Still other legends claim that the doll “vanished” after Otto’s house changed ownership a number of times after his death, or that young Otto triggered the doll’s supernatural powers by blaming his childhood mishaps on the doll. Other stories claim that the doll moved voodoo figurines around the room, and was “aware of what went on around him”. Some versions of the legend claim that a young girl of “Bahamian descent” gave Otto the doll as a gift or as “retaliation for a wrongdoing”. It is annually rotated to the Old Post Office and Customhouse in October.Īccording to legend, the doll has supernatural abilities that allow it to move, change its facial expressions, and make giggling sounds. In 1994, the doll was donated to the East Martello Museum in Key West, Florida, where it eventually became a popular tourist attraction. After their deaths, the Eaton Street home containing the doll was sold to Myrtle Reuter, who owned it for 20 years until the property was sold to the current owners, who operate it as a guest house. The couple returned to the Otto family home in Key West to live there until Otto died in 1974. Otto married Annette Parker in Paris on May 3, 1930. The doll remained stored in the Otto family home at 534 Eaton Street in Key West while Otto studied art in New York and Paris. The doll’s sailor suit was likely an outfit that Otto wore as a child. The doll was reportedly manufactured by the Steiff Company of Germany, purchased by Otto’s grandfather while on a trip to Germany in 1904, and given to young Otto as a birthday gift. The doll originally belonged to Robert Eugene Otto, an artist described as “eccentric” who belonged to a prominent Key West family. Robert was once owned by Key West, Florida painter and author, Robert Eugene Otto. Robert the doll is an allegedly haunted doll exhibited at the East Martello Museum. A girl who bared her teeth and stared, stared. There she was, a girl who, no matter where you turned, always faced you. I saw her, miles above us, in air rarefied and thin, not breathable by common means at all, floating within their vessel. Late at night, I dreamed of her, not the doubled half of the girl we had, but the doubled half we didn’t.
For a while we posted a sentry outside the door, who reported to the lodge on the sound of her scrabbling within, but once the noise stopped we gave that up as well. At Verl’s request, we left the hole in the roof in the hopes they would come back for her.
We nailed planks across the door and boarded up the windows. At first her mother protested and bit and clawed, but in the end she didn’t want to take her either-she just wanted to feel better about letting her go, to have the blame rest on us. In the end we couldn’t think what to do with her except leave her. She was a whole girl made of two half girls, but wrongly made, of two of the same halves.Īfter a while we couldn’t hardly bear to look at her. She just kept turning in circles, walking backwards and knocking into things, trying to grab things with the backs of her hands. She didn’t eat or if she did, did so in a way we couldn’t see. They left and left us with a girl who, no matter how you looked at her, you saw her from the back. Some of the others joined in, but they didn’t come back, none of them. Now goddam have the decency to take the rest of her. It was Verl Kramm who got the idea of calling out to the sky, calling out after the lights as they receded, to tell them to come and take her. Her mother was screaming, blaming us, but what could we do about it? We were not to blame. I got Jim Slip to look on one side and I looked from the other and the other members of the lodge just tried to hold her gently or not so gently in place, but no matter how we looked or held her the face just wasn’t there. There was hair in front and hair in the back-only saying which was the front and which was the back was impossible. No matter which way we turned the girl, she didn’t have a face.
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