Posted by Joliet is a cursed doll, currently owned by Anna G., which has been passed down from generation to generation since her great-grandmother’s time. It is said to contain the souls of dead babies.
Joliet is a doll that, according to a story spread on the internet, was passed down for four generations by the women of one family. Each mother supposedly lost her baby boy on his third day of life, and the cries of infants can be heard coming from the doll. There are, however, no names, dates or documents to confirm the story.
The Joliet doll
Anna’s great-grandmother, while pregnant with her second child, received a doll as a gift from a friend, which she decided to call Joliet. What the woman did not know was that her friend was extremely jealous, and perhaps this was what started the incredible story of the Joliet doll. Anna’s great-grandmother gave birth to a baby boy and could not have been happier to have given her eldest daughter a little brother. Unfortunately, however, three days after his birth, the baby died of a sudden illness.
From that moment on, at night, she heard a baby crying coming from the room where the doll was kept. Despite this, she left it to her daughter, who, once married, also became pregnant with a girl. The girl grew up and some time later her mother became pregnant again. A boy was born, but again he died after only three days.
Even after this mysterious death, the doll’s owner could hear the cries of not one but two children at night.
Despite this, she left it to her daughter, who experienced the same thing, and so it happened to Anna, the current owner. Anna currently hears the cries of four children and believes that the souls of her child and the other children affected by the curse are trapped inside the doll. This is reminiscent of the case of the Letta doll, possessed by the spirit of a child.
The doll today
Every member of the family has taken care of the doll as if it were a child, but why, despite the curse, do they not get rid of it? Why do they continue to pass it down from generation to generation? Perhaps it is because the souls of all these children are hidden inside and the women of this family want to protect them. Perhaps they are afraid of hurting their children if they throw away or destroy the doll.
This is not the only burden these women have to bear, but also that of not being believed. In fact, only mothers who have lost a child can hear the cries coming from Joliet.
A true story?
Joliet’s story began circulating online, and in 2014 it even made the list of “freaky dolls” on the American website Listverse. Since then it has been repeated by dozens of sites, always in the same words: a woman known only as “Anna G.”, a great-grandmother who receives the doll from a jealous friend, and four generations of mothers who lose their baby boy on his third day of life.
The problem is that there is no full name, no date, no place, no birth or death certificate that would allow the story to be checked. Even the details change from one version to another: in some the curse strikes the first child, in others the second, and some place the family in Texas. For this reason many consider it a legend born online, a creepypasta, rather than a real case. Unlike Annabelle or Robert the Doll, moreover, Joliet is not on display in any museum: it supposedly remains with the family.
True or not, it is one of the saddest cursed-doll stories, because it is not about evil spirits, but about the grief of mothers who lost a child.
Would you like to read more stories about cursed dolls? Click here.
🦋 Emadion lives through its readers. If this story kept you up at night, buy me a coffee: it helps me bring you the next nightmare.
☕ Support Emadion on Ko-fi
