A SHOCK twist has been revealed after the sudden death of a paranormal investigator while touring with a “demonically possessed” doll.

Creepy Annabelle has spooked believers for decades – despite the doll being encased in a glass box to “contain the evil.”

Dan Rivera, 54, died on July 13 in Pennsylvania while leading a national tour of the allegedly haunted Raggedy Ann doll named Annabelle.

The US Army veteran was the lead paranormal investigator of the New England Society for Psychic Research (NESPR), which announced his “sudden” death.

Rivera had been showing the supposedly haunted doll – which inspired film franchise The Conjuring – across multiple states.

At the time of his death he had been visiting Gettysburg, where he was leading the Devils on the Run Tour alongside NESPR colleagues.

A Pennsylvania coroner has now confirmed to People that the spooky doll was not in the hotel room where Rivera died.

Francis Dutrow, the Adams County coroner, told the magazine that he didn’t notice Annabelle upon his arrival at the scene on July 13.

Dutrow also further confirmed that the doll had not been in Rivera’s hotel room at all.

The coroner told People that hours before he died, Rivera had been with NESPR colleagues.

However, he told them he was returning to his hotel room, as he was feeling sick.

The Pennsylvania State Police said on July 16: “Members from PSP Gettysburg responded to a hotel in Straban Township, Adams County for a report of a deceased [man].

“The decedent was discovered in his hotel room by workers.

“Nothing unusual or suspicious was observed at the scene.”

Rivera’s cause of death has not as yet been revealed.

His autopsy results are expected before the end of September.

The doll had been given to late paranormal investigators Ed and Lorraine Warren, who kept it in their occult museum in Monroe, Connecticut.

The chilling tale of “demonic

The original doll, which was locked up inside Ed and Lorraine Warrens’ Occult Museum in Monroe, Connecticut, was claimed to have unleashed a reign of terror on a group of flatmates in a chain of events that ended in a man’s death

Annabelle’s chilling story began in 1970 when a mum bought the doll from a hobby shop for her daughter, student nurse Donna, as a birthday gift.

Donna took the doll back to the flat she shared with her friend Angie and soon began to notice small hand movements, which they explained away.

The doll was then claimed to have begun to move around the flat, appearing outside Angie’s room after being placed on Donna’s bed.

Then things took an even more sinister twist.

The girls’ close friend, Lou, became very nervous around the doll, believing it to be possessed, but the girls dismissed his fears.

Then notes written on parchment paper, reading “Help us” and “Help Lou” in a child’s handwriting, began to appear around the flat.

The girls finally called in a medium, after Donna came home from work to find the doll had “blood” on her hands.

Annabelle was on her usual spot on the bed but red liquid was seeping from her hands.

After holding a séance the medium claimed the apartment was built on the site of a field, where a dead seven-year-old girl called Annabelle Higgins had been found many years before.

When the doll was brought to the apartment Annabelle’s spirit was apparently in the area and she became fond of the doll, opting to possess it.

Donna later called in an Episcopal priest named Father Hegan, who suggested they contact occult experts Ed and Lorraine Warren.

The couple told the girls the doll was allegedly being manipulated by an “inhuman demonic spirit.”

Inanimate objects aren’t possessed, they said, but spirits can become “attached.”

The apartment was “cleansed” by Ed, using a special Episcopal blessing, and the couple took the doll away and housed it in their museum.

A few hours after the priest left their museum, he rang the Warrens, claiming his brakes had failed as he turned on to a busy road.

He’d been in an accident, his car was written off and he was lucky to have survived.

Ed claimed the doll willed his car’s brakes and steering to fail, before he stopped it by throwing holy water on it.

Worried, the Warrens moved the rag doll in to a glass box at their museum, secured with a special set of prayers.

Lorraine Warren later warned visitors against mocking Annabelle.

But one man visiting the museum began bashing on her case, calling on her to scratch him if she was real.

Ed threw him out, but later heard a chilling tale from his girlfriend.

Lorraine recalled: “[The girlfriend] told us that they were both laughing and joking about the doll when the young man lost control of the bike and crashed head-on into a tree.”

He was killed instantly and his girlfriend was in hospital for a year.

In a lecture given at Rutgers University in 1987, the Warrens claimed that Annabelle could “slash” people’s skin with her psychic powers.

Ed Warren died in 2006, and Lorraine passed away in 2019, aged 92.

The museum closed following her death.

The couple’s decades of ghost-hunting cases inspired such frightening films as The Conjuring series and The Amityville Horror.

Annabelle also has movies in her own name, including Annabelle (2014), Annabelle: Creation (2017), and Annabelle Comes Home (2019).

HAUNTINGS

The Warrens founded the New England Society for Psychic Research in Monroe in 1952 to probe suspected hauntings.

They investigated more than 10,000 cases in the U.S. and abroad, often writing about their experiences.

One such case was that involving the rag doll, with huge black eyes.

Lorraine Warren said: “It’s not what the doll looks like that makes it scary. It is what has been infused within the doll. Evil.”

A student nurse who received the Raggedy Ann doll as a gift brought it home where she lived with a roommate, according to NESPR, which is overseen by the Warrens’ son-in-law Tony Spera.

His in-laws pronounced the doll as being allegedly “demonically possessed.”

To protect people, they encased it in a glass box to contain the “evil spirited entity,” according to the website.

A chilling alert displayed on its case says: “Warning: Positively Do Not Open.”

US TOUR WARNING

Rivera, who was mentored by the couple, took ownership of Annabelle after Lorraine’s death in 2019, and hoped to continue their work with his research and tour.

His sudden death came after the Warren family had to quash conspiracy theory-style claims that the doll had disappeared.

Months before the US tour, Rivera had posted on Facebook about embarking on a “thrilling and terrifying adventure showcasing the most diabolical items from the infamous Warren’s Occult Museum.”

Spookily, a woman warned him eight weeks ago: “I don’t understand why you guys would put yourself in danger like this, you really should put that doll back.

“And Lorraine Warren said it wasn’t supposed to be touched or removed under no circumstances.”

But another wrote: “So much superstitious nonsense. Grow up people.”

Others said it was a mere “coincidence” and that “he didn’t die because of a doll.”

One woman admonished believers by writing: “Seriously?! Do you think people are gullible or what?!

“I’m sorry this man passed away, but come one, you guys are being silly here.”

However, one man claimed: “When Annabelle got to Gettysburg, we went into a huge blackout for 911!

“Everyone’s phones were going crazy with the notification for 911 being out, and it’s just odd that soon as Annabelle got to Gettysburg that happened, then he dies suddenly.”

Another agreed, saying: “On the day the tour started in Gettysburg, PA had a statewide 911 outage. That thing is evil.”

One believer added: “Most haunted doll on earth.

“It was warned ‘never to remove’ the doll [from] where it was stored, and this guy not only moved the doll but took it on a US tour.”

Another added: “The Warrens kept Annabelle locked up for a reason.”