The Annabelle Doll That Inspired 'The Conjuring' Is Still "Alive" and Kicking
Some dolls are bedroom toys. Others are haunted entities kept far away from the public. And that includes the elusive Annabelle.
Published July 25 2024, 6:55 p.m. ET
In 2013, The Conjuring became one of the great horror films added to a catalog of equally eerie cohorts. The film franchise, which later spurred Annabelle (2014), The Conjuring 2 (2016), Annabelle: Creation (2017), Annabelle Comes Home (2019), The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It (2020), and The Curse of La Llorona (2021), followed the legend of the creepy Annabelle doll. The doll in the films, however, was based on a real Annabelle doll.
The doll’s story harkens back to the 1970s, involving the legendary paranormal experts Ed and Lorraine Warren. Today, however, horror aficionados want to know where they can find the original doll that inspired the creepy stories. So where is the Annabelle doll now?
Where is the Annabelle doll now? Today, she lives in the Warren Occult Museum in Monroe, Conn.
The story of Annabelle began in the 1970s when a Hartford, Conn., nurse was gifted a nearly 3-foot-tall Raggedy Ann doll. She brought the doll home to her roommate, where they almost immediately started noticing some strange occurrences. Allegedly, the doll mysteriously moved without human interference. The nurse even alleged that the doll attacked her friend.
After this, the nurse held a séance with a medium, who told her that the doll held the spirit of a girl named Annabelle. “The nurse called the priest to do an exorcism on the house and bless the nurse and her roommate. They said, ‘We don’t want the doll anymore.’ The Warrens took it back to their museum,” the Warrens’ son-in-law Tony Spera shared with the Hartford Courant. The Warrens said, “There was something evil in that doll” at the time.
Lorraine and Ed Warren
“One day the nurse came home and thought, I could have sworn I put that doll on the couch. It was in the bedroom. Then it happened more,” Tony added. “One day she was sitting at the breakfast nook with the doll and suddenly the doll’s arms moved.” Even still, the Warrens stated that the doll wasn’t possessed — it was just being manipulated by a dark “inhuman presence.”
The Warrens decided to take the doll into their own personal collection, which later became the Warren Occult Museum. According to the official website for the Warrens — aka the New England Society for Psychic Research (NESPR) — “[The Warrens] removed the doll from the house and encased it in a glass box to contain the evil-spirited entity.”
However, the museum was forced to close because of zoning restrictions. The website states, “Today, Tony Spera, who has worked with Ed and Lorraine for over 30 years and is still actively investigating demonic activity, is now director of NESPR and head curator of the Warren Occult Museum located in Monroe, Conn.”
Even though the museum is closed, though, Tony makes sure that Annabelle’s fans (and fans of the occult in general) have a chance to see the collection every year at the Warren’s Seekers of the Supernatural Phantasma-Con, typically held at the Mohegan Sun. Plus, according to legend, Annabelle gets so rowdy during transport that her caretakers need to spritz her with holy water to contain her.
So … see her at your own risk!
