#AnnabelleMissing: Is the ‘Conjuring’ doll missing?

WASHINGTON — Rumors have spread in recent weeks about a famous, cursed doll that allegedly went missing while on the road for a traveling exhibit. 

If this sounds like the plot of a horror movie, you’re closer than you’d think. The doll is the supposedly demon-possessed “Annabelle” doll owned by ghost hunters Ed and Loraine Warren. But luckily for people with pediophobia (the official name for the fear of dolls), the threat of a possessed doll unleashed on the U.S. is confined to the realm of fiction. 

Rumors began circulating in May that Annabelle had gone missing in the midst of a paranormal tour across the U.S. with some other items from the Warrens’ collection. 

But video evidence shows the doll, which isn’t supposed to be moved in order to avoid antagonizing the malevolent spirit inside, safely back at home behind glass at the Warrens’ Occult Museum in Connecticut. 

Annabelle is a supposedly haunted Raggedy Ann doll which, according to rumor, became supernaturally active sometime in the 1970s. 

The Warrens, who make a living investigating paranormal phenomenon and writing about them, say they were contacted by a student nurse in 1970 about issues with the doll. 

The student was given the doll as a gift, but it quickly began acting strangely, and a psychic told her that it was inhabited by the ghost of a girl named “Annabelle.” According to the legend, the student and her roommate tried to live with the doll’s growing supernatural nature as it appeared and disappeared seemingly at random. 

Eventually, the doll began showing aggressive behavior, fixating on a friend of the roommates named Lou. Threatening notes were left to Lou on parchment, despite nobody in the house having any on hand, and on at least one occasion, Lou reported being attacked physically by the doll. It reportedly scratched him across the chest and tried to strangle him. 

The Warrens were called in and determined the doll had been demonically possessed. They then took the doll to house it safely in their paranormal museum.

In 2025, the Warrens began a traveling tour, showing off pieces from their museum to paranormal lovers across the U.S. with stops in San Antonio, Texas and New Orleans. 

New Orleans is where the rumors began taking off, after a sold-out event in mid-May. Rumors started spreading after guests at the next stop on the tour, in White Castle, Louisiana, noticed Annabelle wasn’t part of the collection on display. The hashtag #AnnabelleMissing began popping up on social media, but it was considered a joke. 

A day after Annabelle’s supposed “disappearance” was first noticed, 10 inmates escaped from a New Orleans prison, sparking a citywide manhunt. Days later, fire broke out at the Nottoway Plantation near White Castle. 

While both of these incidents were likely unrelated (The New Orleans inmates tunneled through a hole behind a toilet, and the plantation was a flammable wooden structure from the 1850s), it didn’t stop paranormal enthusiasts from linking them to the supposedly missing doll. 

But video from the New England Society For Psychic Research shows Annabelle was simply put back in her glass enclosure at the Connecticut museum between shows. It’s unclear why she was removed halfway through the tour, but it’s unlikely that she got up and walked herself back. 

The story of Annabelle is the basis for a character of the same name in the Conjuring Universe, a shared-universe series of horror movies. 

The doll was the inspiration for 2014’s Annabelle, 2017’s Annabelle: Creation and 2019’s Annabelle Comes Home. It also makes appearances in a number of other films in the series.