Read the full story of Robert the Doll here: http://goo.gl/yA8SNV We are now entering the east Martello Museum in Key West Florida which houses something very unique – Robert the Doll which inspired the movie Chucky. If you ever get a chance to visit him, don’t take a picture of him, before asking for his permission to do so. Every year, he receives hundreds of letters of apology, from former skeptics who took pictures without his permission. So what’s the story behind Robert the Doll? To understand this, we have to travel to a big Victorian mansion called the Artist house, a few miles away. It is called the Artist house because an artist, a painter grew up here. His name was Robert Eugene Otto. When his mother was 4 months pregnant, she sends her husband to the Bahamas to find 4 helpers including a woman to take care of the baby. The trip took a little bit longer than it should have, the nanny became pregnant and Mrs. Otto is not too happy with who the father is. So now, this young Bahamian girl has to spend 9 months locked up inside an outhouse in the backyard. If that’s not terrible, she is only fed bread and water once a day. When her own child was born, it only survives 2 months, obviously because of the mother’s starvation. Mrs. Otto is a tough slave driver; she keeps all the servants including the woman, and made the woman take care of Robert Eugene Otto, who is now a few months old. Now, you’d probably expect the Bahamian woman to take her vengeance out on Robert, but she fell in love with this baby, even breast fed him and took him on as if he were her own. Things go smooth for a while until Mrs. Otto walks into her backyard on a full moon night to see the 4 Bahamian servants performing Santeria. What is Santeria? It is a recognized religion which started in Cuba – it’s a mix of Voodoo, Catholicism and animal sacrifices. Now, Mrs. Otto is shocked to see her 4 helpers cutting the head of a live chicken, she freaks out. The next morning, she makes everyone pack their bags and is ready to ship them back to Bahamas. The nanny begs Mrs. Otto not to be separated from Robert. She not only lost her first child, but in a way she is losing her second child. But there is no going back once Mrs. Otto makes up her mind. So, she makes a parting gift for Robert, a three foot doll, black buttons for eyes, cloth for skin. The doll looks creepy enough, but what’s more creepy the Doll becomes Robert Gene Otto’s only playmate on the island. He would be spotted walking up and down this street talking to the doll. Now, As soon as the nanny left, bad things started to happen in the house. Things would end up missing or broken. Being the only child, Robert Gene gets blamed for everything. But his reaction was very strange. As his mother would start to yell at him, she might go “Robert Eugene Otto” –full name, the old fashioned way of reprimanding a child, right? He would stop her and say “Don’t you ever call me that again”. He would point at the doll and say he is Robert and I am Gene. He gave the doll his own first name and kept his own middle name for himself. Gene did this every time the blame game came up “I didn’t do, Robert did it” Years pass by, now Gene is a 19 year old man and he is still walking up and down the street with Robert. At this point the family decides to move to France, they pack up the entire house, everything except Robert the doll who gets locked in a trunk and left behind in the attic. Gene, now without Robert starts to become more sociable in France. He meets a lovely girl and eventually they get married. As a wedding present they get the house that Gene grew up in, so they move back into the house. Now, Gene goes up in the attic and comes across a trunk, he has no idea what’s in there, opens it up. Out comes Robert and now, we have a grown married man walking up and down the street carrying adoll and talking to it. Ann, who is his wife gets pissed at this quirkiness, so she asks him to keep the doll confined to the turret. The turret is that big round thing on top. Gene agrees. After a few years, Gene becomes abusive and will sometimes even beat Ann. One time, as Ann was inspecting the old outhouse in the back yard all by herself, Gene shuts the door and locks her in the outhouse for 3 days. Wait, it was not Gene, it was .. Robert and yes it is the same outhouse the Bahamian Nanny was locked in for 9 months. Read the full story of Robert the Doll here: http://goo.gl/yA8SNV Visit http://www.phenomenalplace.com for interesting and intriguing places and stories. Follow me at: https://twitter.com/phenomenalplace

• published: 22 Aug 2015
• views: 547016