Director James Wan restored Annabelle doll for the movie Conjuring, giving her a much more perturbing appearance, but in real life Annabelle was just your run of the mill Raggedy Ann doll. The original doll, is now locked up Ed and Lorraine Warren’s Occult Museum in Monroe, Connecticut.
Donna got Annabelle from her mother in 1970; her mom bought the used doll at a hobby store. Donna was a college student at that time, and living with a roommate named Angie, and at first neither thought the doll was anything special. But over time they noticed Annabelle seemed to move on her own; at first it was really subtle, just changes in position, the kinds of things that could be written off as the doll being jostled. But the movement increased, and within a few weeks it seemed to become fully mobile. The girls would leave the apartment with Annabelle on Donna’s bed and return home to find it on the couch. Her friend Lou hated the doll. He said there was something evil in about the doll.
Donna kept on receiving notes on a parchment paper. The escalation continued and finally one fine the Donna returned home only to see Annabelle’s hand stained with blood. It seem to be coming from the doll itself. Donna finally agreed to get a psychic involved and the psychic told the girls that long before a seven year old girl named Annabelle Higgins had been found dead in the field where their apartment complex was now constructed. Her spirit lingered, and when the doll came into the house the girl latched on to it. She found Donna and Angie to be trustworthy. She just wanted to stay with them.
Being the sweet, caring nurses that they both were. Donna and Angie agreed to let Annabelle stay with them. And that’s when all hell broke loose.
Lou started having dreams about Annabelle where she would choke him and one fine day when he and Angie were hanging out in their apartment they heard some noises from the other room. When Lou went to check the other room for an intruder. He had burning on the back of the neck he spun around. Nobody was there. The room was empty. And then sudden pain on his chest. He looked in his shirt and saw a series of raking claw marks, rough ditches in his flesh that burned. He knew Annabelle had done it. They knew they needed help, and they turned to an Episcopalian priest, who in turned called in Ed and Lorraine Warren.
It didn’t take the Warrens long to come to their conclusion: there was no ghost in this case. There was an inhuman spirit – a demon – attached to the doll that targeted Donna’s soul.
The Warren’s took the doll in their custody but while driving back home they faced a lot of troubles the engine kept cutting out, the power steering kept failing and even the brakes gave them trouble. Ed opened the bag, sprinkled the doll with holy water and the disturbances stopped… for the moment. The doll would keep levitating and appear in different rooms of the Warren’s apartment.
Sensing that the doll was ramping back up the Warrens called in a Catholic priest to exorcise Annabelle. The priest didn’t take it seriously, telling Annabelle
“You’re just a doll. You can’t hurt anyone!”
Big mistake: on his way home the priest’s brakes failed, and his car was totally crushed in a horrible accident. He survived.
Eventually the Warrens built a locked case for Annabelle, and she resides there to this day as the cornerstone to their museum. The locked case seems to have kept the doll from moving around, but it seems like that whatever abhorret entity is attached to it is still there, waiting. Biding its time. Ready for the day when it can again be free.