Paranormal debunker The Side Eye Guy visits Warwick Letta doll
Meet Letta – he’s a 200-year-old Eastern European doll who is believed to hold the spirit of a dead child, and has haunted people across Queensland ever since he was discovered in an abandoned home.
Entertainment
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A haunted 200-year-old Eastern European doll, said to hold the spirit of a child who was drowned, has been visited by a paranormal sceptic in a bid to understand whether it is indeed haunted.
The Letta doll, found by Kerry Walton when he was collecting bottles in an abandoned house in Wagga Wagga in the 1970s, became a Warwick family keepsake and is now looked after by Hayleigh O’Reilly, Mr Walton’s granddaughter.
It was recently discovered by “The Side Eye Guy”, a stay-at-home father and YouTuber who takes his audience on in-depth debunking investigations.
“I don’t believe it, but it makes a cool story,” he said.
“When I saw it, it has an intimidating look.
“It’s a creepy, creepy, menacing look that can be a bit spiteful.
“If you looked without context it has all the hallmarks you would think a haunted doll would have.
“It is ridiculously well-crafted.”
The second-to-none craftsmanship involves hinged joints which, so when you hold the doll, it creates a feeling as if it is moving, he said.
Describing herself as “Letta’s carer”, Ms O’Reilly said it was like a child “wriggling to get comfortable”.
The mother-of-three lives in the western outskirts of Toowoomba with her family, and while she grew up with her Pop’s doll, she said her family all had to “get used to Letta”.
“He has a habit of turning lights on and off, weird things happen around the house, like doors opening or things falling down,” she said.
Ms O’Reilly said two psychics had visited the doll, claiming he had the spirit of a child who was drowned in water during the 1800s somewhere in Eastern Europe.
Apart from the nails in the dolls feet, which could be dated back to around that century, nothing really is known about it, she said.
She claimed the doll had a strange relationship to water, whenever it goes outside it rains or becomes overcast.
Her theory is that the doll was carved by the child’s father, to resemble the man that drowned his family, which she had read was practice at the time for anyone condemned for witchcraft, and somehow the child’s spirit became trapped in it.
When The Side Eye Guy visited, he said he didn’t feel any intuitive feeling about the doll apart from being intimidated by its overall look.
“I did“I did see there was a genuinely strong bond between Hayleigh and doll,” he said.
“She would look at it quite lovingly, and seems to genuinely believe the story herself.”
The doll would remain in her family and be passed onto her daughter when the time came, Ms O’Reilly said.
The Side Eye Guy has been making YouTube videos about the paranormal for more than a year and has since amassed a following of more than 20,000 people.