As autumn falls upon us and the scent of summer dies with the leaves on the trees, the small New England town that we call home is not immune to the looming sense of death the season brings. The signs around town advertising summer camps and farmers markets are replaced by those promoting haunted hayrides and corn mazes. The sound of crunching leaves casts aside the rumble of lawn mowers. And although Monroe may not have the haunting history of towns like Salem, Massachusetts, and Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, we do have our fair share of spine-chilling stories.
Ed and Lorraine Warren are some of Monroe’s most notable people, despite this, not many people know much about the couple or their paranormal investigations. Masuk sophomore Aubrey Zvovushe-Ramos says, “I have heard about Annabelle. I don’t really know much about Annabelle, I have just kind of heard about her being a creepy doll.”
The couple had many famous investigations all over Connecticut, Rhode Island and Massachusetts, two of the most popular being the investigation of the Annabelle doll and the Perron Family investigation.
The Perrons moved into a house in Rhode Island without knowing of the dark history of murders and suicides that had taken place on the property. When the family began to believe the dead’s spirits were playing with their children and doing chores around the house, the Warrens were called to the investigation. The story of the haunting was turned into a movie, called “The Conjuring” in 2013, which went on to become one of the most profitable horror movies ever made.
In contrast to a blissfully unaware childhood, for some, growing up in Monroe meant hearing you lived in the same place as the possessed Annabelle doll. Many kids knew about this before they even knew who Annabelle really was.
The story of Annabelle starts with the passing down of a Raggedy Ann doll from a mother to her daughter, Donna. The doll appeared to be a regular stuffed doll, until it was possessed and began haunting Donna; essentially becoming a creepier version of an Elf on the Shelf. Donna would leave her house with Raggedy Ann on the couch and she would return to find the doll in a completely different room. She became especially concerned about the doll when it started to leave notes that read “help me” around her apartment.
Donna and her roommate, Lou, eventually called a psychic medium to evaluate the doll. The medium said that they could feel the presence of a young girl in the doll, a girl named Annabelle.
The roommates were not worried about the doll at first. They treated her more like a little girl and less like an inanimate object. And although in the beginning there weren’t many issues with Annabelle, that swiftly changed when Lou had a nightmare. Lou dreamt that she woke up to see Annabelle crawling up her legs, scratching and weighing down her chest so she couldn’t breathe. When she woke up, the doll wasn’t there, but Lou had bruises all over her.
The pair of roommates went to a priest to see if the doll could be exorcized, but the priest referred them to the Warrens. Annabelle was then housed in the Warren’s house which became the Occult Museum, now shut down, right here in Monroe, Connecticut.
Annabelle’s legacy is not forgotten by the town of Monroe; the doll was rumored to have escaped her box in mid-2020. While the Occult Museum claims that the Annabelle doll is in fact secure and has not escaped, the museum shut down, so how can we be sure?
As Annabelle had once crept around Donna’s apartment while no one was home, could the same thing be happening right here at Masuk High? Students have been noticing some peculiar things happening.
Alison Merriman, a Masuk Sophomore, alleged, “I have heard that Mrs. McKee has a doll nicknamed ‘Tina’ haunting her classroom, and that’s kind of creepy.”
The doll, Tina, is rumored to change spots everyday; most recently she was hanging off of a ceiling tile. Students describe her as scary, with beady eyes, and some even claim to have seen her walking. It’s strange how after Annabelle escapes, Masuk begins to feel the wrath of another haunted doll. This begs the question: is Tina a new spirit, or is it possible that Annabelle has been revived into a new vessel?
Who is to say? Maybe Annabelle has returned to haunt the hallways of Masuk right as Halloween approaches and give the students a good scare.
With many possibilities of what may be the cause, students are left wondering: is it an old spirit? A new ghost? Or, maybe, just a tricky teacher?
Masuk Free Press 