In the world of the paranormal, nothing creates as much fascination as a haunted doll. Cursed or haunted objects in general will generate a lot of attention, but there’s something about a doll that makes it more than just an artifact. TikTok has no shortage of videos that allegedly depict dolls moving on their own, ostensibly manipulated by a supernatural force. Most recently, the highly collectible doll known as Labubu has developed a reputation among the credulous for being “satanic.”

The two most infamous haunted dolls are arguably Robert the Doll and Annabelle, both staples of pop culture after decades of myth making that eventually became Hollywood horror icons. Various powers and abilities have been attributed to both Robert and Annabelle. For example, they are both said to be able to move on their own, and while Robert allegedly will only curse those who disrespect him, Annabelle is lauded as being so dangerous she has to be kept within a glass case sealed with prayers and crosses—at least until there’s an opportunity for publicity. Then she can come out.

This will be the first of a two-part series examining the history and claims associated with these two dolls. Where did they come from? Why do people believe they’re haunted? Is there any proof that they can curse people? While every claim of the paranormal must be evaluated on its own merit, if the two most well-known and feared of the haunted dolls are mere child’s play—harmless toys that have been used as theatrical props to tell an entertaining and profitable story—then there is arguably good reason to be skeptical of lesser known haunted dolls.

Robert the Doll

Robert the Doll has been referred to as “one of the most infamous haunted objects in the world”—at least by Ghost Key West Tours, a family business operated by David L. Sloan, Robert’s unofficial biographer. Robert has been featured not only in Zak Bagan’s not-so Haunted Museum and the Travel Channel show Deadly Possession but also on the show Ozzy & Jack’s World Detour (may the Iron Man rest in peace). Despite—or perhaps because of—this infamy, the factual details surrounding Robert the Doll are overshadowed by rumor and speculation.

Robert the Doll is roughly three feet tall, an unusual size for a doll, and covered in felt. He is most often dressed in a white four-piece sailor suit. He is stuffed with wood wool, otherwise known as excelsior stuffing, which was popular up until the 1960s and 1970s when synthetic materials such as polyester came into use. His hair is believed to be either brown or blonde mohair that has darkened with age, and his distinctive coal black eyes are shoe buttons—wooden buttons painted black. He has very distinct oval seams around his nose and mouth, a horizontal seam across his forehead, and two vertical seams above his nose and below his mouth.

The most detailed history of Robert the Doll is given by David Sloan in his 2014 book, Robert the Doll. What is known as fact is that Robert belonged to a Key West artist named Robert Eugene “Gene” Otto and resided at the artist’s house at 534 Eaton Street until 1980, when then-resident Myrtle Reuter, who had bought the property in 1974, brought him with her when she moved to 1722-A Von Phister Street with her husband, William. In 1994, Myrtle Reuter donated the doll to the Fort East Martello Museum, where he continues to reside on display to this day.

According to Legend …

The most oft repeated origin story for Robert is that he was given to Gene Otto by someone of West Indy descent and bears a Voodoo curse. For example, the Find A Grave webpage for Gene Otto claims: “According to legend, he was given a doll by his Jamaican nurse that was made in this likeness” while the official website for The Artist House—Gene Otto’s home since being converted into a bed and breakfast—claims that “It all started when Robert (Gene) Otto was 4 years old. The year was 1904, and a young girl believed to be Bahamian descent gave him a life-sized doll made of fabric stuffed with straw. The doll was given as a gift, or maybe as retaliation for a wrongdoing as some locals believe.”

One of the earliest references to Robert the Doll in print comes from an article in the August 4, 1985, Fort Lauderdale News that repeats a variation of Robert having been given as a gift by someone of Afro Caribbean descent. The article reads: “Robert Eugene Otto loved the doll. He had loved it since he was a child, when it had been given to him by a black girl his parents had helped raise”(Eyman 1985). Similarly, an October 17, 1996, article in The Miami Herald said Robert the Doll was “created in 1909” and “given to a man named Gene Otto by a Haitian or Bahamian girl who lived with his family” (Boese 1996).

According to David Sloan, these stories most likely originate with a woman named Amelina Abbott, who was employed as a servant in the Otto household. According to census records, William Abbertt and his wife, Amelina Abbertt, arrived in Key West, Florida, from the Bahamas in 1880 (“William Abbertt and Amelina Abbertt” 1880). By 1885, the spelling of their last name had changed from “Abbertt” to “Abbott” and Amelina changed her first name to “Emeline” (“William Abbott and Emeline Abbott” 1885). William’s occupation was given as a laborer, while hers was servant.

William was employed at some point by Joseph Otto, Gene Otto’s grandfather, until his death in 1885 at which point Thomas Otto, Gene’s father, hired him as a clerk at his pharmacy until William’s death in 1916 (Sloan 2014). As recorded in the July 30, 1924, edition of The Miami Tribune, following Thomas Otto’s death the year after William Abbott, Emaline Abbott sued Minnie Otto, Thomas’ wife, as administratix of his estate (“Public Records” 1924). Both the nature of the claim and the outcome of the case remain unclear, although given the death of her husband the year before it’s reasonable to assume Emaline Abbott was seeking some sort of financial renumeration from Thomas Otto’s estate. The next year, Emaline Abbott died and joined her husband buried in the Otto family lot.

There is good reason to doubt that the Abbotts were the ones who gifted Gene Otto the doll. To understand why, we need to understand what makes Robert unique … besides allegedly being haunted. David Sloan, in his book Robert the Doll, confidently asserts: “Robert is a clown who was crafted in Germany,” specifically he was manufactured by the Steiff company of Giengen, Germany. “Suspecting that Robert was a Steiff creation, I contacted … Steiff’s Consultant and Archivist for North America, Rebekah Kaufman. … Rebekah was fairly certain that Robert was an authentic Steiff manufactured prior to 1912,” although Sloan admits, “100% certainty for identification of such a rare doll is difficult to achieve with photos alone” (Sloan 2014).

I reached out to Rebekah Kaufman to verify this was indeed her opinion, and she pointed me in the direction of her blog, My Steiff Life, which says, “it is impossible to say with 100% certainty without seeing the piece firsthand … but the voices in her [Rebekah Kaufman’s] head are suggesting that Robert was most likely manufactured by Steiff.” If the likeliness of his origins being German wasn’t enough to cast doubt on Robert having been a gift of the Abbotts, the final nail in the coffin of that particular part of the legend is the price tag. Sloan states in his book “She [Kaufman] also noted that Robert would have been a very expensive item at the time, so only a person of affluence (or a person who was associated with affluence) would have been able to afford the doll” (Sloan 2014). There’s zero evidence that William and Emeline Abbott ever traveled to Germany (unlike the Otto family) and, even if it were the case that Robert was an overseas order for a high-end department or toy store in Key West, it’s unlikely that the Abbotts would have been able to afford him.

While David Sloan does not believe the Abbotts were the ones who gave Gene Otto the doll, he does believe Emeline Abbott was the one who placed a curse on Robert. In a recent YouTube interview with Boo Productions Paranormal Toledo, Sloan explained his reasoning thus:

What our current theory is … there is a little girl spirit inside of Robert the Doll, and I was able to attach her to Emeline Abbott, who was a nanny for the family and a servant … When I found Emeline Abbott and then with the census record saw that she had lost a child between 1900 and 1910, when the doll came, we were able to piece together that Gene’s father was a doctor, she would have taken her child to him when the child had a problem and we believe that the child died and she blamed the family and sought out a voodoo practitioner to place a curse.”

I was able to confirm Sloan’s claim that Emeline Abbott did in fact have a child. The 1900 census mentions no children, while the 1910 census indicates that one child was born but no children were currently living. However, there is no other information regarding the identity, fate, or most importantly gender of this child. While it’s certainly possible that Emeline Abbott might have sought the help of her employer during her pregnancy or if there were complications, we simply don’t know.

So, is Sloan speculating based on the scant evidence that’s available, crafting a compelling story of grief and revenge based on nothing more than a census record? No. In fact, what Sloan has done is worse than merely inventing a story. David Sloan explains in the interview with Boo Productions he doesn’t base his “theory” on the records alone but from what a “highly intuitive psychic medium” told him. He says, “Cindy Kaza came down when they did the Robert the Doll shock doc on Discovery. When I was working with her—she’s a great psychic—she said yeah, the little girl died and a Voodoo practitioner was sought out. But she also said that it’s not just multiple spirits, but that this opened up a portal inside the doll, so there’s many, many spirits.”

That’s right. Robert the Doll isn’t just a doll haunted by a little girl’s spirit; he’s a border crossing for ghosts. You would think, if anyone sincerely believed this, there would be very serious interest in subjecting this doll to rigorous scientific study. Within his three-foot felt body is a portal to the afterlife. It’s not just proof that ghosts are real but a paranormal superhighway by which ghosts are coming and going. Instead, Robert persists as a popular tourist attraction and pop culture icon.

I am deeply uncomfortable with the allegations against Emeline Abbott. Sloan’s and Kaza’s treatment of her reminds me of how the reputation of Bathsheba Sherman was defamed by the Warrens and others as a witch and Devil worshipper. Emeline Abbott is now remembered as the “angry nanny” who “may have had an affair with Gene’s father, Thomas.” While this characterization isn’t nearly as sinister as that of Bathsheba Sherman, in my personal opinion, it’s still slandering someone’s reputation for the sake of telling a good story.

So What Can Robert Allegedly Do?

It’s popularly believed that those who disrespect Robert—thumbing their nose at him, making faces, or failing to ask permission before taking his picture—later meet with misfortune. As Sloan explains it: “You come up, your [sic] disrespectful, you stick out your tongue, give the finger, something like that, you’ve got this little girl spirit who feels disrespected, she feels hurt, it’s almost like she wipes this sticky tar on you and then these other protective entities come out of the portal and they’ll latch on to the disrespectful people and follow them home.” Needless to say, no one has yet witnessed this portal opening up or been able to produce any ectoplasmic tar for study.

The means by which these “protective entities” avenge Robert the Doll are myriad; he’s been blamed for “accidents, mishaps, bad luck, misfortune, physical injury, and even deaths” (Sloan 2014), although, judging by the contents of an apology letter written to Robert and included in Sloan’s book, these misfortunes may extend to more prosaic events, such as hitting a deer on the highway, small kitchen fires, and even falling down the stairs.

The most ridiculous claims of Robert’s malign influence come from David Sloan himself. During the Boo Productions interview, he was asked about his involvement in Jack and Ozzy Osbourne meeting Robert the Doll for Jack’s TV show Ozzy’s & Jack’s World Detour. He says:

Ozzy disrespected Robert right away [Ozzy farted in the same room as Robert but apologized. Apparently, that wasn’t good enough for Robert]. Then they got the little Robert doll and took it around on their road trip. Ozzy tried to blow it up, put it in the microwave. Of course, they think it makes for good TV. Robert didn’t like it—remember Ozzy got that Staph infection in his thumb and it almost killed him? That was right after he had been disrespectful. And then he split his head open, almost died. He had an accident which damaged his spine, and the strangest, he developed Parkinson’s disease, the same that killed Gene Otto.

Ozzy did develop a Staph infection in his thumb in October 2018. Season 2, Episode 1 of Ozzy & Jack’s World Detour first aired on November 8, 2017 … almost a full year before the infection. That’s not exactly “right after” he had been disrespectful, is it? I couldn’t find any mention of Ozzy having suffered a head injury, but most likely Sloan was referring to a fall Ozzy suffered in 2019 that dislodged some metal rods in his back from a 2003 ATV accident. Again, that was two years after he allegedly incurred Robert’s wrath.

Finally, I’d like to address Sloan’s comments on Ozzy’s Parkinson’s diagnosis. Ozzy was born with the PARK2 gene, which made him genetically predisposed for Parkinson’s disease. This was revealed through genetic testing in 2003—fourteen years before he ever came into contact with Robert the Doll. To suggest that a haunted or cursed doll had anything to do with his disease is sick and ignorant.

On the more benign side of things, Robert has also been blamed for more run-of-the-mill ghostly phenomena, such as photographic anomalies and electronic malfunctions. “Some problems were as simple as camera batteries being drained in the doll’s presence, only to be fully charged when people left the museum” Sloan explains. “Other visitors would develop their film to find that every picture had turned out except the pictures of Robert” (Sloan 2014).

Having not been there myself, I can’t speak to any specific claim or any photograph. What I will say, however, is that the idea that ghosts drain the batteries of electronic equipment is a common one you hear among the paranormal community and a good example of poor reasoning. The idea goes something like this: Ghosts have something to do with energy, batteries have energy, your batteries are dead or drained, therefore ghosts drained your batteries. First, it is an assumption that ghosts are real. It is a further assumption that ghosts having something to do with “energy”—the exact nature of this relationship and what precisely is meant by “energy” is ill defined if at all. Second, it is an assumption that because one finds their batteries drained it must have been because ghosts sucked them dry.

There are plenty of prosaic reasons batteries die. They might be old batteries, faulty batteries, or even cheap batteries. Photographer and CSI Chief Investigator Kenny Biddle gives the following explanation in an interview with Thomas Westbrook of Holy Koolaid: “Batteries die. You leave them in a gadget—some gadgets don’t turn off, they’re always on or in low power mode, so if you don’t use something for a week, a month, couple of months, yes, I can totally see you bringing something out, using it for fifteen minutes and it dies.”

There’s one big, glaring problem with the idea that Robert the Doll is draining batteries or otherwise responsible for electronic malfunction—namely, the fact that there are so many photos and videos of Robert! Clearly, he doesn’t drain the batteries of every camera or phone that attempts to record him. I have a hunch that believers will probably explain this as Robert only messing with the cameras and phones of those who “disrespect” him, but that’s still based on several unproven assumptions that: a) ghosts are real, b) Robert the Doll is haunted, and c) the ghost or ghosts that haunt Robert the Doll take revenge on those who disrespect the doll. On the other hand, explaining these phenomenon as being caused by faulty technology or operator error requires the fewest assumptions.

So, Is Robert the Doll Dangerous?

Despite the sensational claims of ghost hunters such as David Sloan, there is no evidence that Robert the Doll is able to curse anyone. Letters sent to the Fort East Martello Museum begging Robert for forgiveness are purely anecdotal, and if Robert can be blamed for everything from car accidents to burning dinner, there’s really nothing that can’t be attributed to his influence. The claim that Robert the Doll cursed Ozzy Osbourne is ridiculous and offensive.

The perpetuation of the narrative that Emeline Abbott placed a voodoo curse on Robert as retaliation for some personal grievance against the Otto family is likewise offensive. The claim that Emeline Abbott gave birth to a baby girl who died and was somehow bound to the doll through Voodoo magic is pure fabrication; there is no historical, verifiable evidence that supports such a conclusion, and to look at the facts as they are and “intuit” such a conclusion is simply speculation. At the end of the day, Robert the Doll was a unique and interesting artifact that would have largely been forgotten by history, persisting as a curious bit of local history in a museum, were it not for the influence of ghost hunters building him up into a paranormal pop culture phenomenon.

References

Boese, Ann. 1996. Tracking the ghosts of Old Key West. The Miami Herald (October 17): 9A.

Eyman, Scott. 1985. Ghost houses. Fort Lauderdale News (August 4): 374

Public records. 1924. The Miami Tribune (July 30): 13.

William Abbertt and Amelina Abbertt. 1880. United States, Census, 1880 on FamilySearch. Online at https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:MNZ4-68C.

William Abbott and Emeline Abbott. 1885. Florida, State Census, 1885 on FamilySearch. Online at https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:MNJC-FGQ.

Sloan, David. 2014. Robert the Doll. New York, NY: Phantom Press.