by AndyAfro
"The reason that the dolls are in existance now is that they failed to work when they were supposed to. If they had worked on their intended victims, the dolls would have immediately been destroyed, releasing the forces stored in them by the magician.
The witch doll with the noose around its neck was designed to make the victim hang himself. The voodoo doll, which has real hair and fingernails taken from the victim, was probably meant to be hung in a rain spout or similar area at the victim's house so that as it rotted away, the victim would too.
The fact that neither doll was destroyed means that the curses did not work but reverted back to the magician, destroying him. His spirit would then have been trapped in the doll, to be released only when the doll was finally destroyed.
If certain rites are not performed over them, then the person who destroys the dolls would become the next victim of the curses,"
When the Warrens took possession of the two dolls, they put them on display in their museum in the basement, under glass domes. They had circumambulism performed around the cases by a high spiritual person. Circumambulism is a series of prayers said in a circle formed around the objects, to hold the vibrations in.
One night a retired Navy commander and his wife came to visit Ed and Lorraine. The wife became intrigued by the dolls and asked if she could pick them up. Ed, of course, would not let her and explained why. All evening the woman's attention was drawn back to the dolls. When Ed had left the room for a moment the commander's wife went to the display and picked up one of the dolls. The circle of protection was broken. She gasped and dropped the doll, she said it had burned her. She did not bother with the dolls for the rest of the evening. The damage was done.
The commander and his wife left later that night for their home in another town and Ed and Lorraine went to bed.
At about 2:30 in the morning they were awakened by the sound of loud crashing and banging. It was coming from the direction of the basement. Ed raced down the stairs. When he reached the museum he saw all of his paintings and artifacts piled in the center of the room. The two dolls, still in their places, were lying on their sides. The room was filled with the stench of burning sulphur. Ed opened the basement windows to air it out. In order to protect the dolls he took them out to his studio which was in a separate building.
About forty minutes later, Lorraine was again awakened. This time the blinking of the studio lights shining through her bedroom window woke her. She woke Ed. He went to the window and saw nothing. He told Lorraine that her imagination was causing her to see things. They went back to bed. A few minutes later they were back on their feet again when, this time, they both saw the frenzied flashing of the studio lights. When Ed searched the studio, he found nothing.
While the commander and his wife were on their way home from their visit that night they suffered an accident that almost took their lives. The road was perfectly clear, visibility was excellent and there was not a car in sight. The commander had pulled onto one of the main highways near his home when, out of nowhere, blinding headlights reflected in his mirror and, in a split second, there was a tremendous crash. Their car was pushed over seventy five feet down the road. The windows were smashed by the impact. The seat belts, which were strapped around the commander and his wife, were snapped. There had been absolutely nothing on the highway when the commander pulled out, yet seconds later he was struck from behind. Neither driver had seen the other car. No one had been drinking.
Four people almost died that night. Was it because the circle of protection had been broken from around the witch doll and the voodoo doll? It is impossible to be sure. Consider this statement made by the commander to the police shortly after the accident and later to the Warrens: "I looked up into the mirror and saw those blinding headlights and noticed that they formed sort of a halo and… God, I swear that in the center of of that halo were those two dolls, staring at me, laughing!"
CHAPTER IX
Haunting In New Haven
New Haven, Connecticut, architecturally, combines the very modern with the classic settings of the old town and Yale University. Outside the center of the city are countless narrow streets lined with hundred-year-old wooden houses, now all converted into two or three family dwellings. The yards around these houses usually consist of a five foot wide strip of grass on two sides, a driveway on the third and, in back, a small rectangle of dirt with a carriage house, now serving as a garage. It is in precisely this type of house that our next case begins.
It was a two-family home, stairs led up to the third floor but the rooms were not finished. When the Stillman family bought the house, they knew nothing of its history. They were quickly told by the neighbors that the man who had lived there before them had hung himself in the attic - and the rope was still there, tied to the rafters!
One night soon after they had moved into the house, Ann Stillman felt a strong fear of putting her bedroom light out and going to sleep. After several minutes she convinced herself that she was being childish and she reached over to flip the switch when she felt something very cold touch her arm. It touched her again, and before she could withdraw her arm, an unseen hand took hold of her wrist. Ann struggled to release herself from the icy grip. When she had freed herself, she noticed what appeared to be welts on her wrist. Upon close inspection, they seemed to form letters creating a word in a language she was not able to decipher.
Many times Ann's husband, Stanley would come home from work and find the lights on all over the house. At first this did not bother him. Soon he heard doors opening and closing and footsteps on the second floor, even when he knew there was no one else in the house. Stanley did not know exactly what was causing the strange events, but he did try to avoid being alone in the house any more.
Ann and her daughter Debbie, traced back the history of the former tenants and discovered that all of the men who had ever lived in the house, no matter how kind and gentle they were before they moved in, became very cruel and violent after they had moved in. They also seemed to become prone to unusual accidents. Another unusual fact that they uncovered, all of the previous owners lost the house, usually through mortgage foreclosure. In fact, the man who had hung himself in the attic did so because his mortgage on the house was being foreclosed.
Wedding bells soon rang for Debbie and she and her husband moved into the vacant apartment on the second floor. As in her fathers case, when she was alone in the house, she would hear noises like the opening and closing of doors and the sound of footsteps in the unused attic. Debbie became used to the sounds. She even began to refer to the sounds as coming from her friend, the ghost.
Debbie's husband, true to tradition, soon became extremely violent. He would shout and scream at Debbie for no apparen
t reason. Once he threw a lamp at the wall, it crashed into a hundred pieces. She became terrified of him. Occasionally, when she came home from work late at night, she would find that her husband had taken all of the bulbs from the lights on the stairs leading up to, her apartment. She often had the feeling that her husband, in a violent mood, would be hiding on the stairs waiting to strangle her. Whenever the lights were out, therefore, she would ask her friend the ghost for help. Without fail, Debbie would feel a cold hand take her by the elbow and gently guide her up the stairs; she knew at those times that nothing could harm her. Her guide was never seen but was always there to help her.
Debbie's father came home one night and again the lights were on in his downstairs apartment, he knew no one was home. He went to a pay phone and called Debbie and asked her if she would, with the aid of her friendly ghost, go in there with him. At first, with the exception of the lights being on, everything seemed to be in order. When they entered the living room, Debbie saw a man sitting on the sofa. He was very tall and looked to be about forty years old. He smiled at Debbie as though they had been long time friends. Thinking that the man was a friend of her father's, she looked toward him for an introduction. She could see that her father could not see the man. She looked back at the man just in time to see him vanish.
The Stillman's remodeled the attic and Debbie moved up there. Debbie's sister Sophie and her family moved into the second floor apartment. She had heard of some of the strange things that happened in the house but she refused to believe any of it. Besides, no ghost could frighten her!
One evening Debbie and her sister exchanged words over some minor disagreement. In her anger she wished that her ghostly friend would come and pull Sophie out of bed. That night, Sophie had hardly put out the light when something had grabbed her by the ankles and pulled her to the floor. She had a very difficult time explaining to her husband what she was doing on the floor.
Sophie had a son who was of high school age, his name was Bob. He decided to have a party one night and invited his girl and a few other couples over. Although they had all heard stories about the "haunted house", none of them believed them. Shortly after they arrived they began poking fun at Bob and his haunted house. They taunted him to bring out his ghost. In a joking mood, they turned out the lights to see what would happen. Almost immediately a small ball of light appeared and began moving around the room, leaving a trail of smoke. The lights were quickly turned on again and the sphere disappeared. The room was searched for some evidence of trickery, none could be found. The group built up their courage with false joviality, once more they turned out the lights. This time the boy who had mocked the presence of a ghost in the house most vehemently, suddenly found himself on the floor. No one was near him at the time. The group decided that they had tempted the unknown enough that night. They went on with their party, they needed no more proof.
Bob often awakened in the morning and found himself on the floor. He could remember having strange dreams on those nights and thought that he had fallen out of bed as a result of them. One night he just couldn't fall alseep. Soon he heard the footsteps that he had heard many times in that house. Bob listened as the footsteps came closer. (His room was separated from the hall by only a bamboo curtain.) He heard the footsteps stop. He realized that there was someone standing behind the curtain, he could see him silhouetted against the dim hall light. He pretended to be asleep, keeping watch out of a slightly open eye. As if he were being punished for spying on the ghost, he found himself on the floor, this time the bed was on top of him.
A few days later Bob came home from school very tired. So tired that he decided to take a nap before dinner. He lay on his bed with his arms behind his head, when suddenly he felt the room beginning to spin. He thought this meant that he was going to faint, so he decided to sit up. He couldn't sit up - he couldn't move! He tried to shout for help, he couldn't speak! Soon, he began to see people, people that he had never seen before, all standing around him, staring at him. Then, just as quickly as it started, he stopped spinning. The people disappeared, and he could hear the sound of chuckling, the ghost had once again showed that he is the master of this house in New Haven.
The hauntings continue in the house. Several weeks ago Sophie thought she heard a noise in her bedroom. It came from under the bed, perhaps it was a mouse. Bob went in as his mother quickly exited. He searched, but to no avail. Then, just as he was about to get off his hands and knees, after looking under the bed, he saw, standing in a corner a tall, beautiful woman dressed all in black, staring at him. He felt a cool breeze in the room. The woman was there alright, he had no doubt of that. Yet, after about ten seconds, she just disappeared!
Doors still slam shut by themselves in that house in New Haven, footsteps are still heard in the empty rooms and apparitions are still seen. The author learned, just before publication of this book, that the Stillmans are in the process of losing the house through foreclosure, as did so many of its previous owners.
So many people that have lived in that house have known intense sadness, misery and heartbreak. The building is like a sponge, it soaks up the emotions of all who have lived there. For as long as it stands it will remain an abode of melancholy and a house of horror.
CHAPTER X
The Incredible Case Of Maria
Maria had to have help. Her life, since she was a child was filled with evil. Her mind and body had been taken prisoner by demons. Ed and Lorraine Warren were her only chance. Maria told them of her mother's death through a voodoo curse.She told of her unmarried daughter getting pregnant, her other daughter getting hit by a car and almost dying in the hospital. Even her sister was touched by her possession when she broke her hip and had to be taken to the hospital.
Maria came from a poor Italian family. When she was seven years old a man named Angelo became interested in her. Her mother, old-fashioned in her ways, considered Maria fortunate to have someone with a good job interested in her. She did all she could to make her look older, she even allowed her to use make-up. When Angelo would come to visit he would ask Maria to sit next to him and offer her fifty cents to stay and talk to him. To a child fifty cents was a large sum of money, but she always refused. Quite often, on Sundays, Angelo would take Maria out for a ride or a picnic. Her mother would always force her to go.
Maria did not like Angelo touching her, pawing her. She prayed for help to defend against his constant attentions.
One Sunday when she was eight years old, she walked into the kitchen and didn't see Angelo. Her mother scolded her for ignoring him, and made her apologize. Angelo sat there staring hungrily at Maria as if she were a beautiful young woman instead of a child. In order to get to her bedroom she had to walk right past him, so she skirted around him in a large circle, th
us avoiding contact with him. Again her mother shouted at her and scolded her for being impolite. Angelo had come to take Maria to a nearby amusement park. She begged to be allowed to stay home. Her mother insisted that she go with him. Once more she prayed for help to resist him.
Angelo tried to make Maria enjoy herself. He took her on many of the rides, bought her ice cream and hot dogs, but Maria was miserable. Then he made her walk with him into a big field near the park. There was no one in sight, the grass was quite tall and Maria was afraid. Angelo bent over to kiss her and at the same time threw her to the ground. Maria screamed and, suddenly, an older man and woman appeared out of nowhere. Angelo seemed terrified. He helped Maria off the ground and took her home. Maria or her family has not seen or heard from Angelo since.