Robert the Doll

Hello everyone! I hope you're having a great start to 2020. 😁

You may have watched a film or two over the years that were inspired by the particular doll I am writing about today. He was the inspiration for several films and characters, but the most famous is Chucky in Childs Play. Recently there was a series of movies made about Robert himself which started with the film called Robert in 2015.

You may have heard some of the stories in this post before, but I am going to share what I have found with you, so I hope you enjoy. 😊

Who is Robert? Where did he come from?

Robert the Doll. Image credit: Cayobo @ Flickr

Robert stands at around 40 inches tall and is stuffed with wood wool. He wears a sailor suit that was said to have once been worn by Gene as a child and has beady black eyes. He now has his own stuffed dog toy that sits on his lap in his case at the Fort East Martello Museum.

Robert was a gift to a young boy called Robert Eugene Otto, but he went by Gene for short. Robert was an ordinary-looking doll made of out cloth, but when he arrived at their home strange things started to happen.

There are two stories about how Robert ended up the property of Gene, and the stories go as follows:

The spookier story of the two is that Robert was a gift to the young boy from a servant that worked for his parents. Allegedly they mistreated her pretty badly, and to get her revenge she cursed the doll using voodoo and black magic to punish them.
The realistic and less spooky version is that his grandfather got the doll as a gift for Gene when he visited Germany. It has also been proven that the doll was actually made by the Steiff Company in Germany.

So, what were the strange things that started to happen when Robert arrived?

Strange Events

"He brought it everywhere, he talked about it in the first person as if he weren't a doll, he was Robert. As in the doll is a living entity."

The strange things started happening when Gene was 10 years old. One night he woke up to find Robert sat at the end of his bed staring at him. His mother awoke to screams from her son's bedroom and the sound of furniture being overturned.

When she managed to get inside the room she found Gene curled up on his bed absolutely petrified. His room was a mess and Robert was still sitting at the bottom of his bed.

Genes' parents also noticed that he would speak to the doll, but they would hear a different voice replying. They also reported seeing Robert's expression changing, hearing him giggle, and that they witnessed him running up the stairs.

People also said that Gene's other toys were being mutilated by Robert and that he would blame any strange behaviour on the doll. Some suspected that Gene may have been blaming his own bad behaviour on the doll.

Robert remained with Gene when his parents passed away, when he got married, and when his wife Anne moved into the house. That is when Gene decided to give Robert his own room overlooking the street.

Not long after Anne asked Gene to move Robert into the attic, but apparently, Robert was not impressed at all. Then the neighbourhood kids reported seeing Robert at the window upstairs and said that he was mocking them. Gene checked the room and discovered that he was at the window. This happened multiple times when he was meant to be in the attic.

When Gene passed away in 1974 a new family moved into the house and their daughter found Robert in the attic.

At first, she was delighted to find the doll, but that soon changed when she realised he was alive and trying to hurt her. She also recalled Robert moving around the room on his own. She started having night terrors and finding her toys mutilated, and said that on several occasions Robert tried to kill her and the family dog.

Scared for their safety, Robert was donated to the Fort East Martello Museum in 1994, and that is where he resides to this day.

Recent Events at the Museum

Robert the Doll at Fort East Martello Museum. Image credit: Wikimedia Commons

Since being at the museum he has had many visitors, and allegedly Robert still scares and taunts people to this day.

He dislikes having his photo taken, and there is a notice that visitors must ask permission before they take one. Many people have reported their cameras would stop working when they tried to get a photo, and then start working as soon as they left.

In addition to cameras not working in his presence, people also believed Robert to be the cause of:

Car accidents
Broken bones
Job loss
Divorce

As a result, the museum has received thousands of letters addressed to Robert apologising for upsetting him and asking for his forgiveness. Some people have even sent in boxes of candy.

Final Thoughts

As much as I would love the first story full of magic and voodoo to be true because it would explain everything and be pretty cool, I do think the more believable of the two stories is that his grandfather bought him the doll.

However, this doesn't explain why the young girl experienced almost the exact same things as Gene did when he was a boy. Is it purely coincidence or did she hear about Robert from other people that lived in the area when she moved in?

What are your thoughts on Robert the Doll? Do you think he is cursed or this was all created by a mischevious young boy? Please share in the comments!