What happens if you steal a doll and bring it home?
What happens if you steal a doll and bring it home?
Between the canals of Xochimico there is a small island which has in more recent years become a tourist destination for those looking for something a little creepier than a beach resort.
Most do not know the sad and tragic history of the island. The
thousands of rotting dolls with severed limbs, decapitated heads, and
blank eyes hanging from the trees create a creepy enough environment to
the Island of Dolls, but if they knew the whole story they may not have
ever so much as considered visiting. Welcome to La Isla de la Munecas…
The island’s original caretaker Don Julian was said to be a kind man
that loved children and an artist in his own right when it came to
gardening. In the early days of the island he kept it as an open
location for tourists to nearby Mexico City and while it was not nearly
as popular or infamous as it is now it did have its visitors. One such
visitor was a young girl, and it’s with her that the tragedy struck
forever changing the island.
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The young girl vanished and was found days later drowned in one of the islands many streams. Some say Don
Julian himself was responsible, others say that he tried to save her,
either way the death drove him to madness. He became possessed with an
obsession over the girl, demanding that her spirit was with him at all
times on the island. Before long he began refusing to leave the island
at all and worked tirelessly to adorn the trees with dolls in an offering
to the girl’s spirit. It is a mystery to this day where he acquired so
many dolls, some say he would travel into the city and collect them from
the garbage, but there is however a much creepier version. Legend tells
that after the girl’s death the dolls began washing up on the shores
of the island by the hundreds, in fact this is the version that has
witnesses, it’s just that it’s almost too creepy to believe.
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Don
Julian never closed the island to tourists, in fact not much changed at
all except that now his gardening was done by hanging derelict dolls
from the trees. La Isla de la Munecas’ infamous reputation for utter
creepiness began to grow and more and more people began to visit.
Rumours began that the dolls were possessed with the spirit of the girl.
Visitors would tell of seeing their heads move, of hearing whispers
like a thousand voices from dolls across the island chanting the same
word "leave".
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The
last of the dolls was hung just a few years ago when Don Julian was
found dead in the same stream as the girl. The official cause was
drowning, but what led to the drowning we’ll never know. Today the
island is just as Don Julian left it and the additional years have more
than added to the creepiness. La Isla de la Munecas, or the Island of
Dolls is under the jurisdiction of the Mexican Federal District and to this day remains open to the public.
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