Debbie Merrick posted the photos to Ebay in hopes of selling the doll. Photo / Caters
Debbie Merrick posted the photos to Ebay in hopes of selling the doll. Photo / Caters
A mother believes her family is being terrorised by a haunted china doll, which she has banished to the shed, after her husband sustained small "'doll hand" scratches on his leg.
Debbie Merrick, 50, of Norfolk, England, says she feels sick just touching the toy after she bought it three weeks ago from a second-hand shop for £5.
Debbie Merrick, left, purchased the three dolls for around £5 in a second-hand shop, thinking they might be worth money.
Although Mrs Merrick kept the sinister-looking doll in their spare room, the mother-of-one says husband Cameron, also 50, woke up with unexplained small scratches on his right leg a week after the doll's arrival in their home.
Mrs Merrick's friend, a medium, told her the china toy had "something in it" prompting her to fearfully bundle it into a box in the shed.
She's since found the doll has "moved" and taken its own necklace off while in the box, so Mrs Merrick has put the doll on eBay, refusing to touch it again.
The bottom of Mrs Merrick's husband's leg, which is covered in 'doll hand' scratches, they say.
Mrs Merrick said: "I don't know why I decided to buy the dolls. It was a bit strange, but at the time I didn't think much about it. Even that's unusual.
"They were really cheap, they were only £5 I think, and I thought they would probably be worth quite a bit of money.
"It's really just the one doll with the white dress I don't like. I didn't particularly even like touching that one when I bought it. The other two I don't mind as much."
"The smoke alarms keep going off, and one night I heard the floorboards creaking and thought it might have been my daughter Holly up, but when I checked on her she was asleep.
"Then one morning my husband said to me, "I've got scratches all over my legs".
"It definitely hadn't happened before. They looked a bit like cat scratches and were sore.
"My husband is a complete non-believer. He's still trying to come up with an explanation.
"The scratches do look like they've been done by something small, like little doll hand scratches.
"Holly keeps telling people that the creepy doll scratched her Dad's leg.
"I've had a nightmare about a doll dragging itself along the floor towards me."
Mrs Merrick says the dastardly doll was locked away in the shed after a medium friend freaked out about staying in the same house as it, claiming it had something inside it.
But just two days later, when she was searching the shed for another item, she was terrified to see the doll appear to have taken off its necklace.
Mrs Merrick, who says she has had paranormal experiences since the age of five including seeing a ghost, said: 'When I brought the dolls through for them to take a look she said, "get it out, it's got something in it".
"She refused to sleep in the same house as it, she was freaking out about it.
"I put it in the shed in a box, and placed things on top of it.
The back of the creepy doll, which Mrs Merrick thinks is haunting her home after her husband got scratch marks.
"Then the other day I had to go into the shed to get something, and when I looked in the box the necklace on the doll was completely off and the doll was in a different position, I'm sure.
"When I'd packed it away I'd made sure the necklace was wrapped around its neck about four times.
"I was quite scared of it to be honest. I just kept thinking "how?"
"I didn't want to touch it and when I had to touch it I felt sick."
And the necklace incident was the last straw for the spooked mother, who proceeded to stick the doll on eBay for £25 in hope of getting rid of it.
She said: 'I took some pictures of it because I wanted to put it on eBay, then I left it. I even struggled to upload the pictures to eBay, it was really strange, that had never happened before.
"I don't want to go back into the shed now. I won't touch it again, it can get picked up if it's bought, and if we need to post it my husband can package it up.
"Some people on social media have told me it has something in it, some said it doesn't. 'If it doesn't sell I'll give it to a charity shop.
"It's the women in my family who experience paranormal things. In my last house there was definitely something there.
"I think my dad who died recently might be trying to get in touch.
