Paranormal Investigator Dies On Tour With Annabelle Doll, But He's Reportedly Not The First Death That's Happened

"The Conjuring" is one of the spookiest and most genuinely terrifying horror franchises of all time, likely because much of what's depicted on screen is at least somewhat rooted in reality. The movies are built around paranormal investigators, museum proprietors, and demon exorcists Ed and Lorraine Warren. Across the films, the series has incorporated real people's purported encounters with angry, unsettled, and potentially evil unexplained phenomena, perhaps of supernatural origin. While there's a lot that "The Conjuring" didn't tell viewers about the true stories, the breakout story from the saga is certainly the ongoing tale of Annabelle.

The true story of the doll that inspired Annabelle, centerpiece of the 2014 movie "Annabelle," is a Raggedy Ann doll gifted to a nurse by her mother in the 1970s. She got rid of it, she claimed, after she witnessed the doll move around on its own, and her friend told her it slashed him across the chest without touching him. Back in real life, Annabelle is a museum piece that the curious can stare at, although it's occasionally released from captivity. And that's apparently when the troubles start. In fact, a paranormal investigator died on tour with the Annabelle doll, and he's reportedly not the first death that's happened.

Those who believe that the Annabelle doll is cursed or capable of affecting real-world events have some real-world but circumstantial evidence to cite. Dan Rivera worked as the senior lead investigator for the paranormally curious New England Society for Psychic Research. With more than a decade of experience looking into supposedly haunted places and things, he traveled around the U.S. in the summer of 2025 with the "Devils on the Run Tour," touting purportedly cursed objects around the country. Among his haul: The real and supposedly haunted Raggedy Ann doll, aka Annabelle. The sold-out tour took Rivera to Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. Just hours after finishing up one of his shows, he died.

According to public records, emergency medical personnel fielded a call at an area hotel on July 13, 2025. After arriving, they delivered CPR to Rivera but were unable to revive the investigator, who was pronounced dead at the age of 54. A cause of death wasn't immediately discernible, and an autopsy could take several months.

It's probably not possible to link the tragic death of Dan Rivera to the supposedly possessed Annabelle doll. But it's not the first time someone's sudden and unexpected death, or near demise, followed close contact with the toy — allegedly. According to Ed and Lorraine Warren, the self-proclaimed ghost hunters and demonologists who put Annabelle on display in their Warrens' Occult Museum, the doll was anecdotally responsible for at least one other death.

In the story, Annabelle triggered a fatal motorcycle accident. The Warrens reported that a young couple once visited their museum, and the man tapped on the glass of Annabelle's enclosure and laughed, declaring it ridiculous to believe in a haunted doll. After he departed, he crashed his motorcycle into a tree, killing himself and nearly killing his partner. The survivor supposedly said that just before her boyfriend lost control of his bike, the pair had been laughing about Annabelle.

Causing vehicular mischief was apparently just the way Annabelle acted out. After a seance suggested that the toy had been inhabited by an evil spirit seeking a home, a priest examined the artifact. Declaring it no match for the forces of good, he dismissively and disrespectfully tossed it across a room. After he left, an image of Annabelle flashed in front of his eyes, and then he crashed his car right into a tree. That's all according to the Warrens, of course.

The Warrens also claimed that on the day they took ownership of the doll in the early 1970s, the brakes on their car failed multiple times on the trip home, almost causing several serious accidents. Apparently, the brakes started working properly after Ed Warren pulled over and soaked Annabelle in holy water. Creepy stuff!