Chilling Ghost Story Behind 100 Bald, Naked Dolls Hanging From FL Tree

LAKELAND, FL — The Halloween display of 100 mostly bald and naked dolls dangling from a tree at Kenneth Cain’s home in Lakeland may be, as he says, a popular “goth girl selfie station,” but some of his neighbors think it sends a disturbing, violent message that doesn’t belong in places where young children trick or treat.

Cain’s collection of dolls — baby dolls, Barbie-like fashion dolls and others — hang from their feet and their necks. Some have no heads at all. There’s an arm here, a leg there and signs of torture everywhere.

“It does freak some neighbors out,” Cain acknowledged in an interview with station WFLA. He said he is “more than glad” to educate his neighbors about the display’s origin story, which starts at a United Nations-designated World Heritage Site — not that the historical reference convinced neighbors like Mack Milner and Kevin Smith of its merit.

“These dolls are naked. They’re little children and they’re showing scenes of torture,” Milner told WFLA, adding that he plans to ask Lakeland officials to flat-out ban such visceral displays in the future. Smith said the dolls are “kind of creepy” and that “it’s very unpleasant to drive by and look at that.”

It’s a matter of perspective, according to Cain, who said he wants to draw attention to the real-life problems of child neglect, child abuse, child abandonment, slave labor, or “anything to do with kids that’s wrong or bad.”

As Cain explained it, the story starts on the Island of the Dolls, or La Isla de las Muñecas. It’s not an island in the traditional sense, but one built of juniper branches for agricultural purposes and strategically placed along the famous canals of Xochimilco, a vast water transport system built by the Aztecs.

The Island of the Dolls owes its name to Don Julian Santana Barrera, a hermit who moved to the chinampa in the 1950s and claimed to have been haunted by the spirit of a girl who became entangled in the water lilies of the canals and drowned, according to Guinness World Record, which documented the largest collection of haunted dolls anywhere on the planet.

According to legend, he was haunted by a child screaming from the grave, “I want my doll.” In the place where her body was found, a doll mysteriously appeared. Don Julian hung it from a tree as an offering to ease the girl’s troubled spirit, according to Guinness editors.

More mutilated dolls inexplicably appeared, hanging along with the doll Don Julian had left as a gift to the dead girl’s spirit, thye legend goes. The macabre shrine became the recluse’s almost singular focus over 50 years. He spent his days scouring rubbish dumps and fishing in the canals for old, discarded dolls, and even traded his vegetables for them. Decayed, broken and mutilated by the elements, the dolls were strung up as Don Julian found them.

He died in 2001 near the spot where the young girl had died. Whether he’d drowned or suffered a fatal heart attack was a matter of great speculation. And it is believed by some that the young girl’s spirit continues to haunt the island.

Guinness World Records hedged some on whether the dolls are actually possessed.

“We’re not saying ghosts are necessarily real and that they’re possessing these plastic bodies, but as claimed haunted dolls, this certainly is the largest collection we’ve ever seen,” the Guinness editor wrote on the site.

Cain told WFLA trick-or-treaters and other Halloween celebrants seem to like his display, but he’ll give the dolls away to his neighbors when Halloween is over.

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