California woman 'embarrassed' by fallout from doll giving

[joeybee12]

(Reuters) - A California woman who spooked her small community by anonymously leaving porcelain dolls on the doorsteps of fellow churchgoers that eerily resembled their daughters told police she is embarrassed by the incidents, authorities said on Friday.

The dolls, some wearing fuzzy slippers or frilly gowns, turned up at more than a half-dozen homes in San Clemente last week, according to Orange County Sheriff's Lieutenant Jeff Hallock.

Interviews with families that received the dolls led authorities to the local woman, who then admitted her involvement, he said. She has not been publicly identified.

The woman, who attended church with most of the girls' families, said she did not mean to scare anyone, he said.

"She felt like some of the girls would enjoy the dolls," Hallock said.

http://news.yahoo.com/police-puzzled-dolls-left-porches-california-city-004148706.html

[Comrade Grumpy]

1. A nice, if somewhat weird, gesture turns into a FREAK-OUT!!!!!

That's our America.

[cyberswede]

2. I'm not sure I understand why the recipients were "frightened"

[snooper2]

7. This may explain it for you

[ChisolmTrailDem]

30. Yea, those freakin' dolls that lady was leaving around scared the shit out of me. I don't blame

those people for freaking out, lol.

Weird ass shit, man!

[snooper2]

3. Guess that lady doesn't get out much, she doesn't know what porcelain dolls are capable of

[kcr]

4. I feel bad for her. Her mistake was leaving them anonymously

I imagine she saw it as a fun surprise and assumed that's how everyone would see it. It was clueless but her intentions were good. Poor woman.

[savalez]

11. I wonder if she knocked first

Last edited Fri Jul 25, 2014, 05:17 PM - Edit history (1)

Maybe some answered and received their free dolls personally?

[kcr]

14. That could be

She could have left them on the porch if no one was home, not thinking about how it would weird out the recipients.

[dogindia]

5. so sad that a kind gesture would rebound in such a weird way.

An act of kindness. Culture is really traumatized by all the news of violence and war and planes being shot out of the sky and poor little kids beings sent back to death. Deep unkindness in areas of our culture. So sad.

Strange time.

l
m

[MagickMuffin]

6. Perhaps she should have just given the dolls to the girls it wouldn't have been so scary

Wanting it to be an anonymous was the only drawback to this situation. She could have at least given it to the parents and let the parents give them to the girls, and let the woman remain anonymous.

[REP]

9. She may not have wanted the attention or to be seen as a possible babysitter

Some people don't enjoy the company of children but don't mind doing something nice for them.

[Wait Wut]

8. Awwww...

Poor lady. Sending up some good vibes to her. But, yeah...it would freak me out, too. Dolls, in general, freak me out.

[Arugula Latte]

17. Me too. I was creeped out by them even when I was a little girl.

My grandparents gave me a doll and I sold it to my best friend for a nickel. I wanted that thing gone.

[Wait Wut]

19. It used to really annoy my father.

I hated dolls, loved cars. He thought there was something wrong with me. He finally gave up after getting me the pink Barbie Corvette for my bday one year. By the next morning, I had painted it black and put silver racing stripes on it, cut off Barbie's hair and made a helmet out of a bottle cap.

My sister had this really creepy doll that was about 4' tall. It would just stand in the corner and stared at me.

[catbyte]

20. LOL. Dolls freak me out too. I recently moved in with my best friend & her hubby.

She left a doll in a crib in the corner of my room, but I had to have her remove it immediately. She was a little taken aback, but I didn't care if it was her grandmother's doll. That thing creeped me out & there's no way in hell I'd sleep with that freaky thing staring at me all night.

[hunter]

10. Odds were great it was going to be something like that.

It's a bad reflection on our society that we were looking for a terrorist vampire zebra and not an ordinary horse.

"Eccentric but mostly harmless doll maker," likely.

"TERROR! TERROR! TERROR! VOODOO DOLL STALKER!," not likely.

[kcr]

12. The problem is the anonymity of her actions.

If she had presented them to the parents to give to the children, or left her name on it, it would have probably helped. Then the parents would see the act in its proper context and thanked Auntie Martha for the nice gift. Random anonymous gifts in general with no clue as to the intent are just weird. It's not the proper way to give a gift to someone. The gifter should at least provide some context of the giving relationship if they want to remain anonymous, or have someone known to the recipient give it for them.

[Bluenorthwest]

34. Someone needs to inform a certain major faith whose founder said to do good anonymously

'Don't even let your right hand know what your left hand does' in charitable acts is a teaching from Church. This woman gave to her Church group in the exact form Jesus commanded. This of course was upsetting to the Republican Conservatives of San Clemente.....

[aint_no_life_nowhere]

13. Sounds like a sequel to the movie The Conjuring

[Laffy Kat]

16. OMG. That movies scared the piss out of me.

I couldn't go down to my basement and do laundry for two days.

[awoke_in_2003]

25. I must be numb...

because it did nothing for me. The one scene, though, in a scary movie that is guaranteed to send shivers down my spine is in The Shining when the twin girls to the kid to come play with them. I am getting shivers now just typing this

[DBoon]

26. Smelly laundry would weird me out even more

dolls are not alive.

Fermenting laundry is very much alive.

[Laffy Kat]

29. Especially mine.

Two teenage sons.

[morningfog]

15. It was certainly weird, but I can't believe someone called the cops and that the cops got involved.

[whistler162]

22. You have no problem with

someone who knows you child well enough or has taken photos of your child and creates a doll in her likeness?

Better the police investigate the giver and not a abduction.

[treestar]

18. That is weird

I'd wonder if it was some type of mark of cain from some insane pedophile or the like. Glad it turned out ok.

[jen63]

21. Those dolls creep me out too

but a lot of churches believe that the "gift is in the giving" and that if you don't do it anonymously, then it's about you. I agree, if it's a bag of groceries, or paying a bill or something like that, but parents are on the lookout!! Maybe an anonymous note signed, "a fellow church member" or something would have been better, with the dolls.

[NightWatcher]

23. Next time leave a card or note with the gift

Some of those dolls were very creepy

[Manifestor_of_Light]

24. Some people that are into dolls are disconnected from reality.

Might or might not have been the case.

Reminds me of an episode of Hoarders. They took two huge piles of dolls and stuffed animals out of a woman's house.

She went outside and looked at the piles and said, "Oh look at her! She's smiling at me!" and things like that.

The resident shrink on the show said the woman was schizoid, meaning she was disconnected from people and reality, and thus ascribing emotions and personalities to her dolls and stuffed animals.

Creepy.

[Nye Bevan]

27. You open your door to find a porcelain likeness of your daughter on your doorstep,

with no explanation.

Sorry, I know the woman was trying to be nice, but how the hell would that not scare someone?

[whistler162]

35. Especially if the watch the latest episode

of Perception.

[sakabatou]

28. I found a picture of one of the dolls

[Roy Serohz]

31. I told ya it was someone from their own gated community

[ripcord]

32. Sorry but I don't do dolls

[bluesbassman]

33. Was one of them named Tina?