Robert the Doll

Robert Eugene Otto—or Gene, as his family called him—was just a young boy in the early 1900s when he received a strange, straw-filled doll to play with.

There are two main legends about who gave him the doll: one states that his grandfather purchased it for him on a trip to Germany, and the other claims that a servant girl gifted it to him with ill intent. Either way, Gene loved his life-sized doll and brought it along everywhere, even naming it Robert after himself.

It wasn’t long, however, before people began noticing signs of Robert the Doll’s evil and mischievous nature.

As rumor has it, the Ottos and their servants would often hear Gene in his bedroom having conversations with himself in two entirely different voices. The Ottos would wake up in the middle of the night to Gene’s screaming, only to find the frightened boy in bed surrounded by overturned furniture. Gene would blame Robert the Doll for messing up the bedroom while Robert glared at Gene from the foot of the bed.

Soon after, mutilated toys and mysterious happenings would appear in the home, only for Gene to proclaim each time: “Robert did it!” Though the Ottos didn’t quite believe Gene, it was reported that they could hear the eerie sound of Robert giggling around the house, and passersby even claimed to see a small doll moving from window to window. Gene’s parents eventually moved Robert to the attic, where he remained until their passing.

Gene inherited his family’s Key West mansion and returned Robert the Doll to his old bedroom: Gene’s turret room on the second floor. By then, Gene had been working as an artist, and local folklore insists that Gene would spend his days alone in his mansion painting with his old friend Robert.

Gene eventually married, and rumors of his wife’s, Anne’s, disdain for Robert surfaced. After Gene passed away, Anne locked Robert in a cedar chest in the attic. Following Anne’s death, a woman named Myrtle Reuter bought the house, Robert included—at no extra charge.

After discovering him in the attic, Myrtle owned Robert for 20 years before donating him to the Fort East Martello Museum in 1994. She told them that the doll was haunted and moved around the house on its own. While Myrtle died a few months later, Robert remained active, with museum staff noticing an energy shift following his arrival.

The museum traced the doll’s origins to the Steiff company, the same German toy company that first made a teddy bear in honor of Theodore Roosevelt. In fact, a Steiff historian told the museum that Robert was probably never meant to be sold as a toy, but was part of a set created for a window display of clowns or jesters.

Today, Gene’s residence operates as a bed and breakfast called the Artist House, and visitors can even stay in the old turret bedroom.

Robert the Doll now lives at the Fort East Martello Museum in Key West, Florida, where some believe his hair color and his soul are both slowly fading. Visitors beware, though, as Robert’s current favorite mischievous act involves casting curses on those who take his photo without first asking permission. To date, the walls near his glass case are covered in numerous letters from previous visitors and naysayers, begging for Robert’s forgiveness and asking him to remove any hex he has cast.