopal priest, known as Father Hegan, in the hope that he could help rid them of this entity. Father Hegan listened to Donna and Angie’s story and, deeming it a matter beyond his parish expertise, he contacted a higher authority: Father Cooke, his superior. Father Cooke, after hearing the details, in turn reached out to a pair of people who were becoming quite famous for dealing with these kinds of phenomena – Ed and Lorraine Warren.
Ed and Lorraine Warren were a husband-and-wife team of paranormal investigators (Ed, a demonologist, and Lorraine, a self-described clairvoyant) who had investigated many high-profile hauntings. By 1970, the Warrens had already established the New England Society for Psychic Research and were known for cases like the Amityville Horror. When Father Cooke explained the situation, Ed and Lorraine agreed to take on the case of the Annabelle doll. They arrived at Donna and Angie’s apartment eager to investigate and help.
The Warrens immediately began interviewing the two young women and Lou, and assessing the doll. It didn’t take long for Ed and Lorraine to conclude that something far more sinister than a ghost was attached to Annabelle. In fact, the Warrens believed no human child’s spirit was in that doll at all. As far as Ed and Lorraine Warren were concerned, the real trouble began the moment Donna and Angie welcomed the entity in and began treating the doll with sympathy. This kindness, they warned, had been misguided – because according to the Warrens, the entity inside Annabelle wasn’t a lost little girl at all, but something inhuman in disguise.
After studying the case, the Warrens came to a dramatic conclusion: Annabelle was not haunted by a ghost, but was infested by a demon. The “Annabelle Higgins” story, they said, was a lie – a trick to earn the homeowners’ trust. In their view, no mere spirit can possess a doll, at least not in the way a soul possesses a living body. Instead, Ed Warren explained that an inhuman demonic spirit can attach itself to an object, creating the illusion of it being alive, with the ultimate goal of possessing a human host. As the Warrens’ official case report put it: “Spirits do not possess inanimate objects like houses or toys; they possess 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 possess a human host.”
In other words, the Warrens believed the doll itself was not “haunted” by a child, but rather being manipulated by a demon that preyed on the empathy of its owners. By pretending to be the ghost of little Annabelle, the entity managed to get Donna and Angie to grant it permission to stay – a critical step, according to demonological lore, in manifesting stronger activity.
Once on the case, Ed and Lorraine took action quickly. Signs of demonic activity were, in their view, abundantly clear. They noted several classic hallmarks of a demonic infestation in the apartment, including:
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Teleportation – the doll seemingly moving from place to place on its own.
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Materialization – the mysterious appearance of objects, like the handwritten notes on parchment paper.
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The “Mark of the Beast” – the inexplicable claw-like scratches on Lou’s chest, interpreted as a demonic attack.
All these occurrences lined up with the Warrens’ knowledge of demonic cases. Convinced of the urgency, the Warrens decided the best course was to get the demon away from Donna and Angie as soon as possible.
First, Father Cooke performed a blessing and exorcism of the apartment to cleanse the home. This ritual was meant to cast out any lingering evil from the residence itself. Then the Warrens took possession of the Raggedy Ann doll. Donna, Angie, and Lou were more than ready to hand Annabelle over to the Warrens’ care at this point. The Warrens promised the young women that they would take Annabelle with them and secure it, so it could do no further harm. In Ed Warren’s words, they were removing “Annabelle’s pernicious influence” from the girls’ lives.
Ed and Lorraine left the apartment with the doll in their arms, believing they had successfully quelled the immediate danger. They had no idea that Annabelle’s frightening saga was about to continue – this time, in the Warrens’ own home.
“Demonic Detour” – Annabelle on the Road and at Home
After leaving Donna and Angie’s apartment, Ed and Lorraine Warren carefully placed Annabelle in the back seat of their car. It was a relief to have the doll out of the girls’ apartment, but the Warrens were very cautious with their new charge. As a precaution, Ed chose to avoid the high-speed highways on their drive home. He later said this was because he feared the doll might try to cause an accident if provoked – better to take the back roads and drive slow.
Sure enough, even on the back roads, trouble found them. While Ed was driving, Lorraine reported that the car began stalling and the brakes failed multiple times, leading to several near-crashes as they attempted to bring the car under control. It seemed as if some invisible force was interfering with the vehicle – a terrifying prospect when you’re on the road. Ed immediately pulled over, reached into his bag, and took out a small vial of Holy Water. According to Lorraine, Ed doused the doll sitting in the back seat with Holy Water, and the disturbance abruptly stopped. The remainder of the journey home was uneventful; Annabelle, it appeared, had been temporarily subdued.
Once home in Monroe, Connecticut, the Warrens weren’t about to take any chances. Ed placed the doll in his personal office for the time being. But Annabelle did not stay put for long. At first, the Warrens reported that the doll would levitate and even change rooms within their house. Remember, this is after the apartment exorcism, so whatever attachment was with the doll had come along. On at least one occasion, Ed locked Annabelle in the outer office (a small building separate from the main house). To his astonishment, Annabelle somehow ended up back inside the house later, as if she had passed through solid walls or teleported through doors. These incidents confirmed to the Warrens that Annabelle was still a serious threat in their home.
Their solution was to effectively quarantine the doll. Ed and Lorraine had a special case built just for Annabelle – a sort of supernatural holding cell. They commissioned a glass-and-wood display case and had it specially blessed. They even carved protective prayers into the wood of the cabinet: the Lord’s Prayer and the St. Michael prayer were inscribed around its frame. In addition, Ed regularly recited a binding prayer over the case to reinforce the containment of whatever evil was attached to the doll. Once Annabelle was locked in, the case was nailed shut and never intended to be opened again, except by the Warrens under very controlled circumstances.
From that point on, Annabelle remained in the Warrens’ Occult Museum, a room in their house devoted to housing haunted and cursed objects from their cases. In the years that followed, Annabelle’s physical doll form reportedly never moved again on its own as long as she stayed in the locked case. It seemed the prayers and precautions were working to keep the entity at bay – at least to a point. However, just because Annabelle wasn’t moving didn’t mean the evil attached to her was dormant. If the Warrens are to be believed, the demonic presence tied to the doll found other ways to lash out.
Museum Incidents and Chilling Warnings
The Warrens claimed several terrifying incidents involving Annabelle occurred even after she was locked behind glass. One story involved a Catholic priest who visited the Warrens’ home. Upon seeing the doll, he allegedly dismissed its power and mocked it, declaring, “You’re just a doll, you can’t hurt anyone,” and lightly tossed her back into her chair. Ed warned the priest never to speak to the doll that way. On his drive home, the priest’s brakes failed, leading to a serious car crash that completely totaled his vehicle. Though he survived, the priest later claimed that moments before the wreck, he saw Annabelle’s face in his rearview mirror.
Another disturbing account came from a young man who visited the museum with his girlfriend. While on the tour, the man reportedly banged on the glass case and dared the doll to do her worst. Ed immediately asked him to leave. As the couple rode away on a motorcycle, they were involved in a fatal accident just minutes later. The man died on impact, and his girlfriend survived, later claiming they had been joking about Annabelle just before the crash.
The Warrens shared these incidents often during lectures and interviews as cautionary tales. To them, Annabelle wasn’t just a haunted object but a gateway for inhuman forces. They urged the public to take these kinds of cases seriously, to respect the spiritual dangers, and never to invite anything unseen into their lives, no matter how innocent it may appear.
That said, no independent verification of these events exists outside of the Warrens’ and their associates’ reports. Skeptics have long pointed out that stories surrounding Annabelle—and many other artifacts in the Warrens’ collection—are impossible to prove, with no documentation or corroborating evidence from neutral sources. The New England Skeptical Society even suggested that many of the museum’s legends may have grown in the telling. Still, for believers, the lack of proof doesn’t cancel out the intensity of belief that surrounds the case. Whether real, exaggerated, or somewhere in between, Annabelle’s lore persists.
Where Is Annabelle Now?
After Ed Warren’s death in 2006 and Lorraine Warren’s in 2019, the Annabelle doll remained in the care of their son-in-law, Tony Spera, who also serves as the director of the New England Society for Psychic Research. Annabelle is still housed in the Warrens’ Occult Museum, which was located in the basement of their Monroe, Connecticut home.
For decades, the museum operated as a private but public-facing exhibit, where curious visitors could see cursed or haunted objects from the Warrens’ investigations. Annabelle, seated in her glass case with the warning sign “Positively Do Not Open,” was its most famous resident.
However, in 2019, the museum was forced to close due to zoning violations. Local authorities determined the museum could not operate legally as a public attraction from a residential property. Since then, the doll and the rest of the collection have been kept out of public view—at least in a permanent setting.
In August 2020, rumors circulated online that Annabelle had “escaped” her case. The internet went wild with speculation, memes, and supposed eyewitness reports. Tony Spera quickly posted a video standing next to the doll to confirm she was still securely contained, saying, “Annabelle has not left the building. She’s in all her infamous glory. She never left the museum. And if she had, you’d know it.”
Despite the museum’s closure, Annabelle has continued to appear—under careful control—at special events. Tony Spera and the NESPR team have taken the doll, still encased, on select tours as part of traveling exhibits showcasing haunted and paranormal artifacts. In May 2025, for example, Annabelle was brought to Moundsville Penitentiary in West Virginia for a paranormal convention. She has also appeared at events in cities like New Orleans, San Antonio, and Gettysburg.
At these events, the doll is never touched, always transported and guarded with serious precautions, and presented with repeated warnings. Guests are told not to challenge the doll, not to taunt her, and never to get too close. Whether out of belief or showmanship, the Annabelle protocol remains strict.
Final Reflections: A Doll That Waits
Today, over fifty years since Donna received that birthday gift, Annabelle remains one of the most recognized and feared objects in paranormal lore. She doesn’t speak. She doesn’t move—at least not anymore. She simply waits behind glass.
To this day, the sign on her case remains: “Positively Do Not Open.” And those who guard her continue to obey that command.
Whether you believe in demonic possession or not, the case of Annabelle serves as a kind of modern folklore—a story about unseen dangers wearing innocent faces, about how sympathy can be exploited by darker forces, and about the human need to contain fear within walls, rituals, and prayer.
For Donna, Angie, and Lou—the people who first lived through Annabelle’s disturbing behavior—they made the right choice in letting go of the doll. Thanks to their account, and the Warrens’ investigation, we have one of the most enduring ghost stories of the 20th century.
And whether that story is taken as literal truth, spiritual metaphor, or psychological caution—it still leaves us with one chilling thought:
What if she’s waiting for someone to open that case?