HOUSTON – Editor’s note: KPRC2 checked in with Madonia in October 2020 and Elsa has not returned, but she’s still keeping her eyes out for her return. 2020 isn’t over yet.
Emily Madonia told KPRC 2: “No, she hasn’t come back. We have had our fair share of weird things happening around the house though. Like doors opening and closing by themselves and lights/tv turning on and strange stuff like that. So it’s been interesting. But not the doll at least.”
On Christmas of 2013, a Houston-area girl was gifted an Elsa doll, and all was well -- until it wasn’t.
The doll recited phrases from the movie Frozen and sang “Let It Go” when a button on its necklace was pressed.
“For two years it did that in English,” mother Emily Madonia said. “In 2015, it started doing it alternating between Spanish and English. There wasn’t a button that changed these, it was just random."
The family has owned the doll for more than six years and never changed its batteries. The mother says the doll would randomly begin to speak and sing even with its switched turned off.
In December 2019, the family decided to get rid of the doll; however, Elsa wasn’t going to let this family go. Despite throwing it out in the trash, the family found the doll inside of a bench in their living room, weeks later.
“The kids insisted they didn’t put it there, and I believed them because they wouldn’t have dug through the garbage outside,” Madonia said.
Elsa completely stopped operating in English and began to only speak and sing in Spanish.
Watch video of the doll in operation below.
Once again, the family attempted to throw out the Elsa doll. Madonia’s husband double-bagged the doll and placed it at the bottom of the garbage can to be taken away on trash day.
The family traveled and forgot about it, but when they returned their daughter found her old friend outside of their house.
“Ok guys, seriously, we need help. To recap for those of you who have not been following our Elsa doll saga, Mat threw it away weeks ago and then we found it inside a wooden bench,” Madonia wrote on Facebook. "Okay....so we were weirded out and tightly wrapped it in its own garbage bag and put that garbage bag INSIDE another garbage bag filled with other garbage and put it in the bottom of our garbage can underneath a bunch of other bags of garbage and wheeled it to the curb and it was collected on garbage day. Great, right? We went out of town, forgot about it. Today Aurélia says, ‘Mom, I saw the Elsa doll again in the backyard.’ <chills> HELP US GET RID OF THIS HAUNTED DOLL.”
When asked if she believed a prank was being pulled, Madonia said, “The doll has some marker on her from my daughter coloring over the years, so I know the doll that reappeared was the original and not a replacement. ... Most logical thinkers believe it’s a prank, but I don’t understand how or when it was done, especially because the garbage truck had taken it away.”
The family has made a final attempt to get rid of their daughter’s old toy, but this time Elsa isn’t going into the unknown. The doll is was mailed, without a return address, to a family friend in Minnesota.
“If the doll comes back, I might have to open my mind to some of the more supernatural solutions,” Madonia said.
Luckily for Madonia, the doll was received by her Minnesotan friend Chris Hogan who shared a final update on his Facebook.
“... and now for the rest of the story. She made it to Minnesota, and is taped to the brush guard of my Jeep. If anything weird happens I’m welding her into a steel pipe and sinking it in Lake of the Woods,” Hogan wrote.
Madonia has also added an explanation post, answering questions she’s received since the story went viral. You can read it below.