Homeowner finds creepy rag doll in his wall with note confessing murder of past owners
The doll's name is Emily, and she clearly was missed during the house's inspection
Aux Features Rag Doll
As we have recently reminded everyone, Halloween Season officially began on September 17, and this year’s festivities certainly seem to be starting off strong. As reported over on Britain’s This Morning newscast before being bumped by our own personal stateside favorites at Coast to Coast, a new local resident of Liverpool made a charming discovery within his new home the other week when he stumbled across a wire poking out the bottom of one of his walls. After drilling a tiny hole nearby, Jonathan Lewis discovered a hellishly creepy rag doll stuffed within a “small cavity that had been hidden by plasterboard.”
What’s more, said doll came with a small “Welcome to the neighborhood” gift.
“My name is Emily. My original owners lived in this house in 1961,” begins a note attached to the doll, who goes on to confess “I didn’t like them so they had to go. All they did was sing and be merry. It was sickening. Stabbing was my choice of death for them, so I hope you have knives.”
“Emily” ended her welcome letter with a congenial, “Hope you sleep well,” because of course she did. While the revelation would have sent many running for the hills, Lewis sounds pretty unperturbed by the whole affair. Knowing that the house was only recently renovated around four or five years ago, he told newscasters that he suspects Emily the rag doll was placed there by someone as a longterm prank.
What’s more, Lewis has stated he intends to throw a Halloween party this year with Emily as the guest of honor… so, y’know, we’ll see how that goes when the inevitable Netflix documentary airs about that get-together’s mysterious, tragic conclusion in the next year or two.
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101 Comments
“Obvious prank makes for great misleading article header”
Either a prank by the renovator or a prank by Lewis. Followers = BIG POUNDS!!!
Especially with the announcement of a forthcoming Halloween party with enough time for “Golly gee, we’ve had so much unexpected attention for this, we’re going to put our Halloween party on YouTube Live. Even though anybody who tunes in is surely wasting their time because nothing weird is going to happen.” And then next thing you know you have Ghostwatch 2021.
Glad I’m not the only one who picked up on that. This reeks of a publicity stunt.
I hope that’s what happens, otherwise this is much little ado about nothing.
Sounds like Lewis got POUNDED then?! 😉
I was slightly disappointed there was no murder that an actual killer confessed to in a note on a doll in the wall.
So what, the prank is well worth it.
guy punches hole in wall, puts creepy doll in with note, makes the news.
Hey, I’m just happy to finally have a feel good story about a guy who punches holes in walls.
Unless he does it with punches that have the power of kicks, I’m not interested.
Don’t worry, it was just part of his whole
Forgot: invites guests to party.
This is interesting and all and I truly, truly mean that, but it’d be great if Kinja notifications were fixed. I need to know which members of the commentariat routinely like my posts so I can send them a Christmas card later in the year.
Fruit cakes this year or See’s Chocolate samplers?
This year, I’m giving out boxes of See’s Chocolates, filled with bite-sized morsels of expired fruit cake.
Fruit cake expires?
https://www.wgbh.org/news/lifestyle/2019/12/16/141-year-old-fruitcake-its-one-michigan-familys-holiday-heirloom
Do you know what happens to a butter-based frosting after six decades in a poorly-ventilated English basement?
“Fossilizes” might be a better description.
Not the way I use it!
That would imply it was ever good in the first place.
Yes. But you have to leave it boarded-up inside your wall for several decades.:-)
Well…you have to live about twice as long as any normal human being has ever lived (like 250 years) to pass the expiry date.
I misread that as “Sex’s Chocolate samplers” at first, and was like, “I’m listening”.
It’s been goddamn months.
The notifications for liked posts stopped last night for me.Never thought I’d miss the days of Disqus.
Me, too. And since I am gray on all but one site and Kinja won’t let anyone reply to most gray comments, stars are mostly all I get these days. 🙁
Huh. It’s been about a week for me. Of course, I haven’t been able to tell WHICH post is being liked for . . . months? Years?But, will you get his reply? Will I ever be able to tell? Who knows!
I’m pretty sure it’s a feature, not a bug.
starred for the card!
I starred your comment. Or did I?
They never worked for me, I’ve never gotten any likes. Wait.
I reply to comments like a Civil War soldier writing home, not knowing if anyone would ever receive it, or if I’ll make it out alive.I fear our paths may never meet again, FilthyWhore, perhaps one day in heaven we shall be reunited.
As a gray, this is exactly how I feel. Someone might see a piece of my comment or no one will see anything at all. It’s like I’m a ghost.
Once something in this damn system breaks, I don’t think there’s a chance it’s ever getting fixed. For the past few years, Kinja has been falling apart a piece at a time: links in comments stopped working, then like totals disappeared from profile pages, then notifications stopped linking to specific posts, etc., etc. It really feels like a “when the system craps out altogether we’ll turn out the lights and go home” situation to me. It’s depressing to have to stand by and watch it all crumble.
Pending comments don’t always show up either.
I can live with not getting a notification for every Like (I’d rather get replies, I suppose) but the notifications no longer taking you to the relevant post is the one that is really irritating. I’m not sure how long it’s not worked, must be months now.I know the article writers aren’t the IT people, but surely they must be reporting these things back to the relevant people, but for whatever reason nothing is getting fixed.
for whatever reason nothing is getting fixed.My guess is that the bean counters don’t think repairing the broken features would bring in enough clicks to justify the time and expense of debugging the code.It’s not like we have any evidence they give a flying fickle finger of fate about the user experience, after all.
Just going back to disqus would be a pleasure….
Well, at least there are far fewer comments and commenters than ever now so it’s not as hard to scroll through.
Seeing as Kinja is a commenting platform and is currently not in any sense operating as such, you’d think they’d do something to fix it. I mean, Kinja can’t do the one thing it does. What else tops that as a priority?
They’ve literally hiding replies to comments in the actual articles pages. You’ll probably be able to see this comment in your notifications, Filthy, but when you click on it, you’ll probably never find it in the comments.
You’re lying! This isn’t interesting at all.
Hell, even UN-greyed responses don’t show up any more. It makes it pretty hard to keep a reasonable discussion going.
Okay, fine, but if you don’t sign them FilthyWhore how will I know who it’s from?
shut up?
Disqus worked flawlessly, this is a very good example of “it ain’t broke”. I know they had their reasons for switching the central content management system to integrate with the full Gawker network, and there were some limitations of the old system that were resolved by going in-House. But that shouldn’t have precluded them from stapling Disqus comments onto the bottom of articles. Comment systems are extremely complicated to code properly, as Kinja proves, and if someone else does that as their entire business model and does it well, then it’s money well spent. I have to think they regret the boneheaded decision to drop Disqus, but now it’s going to take a ton of time and money to switch back, neither of which the AV Club have in abundance, and here we are.
It’s not going to be fixed. The changes are intentional.
I was going to upvote you till I saw you were at 69 “likes” and there’s no way I was changing that number for a user named FilthyWhore who has the Riki-O picture up.
The way notifications work isn’t a bug. It’s an annoying feature introduced to – my guess – make it a bit harder to access comments and replies, which artificially inflates click and page view figures. That’s what happens when your business model depends both on ad revenue and good-looking spreadsheets that keep investors happy. It’s really sad that so much great content is published on a platform designed to make us hate it but still usable enough to keep us coming back.
I got several likes for a post; when I went to check it, it had been removed for some reason. Between that shit and the slideshows (you really need a slideshow for 5 items?), I’m wondering if my time would be better spent elsewhere.
Maybe it’s time for a strike…
You’re awful, lolll
I’d do that
I once did “GET OUT” and hand prints on a wall in laundry detergent while moving my mother out of her shitty little attic apartment. We left a blacklight tube in the fixture over the kitchen sink, opposite the wall. The detergent was completely clear, but fluoresced like a sumbitch under the blacklight. I sincerely hope somebody got to experience that little gift. 😌
I sincerely hope somebody got to experience that little gift. Note that it says “experienced”, not “enjoyed”.I don’t quite understand why one would leave this for someone they do not know, and will never be able to see the pay-off for. Just seems … idly evil to me. Lol! It may never do harm, but the whole intent of it is to harm, if only for a second. And you’ll never know if it happened, or what impact it had, so just having something out in the world with the sole intent to bring on an initial negative feeling of unmeasured magnitude is just … odd you’d be so proud to share? Sincerely, even.
Oh, well. I’m sure you’re mostly a better person than this story of yourself you’ve provided leads you on to be.
Thank you for noting that distinction. 😉 First off, this was over 20 years ago, and I spent my late teens striving to be an agent of chaos. But I also like to think my little gift helped prepare the subsequent tenant for the living nightmare of that shitty attic apartment which my mother had to endure.I have since given up the ways of chaos and matured into my ‘lawful evil’ phase, where my actions and goals don’t align with societal norms, but I adhere to my own internally-consistent code of conduct. 😏
As someone who is constantly around creepy old dolls (I work in senior companion care) that doll doesn’t look old enough or scarred to have been there that long. Unless it rejuvenates through murder, this was a prank.
Headline implies they fact-checked and found actual murders confirming. Abysmal journalism.
“Journalism” is not the first or 500th word I’d use to describe the writing on this site…
Defining journalism as writing that’s worth a Peabody is not only false but lets writers like Andrew completely off the hook.
“Journalism”? Uhhhh, yeah, that’s what this site is! Real, bona-fide, journalism! Notify The Peabody Awards! The AVC is The Papers now, Pal!
No one comes here for the journalism. You go to BBC.com for that.I come make fun of stupid articles on Kinja. Once in a while I try to sound smart. Occasionally I will sincerely open up.But even that is a fucked up experience since G/O Media took it over, as the Kinja editor screws up hyperlinks, I can’t comment on pending responses, and I can’t see what posts people like when I check my notifications. Fix this shit, G/O Media. You probably make enough off all the shitty ads (I see a “Captain Crunch/Walmart” ad as I speak – I never saw the Captain in Time or Newsweek) and Amazon links and probably pay your journalists like sweatshop workers, you can get real coders to fix this. PS: if you don’t believe me about “Captain Crunch”, here it is.
The BBC relies on ad revenue just as much as this site does. Entertainment news is still journalism. People come here to read the articles, which means they come here for the journalism.
I suspect Cap’n Horatio Magellan Crunch may be too left-leaning for the current incarnation of Newsweek, anyway:https://newrepublic.com/article/158968/newsweek-rise-zombie-magazine
I just come here to criticize the site for not being as good and complain that all the things I like are passé and all the liked things are scary and unfamiliar
This nonchalance is why white men are always moving into clearly haunted houses in movies.
Except that’s it’s usually women (of color too. See: Lovecraft Country, etc), and they have this terrible habit of coming downstairs, alone, at night in the pitch dark, calling “is someone there?”
Additional points if the protagonist makes the decision to BACK into a darkened corner.I always explore dark areas by walking backwards. Adds to the mystery.
Haha! That’s truly original. I live in an old house and will have to try that.
If I thought someone was in my house, I would a) not go looking for them and b) not holler out so they could know exactly where I am. I’ll lock the door of the room I’m in and call 911. (Now, if I had cats, I might go look to see if it was them. If I lived in a small house, I might look if I was armed–even with just a fireplace poker–but they always do this in large, two story houses.)
Of course that’s what we’d do. But then there’d be no bodies in the morning and my psycho relatives would still just be thinking of murdering me.
Also Eddie Murphy
The media loves to report these stories, while ignoring all the good work creepy possessed dolls do in the community.
I read somewhere that only like, 1 in 5 creepy possessed dolls actually kills anyone. Yet they’re all tarred with the same brush!
Creepy possessed dolls are fine. It’s ventriloquist dummies you gotta watch out for.
I rest my case. Case closed. Checkmate. Touchdown. The price is right.
When creepy possessed dolls are outlawed, only outlaws will have creepy possessed dolls.
The best way to stop a creepy doll with a knife is a good doll with a knife, not knife control!
Actually, that’s why I bought one of Elon Musk’s flame throwers: fear of creepy rag dolls.(I did not in fact buy one of Elon Musk’s idiotic flame throwers.)
Remember that time a creepy possessed doll brought peace to The Middle East?I ‘memba.
Whole lot of intolerance here for cynical crash grabs. Bet you hate people who file fraudulent insurance claims, too.
Dreamers are always misunderstood.
U remember a comedian saying years ago that he had sold his house and had the terrible urge to paint something like STOP ME BEFORE I KILL THEM ALL!!! in huge letters in red paint on one of the bedroom walls and then redecorate the room with really bad wallpaper so that the new owners would have to tear it all down and find the message. He didn’t go through with it, and later deeply regretted it.
The name of the female presenter on This Morning is Holly Willoughby, which is almost precisely the sound of gently farting in the bath.
Have your star, and also my baby, please.
Two things:1. That doll does not look remotely creepy. Like, at all. Talky Tina or Barbie look creepier.2. Halloween Season starts earlier every year. I remember when we had two whole days to celebrate the Autumn Equinox, and now the decorations and party accessories are getting crowded out of stores by Halloween supplies even before the end of August. When will the madness end? Will Halloween Season swallow up Senior Citizen’s Day next? Will we have to be listening to Bobby “Boris” Pickett instead of Guy Lombardo in mid-August?
Doll doesn’t look remotely creepy? Are you sure it’s a doll?
I did this in my kitchen when I remodeled it. After this photo I left a few melted candles on the framed portion, and there’s a few fake human bones in there too. I wish I could see what the next owners reactions would be.
That party the new owner’s planning to throw has horror movie set-up written all over it.
For a doll from 1961, that doll looks too new and modern with antique styling.I would suggest potential pranksters to get an actual old doll from the antique store, note on lined paper and pencil per the video, and tie it into a local unsolved murder mystery.
General question for those who are using red paint for messages, could one use pigs blood or something organic that would at least dry the appropriate color? Not sure if actual blood still shows after 20+ years, but blood goes from red to brown after a short time. So red paint would be unrealistic after the initial shock wears off from whomever found it.
I once wrote on the backside of a mirror “this mirror must never be looked in and must never leave this house.”
So… he did this, right? We’re gonna find out he did it himself for his party?
Somewhere in Northern California there is a bag of Franzia in the wall. We figured the next guys would also get drunk and kick walls, and it would be funny if the house “bled” on them.Plot twist: The house was sold to a Sorority.
Years ago, my now husband threw a Halloween party in his unfinished basement. The decorations included a bloody handprint coming from an enclosed space under the stairs. Shortly after, the basement was finished and enclosed the bloody handprint.One day, I hope someone renovates, sees the bloody hand print and freaks out.
Worst. Halloween Party. Invitation.Ever.
Homeowner makes up story to get media attention.