Imagine receiving an old doll as a present but it ends up ruining your life and that of others. As horrific as it sounds, that is what happened to a nurse named Donna. She dealt with Annabelle’s paranormal activity for a year but with the help of Ed and Lorraine Warren, Donna was able to bring her biggest nightmare to an end. The Warrens are a famous couple that are well known for their appearances in The Conjuring movie series and the Annabelle movies. While all their movies are based on true stories, Annabelle seems to be the one that frightens people the most.
The Warrens
Edward Warren was born in Bridgeport in 1926. Lorraine Moran was also born in Bridgeport but in 1927. They got married in 1945 and eventually gave birth to their only child, Judy Warren, on July 6th of 1950. Ed served in the Navy during World War II and studied art at Yale’s subsidiary art school; he was also a self-taught demonologist and a committed Catholic. Lorraine herself was considered to be a medium, someone who can communicate with paranormal entities. Wh
en they were younger, Ed and Lorraine traveled through New England to try and make money off of Ed’s artwork. Since they had a common interest in paranormal things, every time they would travel they frequently stopped by haunted locations, which then inspired Ed’s artwork. As the couple began to visit so many haunted locations, this spiked Ed and Lorraine’s interest in the paranormal world more than before.
The Warren Museum first opened in 1952 located in Monroe, Connecticut. This museum is not like any normal historic museum. It is filled with haunted objects that they collected from people’s homes. The Warrens would receive phone calls from people who were experiencing paranormal activity and the person would then ask for their help in removing the demonic presence; once the Warrens found the haunted object they would take it home. Over the years, they have collected over 100+ haunted items from around the world. Out of all the investigations they have done, Annabelle the doll was their most notorious object, the doll that a nurse named Donna received as a gift from her mother in the early 1970s.
Annabelle’s First Attack
Immediately, Donna fell in love with the doll and carried it everywhere she went. Over time, she began to notice the doll would move on its own. For example, she would place it in a room and when she would come back Donna would find her in a different location. Another common thing she would do was write on pieces of parchment paper, which neither of the girls owned. The papers would say “Help Us” or sometimes “Help Lou”. With that being said, one day Donna placed the doll next to her at the table where she was having breakfast with her roommate, Angie. After some conversation, both of the dolls’ hands levitated together onto the table. The girls looked at each other but instead of being scared, they took it as a sign that the doll was trying to tell them something. Her roommate said she knew a psychic she could call. After 4-6 weeks, the psychic went to their home and performed a seance. The psychic said, “I can feel the spirit of a little girl around 7 years old who was killed in a car accident outside your apartment complex before it was built and her name is Annabelle.” Donna and Angie immediately believed her. Keep in mind that God does not allow a human spirit to enter an inanimate object, BUT a demonic entity does. The nurses were intrigued but left it at that.
Another incident that occurred was when Lou and Angie had been at the house planning for a road trip when all of a sudden they heard a rustling noise coming from Donna’s bedroom. They knew they were home alone so they instantly thought someone had broken in. Lou went into the bedroom to check it out but he saw that everything was still in the right place, except that Annabelle was sitting in the corner of the room. When he approached Annabelle, he said he felt as if someone was standing behind him. So he quickly turned around and tried to run out of the room but within a split second he had been attacked by Annabelle. He grabbed his chest in pain only to feel it soaked in his own blood. Annabelle had inflicted 7 wounds on him: 4 horizontal slashes along with 3 vertical slashes in between. They appeared to make the figure of the letter “T”. Even though the cuts were deep, they disappeared without a single trace in 2 days. An important factor to all of this was the fact that Lou would always get reoccurring dreams of Annabelle attacking him. The dream consistently began with Lou taking a nap at the house but always ended with Annabelle strangling him, which would cause him to wake up in a panic. After Lou’s incident, the girls decided that the doll was actually evil and that there was no way that a 7 year old girl was behind all of it.
How Donna Got Rid of Annabelle
After what happened to Lou, Donna didn’t want the doll anymore so she called a higher candidate. These are the priests who perform weddings, funerals, Baptisms, etc. When he got there, he didn’t know what to say because it was not his specialty. He then told them to call the Warrens. Soon after, the Warrens showed up and performed an exorcism. The Warrens took the doll with them. They sat it down on a stool in their basement and put yellow tape in front of it saying “do not touch”. They kept it down there for no one to be able to see or touch it.
The Story of Father Bill
Everything was going well for a while until a priest, Father Bill, came over to have lunch with Ed and Lorraine upstairs. After they were done eating and drinking tea, Father Bill asked Ed if he could see the doll that put slashes on everyone. “I’ve heard so much about it,” he said. Ed agrees and takes him to the basement. He begins to tell Father Bill the story of what happened to Lou. Father Bill didn’t want to hear it anymore, so he reaches over the yellow tape, grabs the doll, and throws it while saying, “God is more powerful than any devil or demon”. Startled, Ed says, “Father why’d you do that, I told you not to touch anything”. Father Bill says, “I don’t care God is more powerful.” Ed continues by saying, “You’re right Father, God is more powerful than a demon but no human being is, not even you.” Father Bill was over the conversation, said his goodbyes, and left in his brand-new car. They say he never made it back to the parish because the car lost control and almost went head-on into a tractor-trailer. The incident destroyed the car and injured the priest but did not kill him. About 2 days later, the priest calls Ed crying to him about the incident that happened and he says, “You know what Ed, the last thing I can recall was looking into the rear view mirror and seeing the image of that doll, then I lost control.” Ed says, “I don’t know what to tell you, I told you not to touch that doll.” Once that incident calmed down, Ed decided it was time to finally find a way to lock up Annabelle for good.
Building Annabelle a Home
After these incidents, and many more that occurred, they had to make a special case for the doll because it was getting out of control. Dan Rivera is the man who built the special glass case for Annabelle. He brought water to a priest so he could bless it. He then stained the entire case with holy water and oil. He built 1 big wooden cross, engraved 2 small crosses on both sides, put a tarot devil card on the left side of the glass, and placed 2 plaques with Saint Michael, the archangel prayer on either side. They considered that protection (but not total protection because they never knew what could happen). Dan did not touch the doll with his bare hands. Instead, he drenched his hands in holy water followed by putting on a pair of heavy-duty welding gloves as he envisioned himself in a white light while asking God for protection from anything evil. The only times they would even consider moving the doll is to find a new place for it. Other than that, it remains there locked up forever. Once Annabelle was locked up in her box, her hauntings came to an end.
Works Cited
- “Real Annabelle Doll – Annabelle Movie True Story, Annabelle Higgins”. https://www.historyvshollywood.com/reelfaces/annabelle/.
- Serena, K. (2023, October 10). Inside the stories of hauntings and murders surrounding the real-life Annabelle Doll. All That’s Interesting. https://allthatsinteresting.com/annabelle-doll.
