Demonic Doll Escapes from Museum?

Everyone knows 2020 has been a bad year. 

First there was the COVID-19 pandemic, followed by the huge recession and staggering unemployment. There were ongoing murders of unarmed Black people by police. This July was the hottest July on record in Boston. It looks like the president is trying to cripple the Postal Service to impede voting. Eastern equine encephalitis is back again in Massachusetts. 

You get the picture. But to make things even worse, Annabelle the evil doll escaped from a museum and is running amok. 

Well, at least that was the rumor spreading on social media. First, for those who don't know, Annabelle is an allegedly possessed doll who first came to fame in The Conjuring (2013). That movie is partly based on a true story involving Ed and Lorraine Warren, two paranormal investigators from Connecticut. The Warrens, who are now both deceased, claim that in 1970 a nursing student in Hartford received a Raggedy Ann doll named Annabelle as a gift. 

The student and her roommate, also a nursing student, noticed lots of strange things happening in their apartment after Annabelle arrived. They became concerned when Annabelle began to move around on her own and consulted a psychic, who told them the doll was possessed by the spirit of a child who had died in their apartment. The dead child felt comfortable around the two young women, which was why it had inhabited the doll. 

The two women were compassionate and decided to keep Annabelle. Who can resist a lost child? They changed their minds, though, when Annabelle tried to choke one of their friends. Suspecting this was no ordinary ghost child, the women brought in the Warrens, who confirmed their suspicions. The doll was actually possessed by a demon masquerading as a dead child. Yikes.

The Warrens took Annabelle and placed her in a glass case in their occult museum in Monroe, Connecticut, where she has been confined ever since. Interest in Annabelle increased after The Conjuring, and a fictionalized version of the doll starred in three movies: Annabelle (2014), Annabelle: Creation (2017), and Annabelle Comes Home (2019). 

Movie Annabelle on left, real Annabelle on right.

On August 14, 2020, rumors started to spread on social media that Annabelle had escaped from her case in Monroe and was going to spread evil. This would be a serious matter if it were true, but it's not. According to Snopes.com, the rumor all began with an interview given by actress Annabelle Wallis, who appeared in two of the Annabelle movies. In that interview, Wallis talked about running and escaping from danger in 2017's The Mummy. International social media sites picked up the story, and through a series of misunderstandings "Annabelle Wallis, actress, discussed escaping in a movie" changed into "Annabelle, evil doll, has escaped." It makes perfect sense to me, and I can understand why the rumor spread. 2020 already seemed like the year that anything could happen.    

Happily, Tony Spera, the Warren's son-in-law, confirmed that Annabelle is still safely in her case. The Warren's Occult Museum was closed down several years ago by the town of Monroe due to zoning violations so sadly no one can see her. Like many of us, Annabelle is stuck in quarantine. 

This story appeared in many places: New York Magazine, Newsweek, People, etc. I'm a little surprised, but I guess a demonic doll makes for a nice change from all the other bad news we're dealing with right now. Let's hope the rest of the year just brings more bizarre paranormal rumors, or maybe even good news for a change.

A Haunted House and Puritan Fornication

Instead of one big topic, this week I just wanted to share a couple interesting things.

First up, a horror movie called The Conjuring opened this week. It's supposedly based on an actual haunting that occurred in Burrillville, Rhode Island in the early 1970s.

The supernatural shenanigans started almost immediately after Carolyn and Roger Perron moved their family into an old farmhouse. Objects moved on their own, blood oozed out of food, and strange voices were heard in empty rooms. The wife Carolyn was particularly afflicted by the multiple spirits that haunted the house.


Eventually, Ed and Lorrain Warren (ghost hunters who later became famous for The Amityville Horror) showed up at the Perron's house to investigate. I won't tell you what they found in case you want to see the movie, but you can also read about their investigation in this article from The Providence Journal.

Although Ed Warren has passed away, Lorraine still actively investigates the paranormal and maintains an occult museum in her home in Monroe, Connecticut. This sounds like a great field trip, but don't touch the exhibits - most of them are cursed. Youtube has a short video tour of the museum:



Fast forward to 3:00 if you want to see a spooky possessed doll named Annabelle, and then watch to the end to see a sinister wooden statue found by a hunter lost in the woods of Newtown, Connecticut. Creepy!

Maybe all this is too scary for you and you want something a little more academic. In that case, I give you this article that appeared in Boston.com about fornication charges in colonial America. A professor at Louisville University has recently published a paper on the topic, and she notes that women were charged for fornication more than any other crime in 17th century New England. There was even a category of crime called "open and notorious fornication." I suppose Puritan sex laws are scary in their own way, but unlike the ghosts who sometimes haunt our houses the sex laws seem to be staying dead and buried.