Real-life horror: New homeowner finds rag doll in wall cavity with note that it killed original owners in 60s

Dolls, which are supposed to be lovable playthings for a child, are often portrayed as possessed by a demon in horror movies. Some popular examples include "Annabelle," "Child's Play," and "The Twilight Zone" to name a few. A mischievous person may have been inspired by this movie trope, or something sinister happened in an old home in Surrey recently purchased by Jonathan Lewis.

The new homeowner, a primary school teacher, picked up the keys to the house on Friday and decided to examine the void underneath the stairs that had been boarded up. He took to the wall with a hammer and soon discovered a rag doll dressed in a pinstripe dress and bonnet, and was clutching a sinister note.

The note, showed to be written by the doll named Emily, claimed that she had killed the original owners of the property four decades ago. It read, "Dear reader/ new home owner, thank you for freeing me! My name is Emily. My original owners lived in this house in 1961. I didn't like them so they had to go."

"All they did was sing and be merry. It was sickening. Stabbing was my choice of death for them so I hope you have knives," it concluded with an additional note, "Hope you sleep well."

Lewis told the Liverpool Echo about his discovery, "I've just bought the house and I got the keys on Friday. I kind of knew there was this void underneath the stairs that had been plaster boarded up. There was a wire coming out where the previous owners had the fridge but I didn't know where the wire was plugged in so I knocked through a bit of the plasterboard to see what was there. I knocked through a hole about the size of a fist, shone a light in and there was a doll just sitting there."

Lewis's friends have urged him to put his new property back on the market, but the teacher is not scared by the note and finds it "hilarious." He mentioned that the estate agent had told him the kitchen was only done "four or five years ago," which means that the note must have been placed by the previous owners around that time frame. In addition, the paper doesn't look like it's from the 60s.

"Some of my friends have told me to put my house back on the market and move out but I think it's just a laugh. I'll be honest, I found the whole thing hilarious. I'd probably do the exact same thing. I think it must have been put there then because the paper doesn't look very old and looks relatively recent," he said.