11/22/2025 Haunted Locations: Robert the Doll - On display at the Fort East Martello Museum in Key West, Florida

Happy Saturday! I'm back with another super creepy haunting for you. But this week, it’s not the location I’m sharing; it’s a haunted OBJECT. Not just any haunted object, either. Today, we take on Robert the Doll. Buckle up. Things are about to get weird.

ROBERT THE DOLL

Robert the Doll seems to be quite famous worldwide. I knew about the doll (not all of the details, etc.), but after seeing Annabelle at Warren’s occult museum about ten years ago, any doll since has been a huge ‘NOPE’ for me. However, I decided to go ahead and dive right down the rabbit hole with this one, because I knew it would make for a super interesting research project/post. WELL, not only is he creepy as hell to even look at, but the story that accompanies him is diabolical!! So, let’s go ahead and break down what we know, and then consider a couple of theories about the things that remain a mystery.

It is said that Robert the Doll is the most haunted doll in the world. It was made in Germany in the early 1900s by Margarete Steiff. She is the founder of the Steiff company. The company continues to produce plush toys to this day.

Robert the doll stands at 40 inches and is stuffed with wood wool, aka excelsior. There are questions on whether or not it was even made for retail due to its size, and many people have said it was originally intended to be a window display.  

The doll then traveled to America, where it found its home with a family who was also of German descent. The son, Eugene Robert Otto, was the one who received the doll as a gift. Eugene was so smitten with the doll that he named it after himself and dressed it in one of his very own outfits.

There is some wild speculation on how the doll ended up with the Ottos and who gave it to him. Per southernmostghosts.com there are a few different theories that float around:

• The Grandfather: Theory number one, and the least intriguing one of the bunch, says that Robert wasn’t a one-of-a-kind piece but a by the book mass-produced product manufactured and sold by the Steiff Company in Germany. In 1904, while on a trip to Germany, the doll was purchased by Gene’s granddad and given to the small boy as a birthday gift. The funky little sailor suit was likely one of the outfits Gene used to wear as a kid. 

• The Voodoo Priestess: Many believe that Robert was created by a charming Haitian servant who used to work in Gene’s household. The girl had grown fond of Gene and created a doll to protect the little boy. Somewhere along the way, while infusing the effigy with raw magical power, her spell went astray and something wicked from beyond the veil ended up inhabiting Robert.

• The Voodoo Priestess Redux: Others believe that Gene’s father had, in fact, abused and mistreated the charming servant. The woman, driven mad by the villainy inflicted on her, crafted a doll – using Voodoo and black magic – and cursed the thing to punish all who came in contact with it.

• The Devil: The doll showed up on the shores of Key West. Flotsam from a doomed ship. Gene’s family salvaged the thing when the boy became enamored of it. Many believe that the Devil was responsible for the turnabout of fates and that Robert carries in its innards the wrecked souls of sailors and mariners. 

• The Neighbors: the last conjecture states that it's not the doll but the sailor outfit that’s cursed and haunted. The doll was brought over from Germany, but its original clothing was shoddy and not really up to the standards of Gene’s affluent family. One day, Gene’s mom became enchanted by a little sailor outfit that was being sold in one of Key West’s various boutiques. She bought the piece, dressed up the doll, and Gene, who also liked the sailor outfit, became even more infatuated with the toy. What the matriarch failed to notice was the fact that the quaint sailor outfit had been repurposed and reconditioned from old fabric and cloth… It had once been a pajama worn by a boy of Gene’s age who had died of Yellow Fever. It’s spirit, they say, still vacationing inside that dammed suit. 

I’ll let you pick your poison on which of those you choose to believe as the truth. Regardless, this doll is damn creepy.

Eugene became inseparable from Robert. He even began blaming the doll whenever he was misbehaving.

Eugene’s parents really wanted to believe that there was nothing malevolent about this doll, but they kept running into instances that would lead them to believe otherwise. Robert ends up getting involved in some events that had people wondering how a seemingly harmless doll was truly tormenting the family, but too many odd events took place surrounding the family for it to be a coincidence.

According to robertthedoll.org, Eugene’s parents often heard their son talking to the doll and getting a response back in a totally different voice. They also described seeing the doll changing expressions when they spoke in his company.

Despite all of the speculation and concern, the doll stayed in the house.

After Eugene’s parents passed away, he moved his wife, Anne, into the home. Anne wasn’t a fan of Robert. She told her husband that she felt uncomfortable and had him lock the doll in the attic. Well, according to some people, Robert did NOT like this. At all.

Eugene became a very successful artist; thus, the home was dubbed the Artist House. After Eugene locked the doll in the attic, people started to hear footsteps walking around and laughing up there. Even creepier than that is the neighborhood children saying that the damn doll would stare at them from the attic windows, even mocking them. These types of things ended up becoming super common with anyone who would go to Eugene’s. Eugene then passed away in 1974.

After Eugene died, people who were renting rooms at the home would continue reporting the sounds of footsteps where Robert the Doll was. Per robertthedoll.org, a plumber heard giggling and turned to find the doll had moved across the room on its own. The website goes on to give additional insight into another specific instance:

Solares Hill newspaper reporter Malcolm Ross visited Robert and had a very eerie experience with the doll. Ross’s friends told him Robert’s backstory and pointed out the children’s furniture that had been purchased by Gene. It was at this point that Malcolm noticed a change in the doll’s expression as if he was following the conversation. One of the men commented on what an old fool Gene Otto must have been. Robert’s expression turned into one of disdain. “There was some kind of intelligence there. The doll was listening to us.”

Reporter Malcolm Ross also stated, "It was like a metal bar running down my back. At first when we walked through the door, the look on his face was like a little boy being punished. It was as if he was asking himself, ‘Who are these people in my room and what are they going to do to me?"

When Eugene died in 1974, a woman named Myrtle Reuter bought his home. She lived there for six years, with the doll, and even brought Robert with her when she moved in 1980.

Myrtle believed the doll had a child’s spirit attached to it. She claimed that the doll would move around her own and his own and was haunted. She decided to donate the doll to the Key West Art &t Historical Society in 1994. She died a few months later.

Robert was placed in the storage area of a museum and was not put on display. People who worked at the museum noticed weird happenings as soon as the doll arrived.

Robert did not need to be displayed to gain attention there. Once word spread about where the doll was, people began flocking to see it. Robert was finally put on exhibit, and once he was, not only did the cameras start glitching, but a ton of letters also began appearing at the museum. These letters were addressed to Robert and contained apologies and asked Robert for forgiveness.

The museum states that Robert the Doll has rules when you visit him. Be respectful and ask permission to take his photograph.  Anyone who fails to follow the rules will be cursed by Robert.

On their website, robertthedoll.org, they provide examples of apology letters. Below is one of the letters received.

If you want to visit Robert the Doll, robertthedoll.org gives you all the information on how you can do that. It also provides you with any information needed to send Robert a letter.

So, tell me. Have you heard of this location before? Have you been there? Would you go? Let me know in the comments. And as always, if you do decide to visit here or any haunted location, respect the property, respect the owners, respect the residents... living or dead.

For more details about this story, how you can visit, and links to the shows, podcasts, documentaries, and resources used for this post can all be found below.

RESOURCES:

• https://robertthedoll.org/

• https://www.ghostsandgravestones.com/key-west/robert-the-doll

• https://www.artisthousekeywest.com/robert-the-doll

• https://thelittlehouseofhorrors.com/robert-the-doll/

• https://southernmostghosts.com/robert-the-doll-and-the-uncanny-valley/

• https://open.spotify.com/episode/2BZLRK6c6BuMJAKi56TX6D?si=ldKi_hprSkyoQAzBottsgw

• https://www.hauntedkeywest.com/robert-the-doll