The Tape Library - Archive of the Paranormal & the Unexplained - True Story of the Annabelle Doll - The Tape Library - Episode 1

Episode Date: July 11, 2022

In the first entry of The Tape Library, we take a look at the story that inspired The Conjuring series. The most infamous demonic doll in the world, Annabelle. Along the way you'll hear about the origins of this possessed raggedy Ann doll, the involvement of Ed & Lorraine Warren and the tragic death that is said to have been caused by the haunted doll. So dim the lights, get comfortable and we'll hit play on the first entry in the archives of The Tape Library.... Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

On September the 7th, 1915, a man named John Gorell received a patent for his latest product. Years earlier, his daughter had bought him a plain-faced doll she had been playing with. John picked up the doll and studied it carefully. I think it's missing something, he said. He carefully drew two small eyes and a triangular nose before giving the toy back to his daughter. Little did John know at the time, but this simple action would be able to be. lead to him first off creating a series of stories about this doll, before securing the patent in 1915 that would give birth to one of the most popular toys of the 20th century. This was Raggedy Ann,

a figure beloved by generations of children. However, 45 years later, the purchase of an old Raggedy Ann doll from an antique store would bring about one of the most infamous ghost stories of all time. It would involve two of the most controversial figures in the field of paranormal research. launch a multi-million dollar film franchise nearly a century after the doll's creation, and even cause a tragic death. So get yourself comfortable, dim the lights, and we'll hit play on the first tape in the library. This is the true story of the most famous demonic doll in the world. This is the story of Annabel. Deirdre Bernard, a 25-year-old nursing student, must have looked perplexed when she unwrapped her birthday present from her mother to find an old child's

size doll. On the verge of graduating, and not known to be a keen collector of dolls, the reasoning behind this gift appears to be unknown. When quizzed about her mother's purchase, Deidre simply said, it was just something novel, a decoration. Maybe it was just a random purchase, a fun gift to give to your daughter. But knowing what was to come, maybe something about this particular doll, spoke to Deidre's mother, drew her in, somehow manipulated its way into her arms. Either way, the doll ended up in Deirdre's student apartment that she shared with another young woman named Lara Clifton. Deidre would keep the doll on her bed during the day. Each morning she would make her bed and placed the large raggedy ann doll on top, sitting up, arms at its side and

legs stretched out before it. The strange occurrences around Deidre's doll started off slowly, as these things often seem to. Weeks had gone by with nothing unusual, but then Deirdre started to notice something. She would position the doll the same way each morning, arms at its side, leg stretched out. But when she returned home in the evening, the doll would be in a slightly different position. One night, its ankles would be crossed over. The next morning, Deirdre would place it back how she always did, then return at night to find Anne's arms. folded in her lap. To begin with, Deirdre assumed Lara, or maybe Lara's fiance cow, was playing a joke on her. So after a few weeks of noticing these strange irregularities,

Deidre started to run a test. She would do something different with the doll each morning, crossing its legs, or sitting it in a different position. Each evening, the doll would be in a slightly different pose. After a while, Deidre confronted her roommate about the doll, but Lara pleaded complete ignorance. One night, the pair returned home together to find Anne hadn't just uncrossed her legs. They opened the front door to find the Raggedy Ann Dole directly in front of them. Kneeling on the ground, the doll, soft and full of stuffing, wasn't poseable. And despite repeated attempts to replicate the pose, the doll would just fall down any time Lara or Deirdre attempted it.

This was when things started to take, a darker turn. Lara and Deirdre started to find notes around the apartment. scrolled in messy childlike handwriting. They would find pieces of parchment paper with messages like, help us, or help cow, written on them in pencil. Cow was seemingly never in danger when they found these messages, but it understandably unnerved the three of them.

What's more, the girls claim that there were no pencils or parchment paper in the apartment. Someone was bringing these notes in from somewhere else. convinced someone was entering their apartment and playing a prank on them, the girls started setting up marks on the doors or windows, or rearranging the rugs so they would be moved if someone were to open a door. Anything they could do so that anyone entering the apartment would leave some sort of trace. But nothing happened. No evidence of any intruders at all.

Another night upon returning home, the girls found the doll on Deidre's bed as usual. But this time, they found blood. on the doll's hands and drops across its chest. The girls understandably freaked out, but couldn't find any source for the blood around the apartment. After six weeks of strange occurrences around their home, the girls, unsure where to turn, decided to consult a medium. There seemed to be no physical cause for these incidents, so maybe there could be an answer in the spiritual realm. Lara and Deirdre decided to get in touch with a medium who visited the girls,

and between them, they held a seant. Lara and Deirdrie might not have been the sort to normally entertain such things, but they were out of ideas. Something was going on with this doll. Something, they couldn't explain. What they would find out, though, was more surprising than they could have expected. Someone was in fact moving the Raggedy Ann doll around their apartment. Someone, supposedly, who was no longer alive. During the seance, they were seemingly contacted by the spirit of a young girl named Annabel Higgins,

The medium told the girls that Annabel was a spirit, who had died when she was just seven years old. She told them she used to play in the fields here. Long before the apartment complex was built, she's always been in this apartment, but it has always been occupied by adults. Annabelle wasn't interested in playing with adults. So when these young, caring nursing students moved in, Annabelle thought they would understand her. Annabel wanted to make friends.

So, she started to move around the doll. To play with them, Annabel told the medium that all she wanted to do was be loved and looked after, something she never had in life. Annabelle asked, would the girls let her move into the doll so she could stay with them? The girl said yes. A decision they would soon come to regret.

It wasn't just a doll anymore. It was Annabel, Deirdrie said in a later interview. The girls began treating Annabel as a real little girl, talking to her every day, involving her when they were play games, and even buying the doll jewellery. Looking back on it now, maybe we shouldn't have given a doll so much credence, said Deirdre. But really, we saw the thing as being no more than a harmless mascot. It never hurt anything, at least not until the other day. It never crossed the girl's minds that maybe,

just maybe, the spirit that contacted them wasn't telling the truth. Lara's fiancé Cal never liked the doll. The entire situation unnerved him, even more so now that the girls had seemingly invited a spirit into it. The thing's got a mind, and dolls don't have minds right. So from the beginning, I didn't think this thing moving around the apartment was cute, he said. The thing gave me bad dreams, the current ones. But what I'm going to tell you, is not a dream as far as I am concerned. Cow was plagued by dreams about the doll from the moment he laid eyes on it.

To begin with, they weren't anything to worry about. But one night, at his own home, Cal fell into an extremely deep sleep. He describes the following as seeing like he is switching between his own eyes and an outer body perspective. Cow's eyes opened, laying in his bed, the room dark.

He instantly felt that something wasn't right. Glancing around the room, nothing seemed out of place, until he looked down the bed at his feet. There was Annabel, slowly gliding up his body. The doll reached Cowell's chest. Frozen in fear, he couldn't do anything, as he watched the doll's arms, moving to either side of his neck. Annabel began to strangle him. Cow thought to throw the doll off, but it wouldn't even move an inch. Cal awoke, terrified from the experience.

The dream felt more real than any he had ever experienced. Cal's story sounds like an example of the phenomena of sleep paralysis, something I'm sure we'll go into in a later entry of the tape library. But what happened next? Can't be so easily explained. Cow early one evening, frustrated with the whole insane situation, threw the Annabel Dole from a chair in the lounge into Deirdre's room, slamming her door after.

Later that night, Lara and Kow were sat alone in the apartment when they heard a loud noise from Deirdre's room. Worried someone had broken in, Cal went to investigate. The noise continued as Kow crept toward Deidri's closed door before suddenly stopping. Cow slowly opened the door and switched on the light. Nothing seemed out of place. The doll still slung the floor where he had left it. cow slowly approached the doll when he felt what he described as a presence

cow swung around no one was there but suddenly Lara heard cow scream out loud he staggered back into the room doubled over clutching at his chest he unbuttoned his shirt

to reveal seven distinct bloody scratches across his body three vertical four horizontal like something had been violently clawing at him in a frenzied rage. Cow described the sensations as a burning pain, but despite the blood, all his wounds cleared up within 24 hours. This attack on cows was a step too far for the girls. Something wasn't right, and they no longer felt the warm, comforting presence from Annabel that they once had. It was at this point the girls contacted

a priest who taught her a nearby college called Father Kevin's. When asked later why they called a priest rather than a doctor. Deirdre said simply, Do you think someone off the street would have believed where the claw marks on cow's chest came from? It suggested that the vast majority of paranormal experiences go unreported for this very reason. Who exactly are you supposed to turn to when something seemingly impossible happens? The priests listened to their story. The trio were convinced that no one would believe them. But Father Kevin's believed all right.

He told them that he didn't want to speculate on what exactly was. happening in their apartment. But he would contact someone higher up in the church, Father Everett, a man who could perform, an exorcism. While he had the necessary knowledge needed to perform the rights of exorcism, Father Everett wasn't hugely knowledgeable on the paranormal. More specifically, as he would later find out, the field of demonology. So he contacted a pair of investigators, who had been working with the church for a number of years.

This is how Ed and Lorraine Warren became involved in the tale of Annabel. Arguably, the most infamous paranormal investigators of all time, Ed, a self-proclaimed demonologist, and Lorraine, his clairvoyant wife, have been involved in supposedly thousands of investigations, most famously the incidents in Amateurville and Enfield. The pair made a name for themselves on the lecture circuit, telling incredible tales of their battles with the various spirits and demonic entities. Ed and Lorraine are two controversial characters, often outright called con artists,

but for years they didn't make money from their investigations and dedicated their lives to this single pursuit. If they were con artists, as so many have said, they were dedicated ones at that. Reading the demonologist, Gerald Brittle's book on the Warrens, inspired this entry into the tape library. The stories contained within are as terrifying as they are unbelievable at times. It's hard not to get the impression that the Warrens had to be. Warren's had a flare for the dramatic. But the Warrens lived their story. They recorded film and photographic evidence. They interviewed countless witnesses to the paranormal. The Warrens saw these paranormal experiences through the lenses of devout Catholics, and as such, Ed in particular,

saw himself engaged in a battle between good and evil. The Warrens would go on to inspire the hugely successful conjuring series, something that would turn them into a household name for an entirely new generation. The Warren spoke with Deidre Lara and Cal at Lerner and Cal at Lend. before Father Everett arrived, pushing for any possible rational explanation for the experiences within the apartment. After hearing their whole story, it was clear to Ed what they were dealing with here. The girls had given this entity the recognition it desired, had given it further power through the doll, and in cow it had seen an obstacle to its plans that it was desperate to remove. But ghosts, human spirits, plain and simply, can't bring on phenomena of this nature.

told them. He then revealed that what they had brought into their home was something demonic. When Father Everett arrived, Ed laid out the entire story for him. Ed is quoted as telling Father Everett, a spirit, in this case, an inhumane demonic spirit, began moving the doll. Once it aroused the girl's curiosity, they made the predictable mistake of bringing in a medium, who took matters a step further. Communicating through the medium, the entity preyed on the girl. emotional vulnerabilities and during the seance managed to extract permission from them to go about its business. Permission or welcoming a demonic entity in is according to Ed an important part in the entity being able to influence more of our world. It aroused fear from the weird movements of the

doll. It brought about materialization of disturbing handwritten notes. It left a residue of blood on the doll and ultimately it even struck the young man. Ed made it clear. than never wasn't Annabel Higgins, and the doll was not possessed. The entity was simply using it as a device. Lorraine consented the presence. It was in the apartment with them as they spoke. Ed offered to provoke the demon, to provide the priest with evidence. But Father Everett, already stunned by what he had heard, politely declined, why don't I just do what needs to be done? said the priest. The priest performed the ritual and blessed everyone present without issue. Lorraine could feel the presence of the entity was lifted.

Their work was done. But as they went to leave, despite Ed's proclamation that the doll was not possessed, Deirdre begged them to take the doll. The warrants have their own museum of the occult in their home that is filled with items from their investigations. So they were only too happy to take Annabel home. But despite what Ed may have claimed, this doll appeared to carry something with it.

The horrors that Annabel brought about hadn't ended. It was now on the move. Placing the doll in the back seat, the warrens began the long drive home in their new car. It was only once they were on the road that Lorraine became aware of an aura of what she described as vicious hatred. At each dangerous curve on the dark country lanes, the car began to stall, causing the power steering and brakes to fail. After the third near accident, Ed pulled up to the side of the road and doused the doll with holy water. There were no more incidents on the drive after that. When they got home, the warrants had a taste of what Lara and Deirdrie had been experiencing.

The doll would appear in various rooms. Locked doors didn't seem to stop its teleportation. And Ed even reports seeing the doll levitate. A black cat would often appear in Ed's office, fascinated with his belongings, especially Annabel. As quickly as the cat would appear, it would vanish again. The doll appeared to have a strong aversion to priests. Supposedly, Lorraine heard loud growls that reverberated.

around the house. She could find no sources for the sounds, but coincidentally, they appeared to have coincided with two back-to-back calls from Father Kevin, but three recordings on their answer phone. In between Father Kevin's calls were the growls Lorraine had heard. A detective who was investigating a murder that had been linked to witchcraft, met with Ed at the Warren's home. Ed went upstairs to take a phone call and told a detective to feel free to look around the museum. Ed would never find out what happened, but within five minutes the detective had run upstairs, white as a sheet. He just kept saying, the doll, the rag doll was real. Annabelle has been a key feature of the Warren's Occult Museum for decades, and there are countless stories of experiences people have had with her,

from a priest whose car was totaled after mocking the doll, to ornaments exploding in the Warren's home when the doll was present. Workmen who visited the house often asked for the doll to be removed. The atmosphere Annabel seemed to create had an impact on anyone who came near her. But the most tragic incident comes from a young couple who visited the Warren's Museum. The man, seemingly trying to show off to his girlfriend, started banging on Annabel's display case and started goading the doll to scratch him like it had to cow. Ed had already warned him to be careful with the items in the museum. They had a strict no-touching policy, and with this show of disrespect, he asked the couple to leave.

Later, the girl returned, clearly in shock and almost in a daze. She told the warrants that after leaving the museum, her partner lost control of his motorcycle, crashing into a lamp post. He was killed instantly. It seemed the exorcism in the girl's apartment was a success. No further strange incidents occurred, and they didn't speak about Annabel to anyone ever again. Despite Ed's assurances about the doll not being possessed, If the stories are to be believed, that it appears something, if not in the doll, then attached to it, returned home with the warrants. Ed and Lorraine have since passed away, but their museum remains, albeit at the time of this recording, it has been closed for an extended period of time.

Nonetheless, Annabelle remains in her glass case, next to a sign that reads, warning. Positively, do not open.