The Daily Buzz‘Creepy’ doll mystery in Orange County community: solved
If you want to give your neighbour's daughter a doll to play with, there are better ways to do it than this.
In recent weeks, as many as 11 "creepy" porcelain dolls have been discovered on the doorsteps of eight homes in an upscale community in San Clemente, Orange County, prompting a police investigation.
Young girls, all about the age of 10, lived at each of the homes.
No notes were attached to the dolls.
"It's peculiar, strange and weird and all that stuff," Orange County Sheriff's Lieutenant Jeff Hallock told City News Service. "People are saying the dolls slightly resemble their daughters, which is creepy."
"We're very unsettled and obviously taking this very seriously as it concerns our daughters and little girls," the mother of one of the girls who received a doll told CBS Los Angeles.
"I'm actually thinking the worst, like someone creepy watching our children and I'm actually pretty scared about it," resident Mary Robin Baziak told NBC Los Angeles. "(Someone) found a China doll on her stop that looked like her daughter."
Authorities met with each of the families to try to determine a pattern. They released photos of two of the dolls — one wearing a blue dress, another dressed in pink and left with a stuffed rabbit — on Thursday.
By Thursday night, officers tracked down the person who left the dolls on the front porches: a female adult who lives in the community and attends church with many of the families.
She had been clearing out an old doll collection and thought that some of the young girls in her neighbourhood might enjoy them, Hallock said.
"Investigators have concluded that her motivation was out of goodwill and that she intended it as a kind gesture," stated a news release from the Orange County Sheriff’s Department.
"There will be no further investigation of this case."
