Article Title: A Raggedy Ann doll sits in the back of a tour van, her strawberry-lace hair falling onto her floral dress as she glides down Interstate 80. This isn’t just any children’s toy making a road trip. This is Annabelle, arguably America’s most famous allegedly haunted doll, and she’s heading to meet terrified fans willing to pay $50 just to stand near her locked case.
For over five decades, Annabelle has been at the center of one of paranormal investigation’s most enduring mysteries. But the real story behind Connecticut’s infamous doll is far more complex than Hollywood’s version, involving family feuds, sudden deaths, and bitter disputes over truth versus profit in the paranormal world.
The Hartford Haunting Begins
In 1970, a nursing student in Hartford, Connecticut, received what seemed like an innocent gift: a Raggedy Ann doll. According to Chris McKinnell, grandson of legendary paranormal investigators Ed and Lorraine Warren, the student and her roommate began treating the doll playfully, sitting it at the breakfast table and talking to it as if it were real.
“This was the Age of Aquarius,” McKinnell explains. “They were like, ‘Oh wow, there must be a spirit in the doll.'” The first sign something was wrong came when the doll’s arms levitated up onto the table.
Soon, more disturbing events followed. The doll began moving from room to room on its own and allegedly wrote messages on parchment paper, including “help us.” The roommates contacted a local medium who, after conducting séances, claimed a spirit named Annabelle Higgins had died on the property and wanted a family to love her.
This decision to give the entity a name and story would prove to be a terrible mistake, according to McKinnell. “They gave this thing personality and a story and a scaffolding to build on.”
When Affection Turned to Terror
The nursing students’ relationship with their unusual doll deepened. They bought Annabelle a bracelet and treated her like their daughter. But soon, even stranger phenomena began occurring.
Cal Randell, one roommate’s boyfriend, reported that Annabelle had started entering his dreams and strangling him in his sleep. Later, he suffered an actual physical attack, with claw marks appearing on his chest that rapidly faded.
Eventually, the terrified students contacted Ed and Lorraine Warren, Connecticut’s most famous paranormal investigators. After examining the situation, Ed Warren delivered his verdict in the apartment: “There is no Annabelle! There never was. You were duped.”
The Warrens determined that the women, by recognizing the doll as a person, had essentially given a malevolent spirit permission to inhabit the Raggedy Ann. Following an exorcism performed by an Episcopal priest, the Warrens agreed to take custody of Annabelle.
The Museum Years and Hollywood Fame
Annabelle found her new home in the basement of the Warrens’ Connecticut house, displayed in their Occult Museum. Ed Warren built a special case with a sign reading “Warning: Positively Do Not Open.” Unlike other artifacts that visitors could touch, Annabelle received special treatment out of fear, not adoration.
“All the other artifacts were laid out to touch except for Annabelle,” McKinnell recalls. “It was the only thing that was bound.”
The doll gained modest fame in the 1970s, but her cultural impact exploded in 2013 with the release of “The Conjuring.” The movie franchise, which has earned over $2.8 billion, transformed Annabelle into a global icon. However, the filmmakers changed her appearance from a Raggedy Ann to a porcelain doll to avoid copyright issues.
The Current Controversy: Family Divided
Today, Annabelle sits at the center of a bitter family feud that has torn apart the Warren legacy. After Ed Warren’s death in 2006 and Lorraine’s in 2019, control of the doll passed to Tony Spera, Lorraine’s son-in-law, through the New England Society for Psychic Research (NESPR).
But McKinnell, who believes his grandfather would be “livid” about current events, has broken away to form the Warren Legacy Foundation. The two men are locked in a war over who truly represents the Warren legacy and has the right to profit from Annabelle’s fame.
“[McKinnell] didn’t want anything to do with the paranormal for years,” Spera claims. “Now he’s come out of the woodwork. He thinks he can make money by being the big kahuna.”
McKinnell fires back: “Tony doesn’t believe in the paranormal,” positioning his stepfather as a charlatan more interested in money than genuine investigation.
The Devils on the Run Tour
Despite the family conflict, NESPR has taken Annabelle on tour across America as part of their “Devils on the Run” experience. The traveling show, which allows fans to view Annabelle and other allegedly haunted artifacts from the Warren collection, has attracted tens of thousands of paying customers.
The tour hasn’t been without tragedy. In July 2025, Dan Rivera, a 54-year-old senior investigator with NESPR and the man who built Annabelle’s current protective case, collapsed and died in his Gettysburg hotel room during the tour. Social media immediately seized upon the story, suggesting Annabelle had caused his death, though NESPR insists Rivera had underlying health issues.
“It’s not like he dropped dead carrying Annabelle,” says Chris Gilloren, Rivera’s best friend and fellow NESPR investigator. “What people do for clicks and the stories they fabricate hurt his family, his wife.”
The Skeptical View
Not everyone believes in Annabelle’s supernatural powers. Texas State University professor Joseph Laycock dismisses the Warren museum as “full of off-the-shelf Halloween junk,” while science writer Sharon A. Hill notes that “we have nothing but Ed’s word” for the supernatural claims surrounding the doll.
The story contains numerous inconsistencies and unexplained gaps. McKinnell himself admits that accounts sometimes don’t align, and despite extensive searches, no evidence exists of the original nursing students who supposedly encountered Annabelle.
Paranormal investigator Zak Bagans, who hosted Spera and Annabelle at his Las Vegas Haunted Museum, came away with serious doubts. “Tony was pointing out every single bit of dust as a spirit orb,” Bagans recalls. “It was like, Come on, man.”
When Bagans touched Annabelle during filming against Spera’s rules, he believes any resulting phenomena came from “Tony Spera’s energy” rather than the doll itself.
New Owners, New Controversy
In August 2025, comedian Matt Rife and YouTuber Elton Castee purchased the Warren house and museum for $1 million, becoming legal guardians of the entire haunted collection, including Annabelle, for at least five years. They plan to reopen the museum and offer overnight experiences starting at $1,999.
McKinnell feels devastated by the sale. “It floored me,” he says. “I could not believe that my family would do something like that.”
The new arrangement allows NESPR to continue touring Annabelle while providing a permanent home base for the collection. However, skeptics worry about commercializing what believers claim is a genuinely dangerous artifact.
The Truth Behind the Terror
Whether Annabelle is truly possessed or simply a remarkably successful piece of paranormal marketing remains hotly debated. What’s undeniable is the real harm the doll has caused to the Warren family relationships.
As author James Delbourgo observes, valuable objects often corrupt those around them regardless of supernatural properties. “There is a war for the soul of the object,” he notes. In Annabelle’s case, that war has created genuine suffering among the very people sworn to protect others from her alleged influence.
The doll continues to divide believers and skeptics, families and investigators. Some see her as evidence of evil forces that must be contained and studied. Others view her as an elaborate hoax that’s gotten wildly out of hand.
One thing remains certain: Annabelle will keep smiling her eternal smile, oblivious to the very human drama surrounding her, as she continues her journey through America’s paranormal landscape.
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