Ah, Anabelle the haunted doll. I remember hearing about that story during my lifetime. It's truly a tale that will leave you with chills running down your spine.
The story goes that a woman named Donna received a vintage Raggedy Ann doll from her mother as a birthday gift back in 1970. Donna was living in a small apartment with her roommate Angie at the time. They placed the doll on Donna's bed as a decorative item and didn't think much of it.
However, things started to take a turn for the worse when they began to notice strange occurrences. They would come home to find the doll in a different position than they left it in, and sometimes they would find it in a different room. Other times their doors would be found unlocked, even though they knew they had locked them before leaving for the day.
But the creepiest incidents came at night when they would hear rustling sounds coming from the doll's room, and often they would hear the doll moving around. They even claimed that the doll would sometimes be found with drops of blood on it, though they could never figure out where the blood came from.
The women decided they needed to seek help, and they contacted a psychic who told them that the doll was possessed by the spirit of a young girl named Annabelle Higgins who had died in a tragic accident. The psychic warned them to stay away from the doll, but Donna and Angie felt bad for Annabelle and decided to keep her.
Things escalated quickly after that. The doll began to leave messages around the apartment, which would appear on parchment paper in childlike handwriting. The message read "HELP US" and "HELP LOU," referring to a friend of the girls who they believed was in danger.
That's when the girls brought in paranormal investigators Ed and Lorraine Warren. They looked into the incident and believed that the doll was not possessed but instead manipulated by an inhuman spirit. They had it exorcised and placed it in their Occult Museum in Connecticut.
Today, the doll is still on display at the Occult Museum, sealed in a glass box. It's been featured in numerous horror movies such as "The Conjuring" and its sequels, making it a legend among haunted objects.
