It's hard not to feel a strange sense of unease when discovering Letta, the Gypsy Doll. Her ungrateful, almost threatening physique often upsets those who look at her. But, beyond her appearance, we can easily guess that there is something special in this doll. Something unhealthy that can be guessed without even knowing its past. Because Letta has a story. A story that could well explain the feelings it inspires.
The Story of Letta, the Gypsy Doll
In 1972, 23-year-old Kerry Walton traveled to Wagga Wagga, Australia, to attend his grandmother's funeral. He was back in his hometown, the one that had seen him grow up, and despite the years that had passed, it hadn't really changed. As he passed the old haunted house, he noticed with amusement that it was still abandoned. High trees surrounded it, hiding it almost completely from prying eyes, and it still emanated the same mysterious atmosphere. Many legends circulated about him. The strangest of them told the story of an old man who once lived there. Since his death, the unfortunate man had wandered in limbo, dragging behind him a large bag filled with human skulls. Although he never dared to go there, the mysterious building – and its possible ghosts – had always fired his imagination. Kerry hesitated for a moment. He still felt that good old irrational fear deep inside him, but his curiosity and passion for old glass bottles now outweighed his childhood fears. And then, with a bit of luck, maybe he would discover some unsuspected treasure inside that would enrich his collection.
Flashlight in hand, he slipped under the old planks and began to move forward, pushing aside the cobwebs that kept coming back to stick to his hair. Suddenly, the beam of her torch lit up a face and Kerry felt her blood run cold: “What I found was something that looked like a dead child. Fear startled me and I nearly knocked myself unconscious when my head hit one of the floor beams.” Heart pounding, he approached the lifeless body and suddenly felt stupid. What he had taken for a mummified corpse was in fact only an old doll. When he took her in his hands, her dirty clothes instantly crumbled to dust. His face, meticulously sculpted, was particularly hideous. His grimacing smile seemed to utter some silent threat, and his dark eyes shone ominously beneath his thick brows. His piercing eyes seemed to observe her and scrutinize her every move.
Kerry dozed in the passenger seat of the taxi taking him back to Brisbane, where he now lived. He had put the doll in a bag and put it in the back seat, where his brother was sitting. Suddenly, jolts
forced him to emerge from his torpor. Her brother was shaking her shoulder frantically, and he claimed to have seen the doll move. Kerry turned back to the bag as her brother began to nervously joke, mimicking the whiny voice of a captive doll: "Letta Me Out, Letta Me Out!" ("Let Me Out, Let Me Out!"). The doll had just found its name, it would be called Letta. Kerry was troubled, what he saw was strange to say the least. Night had fallen, but when they passed a car, the interior of the vehicle lit up and the doll suddenly seemed to come to life. Maybe it was just a game of shadows and lights, but he was beginning to wonder if he had been well inspired in extricating Letta from her wooden tomb.
The new guest did not please everyone, and some had given her a particularly explicit welcome. When Randolph, Kerry's little dog, saw the doll, he began to bark furiously, even trying to bite it. It was quite unusual behavior on his part, the dog having, until then, always been very calm. Evelyn, Kerry's wife, didn't much like Letta either, as did the various family friends she had been introduced to. They found her face repulsive and the doll made them uncomfortable. They had, they said, the impression that his eyes were following them. Only her children seemed to like her. They played with Letta all day long and Kerry let them take her to their bedroom when they slept. But during the night, the children suddenly began to scream. They were screaming so loudly that Kerry had to put the doll back in its bag and take it down to the basement to reassure them. She would stay there for five years.
Less than a month after the doll's discovery, the old haunted house was inexplicably collapsing, much to Kerry's surprise:
"After being there for more than one hundred years, the house suddenly began to collapse on itself. It was almost as if the doll knew what was going to happen and had guided my actions. I found that very bizarre.”
In order to be able to face the very serious financial problems which were overwhelming her, Kerry had decided to sell the old doll which had been lying around in the basement for a long time already. It was a rare item and he hoped a collector would give him a good price for it, maybe even $400. After placing an advertisement to this effect, he very quickly received an offer from a merchant in Sidney. The deal was done over the phone and, ignoring the rain that was starting to fall, Kerry hurried to deliver the doll to its new owner. Arriving at the scene, he opened the back door of his car to grab Letta, but to his amazement he found he couldn't move her anymore. Nothing seemed to be able to do it, the doll remained inexplicably glued to the seat and he couldn't pull it out even by pulling on it with all his might. Kerry had just understood that the doll had its own will, and that he was going to have to submit to it.
This singular experience had disturbed Kerry who now felt the need to know more about Letta. He had thought about the different possibilities open to him and the most judicious choice had seemed to him to be the museum of Sydney. By a surprising coincidence, as soon as he put the doll in the car, it started to rain.
The experts were very interested in Letta. After studying it, they explained to its owner that the doll was very old. If we were to believe the nails that held the soles of her shoes, she was at least 200 years old. Everything suggested that it was the work of a Romanian Gypsy craftsman, probably that of a puppeteer.
There was, however, one disturbing detail. Under his thick hair, made of real human hair, was a removable skull. And under that skull, which you could lift, was a brain. A real brain. It looked and colored like damp newspaper.
According to experts, this wooden doll was probably made to serve as a refuge for a soul. In the past, the gypsies were very inclined towards the occult. They thought that when someone died, his soul could take refuge in a receptacle made for this purpose. The receptacle then became a sanctuary that allowed the deceased to remain in our world. Kerry felt puzzled. If his visit to the museum had answered some of his questions, it had opened the door to many others.
Letta was beginning to be known and an American medium, who had heard of the strange doll, suggested that Kerry try to unravel its mysteries. After studying it, he concludes that the artist who had made it had created it in memory of his son who had died of drowning. Some time later, Tisha, an Australian psychic, learned of Letta's sad story and contacted Kerry to offer her services.
The moment the medium saw the doll, she was fascinated by it. Tisha would develop a very special relationship with her. When she spoke to her, Letta seemed to understand her and even replied: “While listening to the doll, I discovered that the soul of a six-year-old boy had been imprisoned in this wooden container. The child drowned in a storm in a remote place in Romania. Her grief-stricken father fashioned a life-size figure for the soul transfer ceremony. The child was imprisoned for centuries. He is confused and scared. The doll was brought to Australia by an immigrant and stored under a house.”
Wanting to make Letta's tragic story known, Tisha decided to present it in a shopping center and the reactions were spectacular. When the curtain rose on the doll, several women screamed, one fainted and another vomited. There was no logical reason for all this and the medium had concluded that Letta did not want to be shown. The doll was angry, these women had dimly felt it and they had been frightened by it. The antique doll left no one indifferent. All the dogs, without exception, became hysterical on seeing her and some people declined Kerry's invitations, without even knowing the reasons for their fear: "We have had several times traders who refused to come into the house, when they were unaware that we had the doll. They just felt an evil presence and they refused to come inside.” Others fled when they saw it, or stubbornly refused to approach it. Those who managed to get past their initial apprehension often told Kerry about the inexplicable feeling of fear or sadness they felt about the doll and the strange color changes they saw in her eyes. Kerry's wife also had an explanation for this phenomenon: “Some days, I visit her and she looks sad. Other days, she seems happy and smiling. I know it sounds weird, but she can change her facial expressions.” Some even claimed that Letta could move without the assistance of anyone, and its owner confirmed this: Several times, I saw the doll move. For a long time, I left her sitting in an old rocking chair, and on several occasions I caught her as her arms and legs were moving.”
Letta was now famous and the media was beginning to take an interest in the case. Kerry Walton and Trisha had been invited to talk about her story on a TV show and the interview was scheduled to take place in the medium's office. Like every time Kerry took the doll out of his house, it started to rain. When he walked into Trisha's office, a painting immediately fell off the wall and the clock froze. As the film crew organized themselves, the medium placed the doll in her lap and Letta began to fidget like a restless child. It was the first time she had done that, at least in his presence, and when Trisha pointed it out, one of the cameramen told her that he didn't believe her. Then, slowly, the doll turned her head towards him, cracking the wood of her neck. As soon as her gaze landed on him, a searchlight exploded. The cameraman blanched and hurried out the back door. The whole occasion was broadcast to large number of watchers. The same phenomenon would recur 10 years later, during a new broadcast. Letta really didn't like the spotlight…or maybe it was the cameramen.
Some time later, a magazine published an article about Letta and her sad legend. This report aroused the interest of a group of American paranormal investigators who then decided to go to Australia in order to organize a session of spiritualism. During this session, the spirit of the young boy trapped in the doll quite unexpectedly manifested through them, confirming everything Trisha had said. Kerry, on his part, was fatalistic: “The Americans told me that I would never be able to get rid of the doll. At least that explains why I couldn't get her out of the car." Investigators were thrilled with the paranormal phenomena they had witnessed and they desperately wanted to take Letta to the United States in order to present her on a lucrative talk show, which Kerry firmly refused, preferring to accept the proposal of a famous Australian astrologer who offered him a national tour. While Letta sometimes made the rain fall during this tour, she also manifested her presence in an even more spectacular way: “We had placed the doll on stage. The crowd was starting to gather around when suddenly a woman started screaming. Then, as the silent crowd watched, the doll began to shake its head. " a woman began to scream. Then, as the silent crowd watched, the doll began to shake its head. " a woman began to scream. Then, as the silent crowd watched, the doll began to shake its head. "
If Kerry Walton and her family hadn't really liked the old doll when she first arrived, they now seemed to have grown accustomed to her presence. Maybe it was just a coincidence, but since she was living with them, Kerry's business had been booming. According to him, all Letta needed was new parents, a father and a mother. And that was exactly what Kerry and his wife had become for her.