If you’ve ever seen “Chucky” movie series, you’ve never been able to look at dolls the same way. Chucky is the main antagonist in Child's Play, Child's Play 2, Child's Play 3, Bride of Chucky, and Seed of Chucky. While in the midst of a gun fight with a police officer, Ray finds himself in a toy store and does some voodoo to put himself in the doll so he can get away. Did you know that Chucky is based off of a real doll?

Mr. and Mrs. Otto moved to Key West in 1986, ready to settle down. With them were several servants brought from the Bahamas’ to help them manage the house and care for their son once he arrived in the year 1900. The servant placed to care for Robert Eugene “Gene” Otto was a young Bohemian girl who had just lost her son. In what many speculate was actually an act of revenge, a servant gave Gene a doll made of a wire frame, cloth, straw, hair from Gene’s head, dressed in a sailor suit and holding a stuffed lion. Immediately Gene took to the doll and the two became inseparable. Eugene gave the doll his first name of Robert and made everyone else call him Eugene (Gene) instead.

Every parent has a child with an imaginary friend that they play with and talk to. But not every parent will hear their child answer himself in a different voice. Neighbors began to claim that they would see Robert move around from window to window when the family was not in the house. Children loathed walking by the Otto house for fear of Robert glaring down at them from the window. Whenever an accident, such as a breaking plate, would happen, Gene was quick to say, “Robert did it! Robert did it!”

Other beloved toys belonging to Eugene began to turn up mutilated and the servants claimed to hear giggling in the middle of the night. Sometimes Eugene's voice would sound agitated, but the responding voice only sounded insistent.

After several years of strange events happening, Robert was finally put up in the attic. Gene finally left his childhood home to study in France where he met his wife, Anne. They were married and moved into his childhood home, now known as “The Artist House” that was willed to him at his father’s death. Upon his return to the house, he discovered Robert in the attic and was upset. As compensation for his years spent up there, Gene had a room built for Robert in the third floor.

As if he were trying to make up for lost time, Gene took Robert everywhere in the house with him, including the dinner table and next to his bed. Anne had begun to question her husband’s sanity. But with his death in 1972, Robert was put in the attic as she moved to Boston and allowed the house to be rented out. In the lease agreement she said, 'Robert must at all times remain the sole occupant of the attic room,' or the contract was void. This remained true up until her death in 1976.

Robert waited patiently to be discovered again, and was once a new family moved in. The ten-year-old daughter of the new family quickly found the doll and brought him down to her room to live with her other dolls. Soon after Robert unleashed his anger. The girl would scream at night, claiming to see him walk about her room and attack her as she slept. More than thirty years later she still claims that the doll is alive and wanted to kill her.*

To this day, Robert is still up to his old tricks. Perhaps this accounts for the three pacemakers that have stopped in front of him, many reports of new camera batteries dying in front of him, the many cameras that have stopped working in front of him and the increased activity of the doll. Museum curators report that Robert often changes position overnight even though he is locked behind glass in a case inside a brick museum with locked three inch wooden doors and bars on every window.

It is even possible to visit Robert. However, if you do beware. It is said there is curse that surrounds Robert. If you wish to take a picture of Robert you must ask him politely. If he tilts his head you may snap a picture. Those who mock Robert or take a picture without his permission are cursed with bad luck, as are those who are with them. Littering the Robert the Doll display are many letters written by people apologizing and asking him to remove the curse.**

* Moran, M, Austin, J, & Sceurman, M. (2006). Weird hauntings: true tales of ghostly places. New York City, NY: Sterling Publishing Company. p. 212.

** Roberts Curse