Lifeless black eyes peer out from a white face streaked with spiderwebbed black lines. Her round face is framed by coarse black hair. And of course, there’s the shiny blue dress with the lace collar.
Creepy? Yes, but that didn’t stop visitors from checking out the doll left sitting on a bench outside Keller Town Hall.
The city calls her Vicki M., short for “Victorian Murder Doll.”
She showed up Wednesday night.
Almost as quickly — she disappeared. Now the people who left her there want her back.
While she sat on the bench, passersby walked in to report the doll, said Rachel Reynolds, the city’s spokeswoman.
“Do you know you have a creepy doll out front?” they would ask.
The front desk person would reply: “Yeah, but we’re just gonna leave her there.”
Reynolds said Vicki M. “genuinely freaked out city staff.” They wouldn’t touch her, let alone bring her into the lost and found. Reynolds believes she may be the only employee to have touched the doll in this city, northeast of Fort Worth in Tarrant County.
“People were very suspicious of it,” Reynolds said.
In a Facebook post, the city with about 45,000 residents joked that the doll was “just chillin’ on the front bench, presumably cursing every visitor who walked past.”
Vicki M. became an overnight celebrity as visitors arrived to take photos with her. Reynolds said one woman even dressed up as her.
The city said on Facebook that it was calling for backup from the police, who Reynolds said made a “mini horror movie.”
As of Friday, the city’s post had amassed over 20,000 shares. Even commenters from as far away as Australia have become enthralled with the creepy doll.
Origin story
The doll was left by four 13-year-old girls at about 9 p.m. Wednesday.
The girls named the doll “Millie” and now they want her back, one mother said. After seeing pictures of the doll go “viral,” Lucy Adams and her friends planned to eventually auction the doll and donate the money to Milestone Church in Keller, said Lucy’s mom, Shell Adams.
Amaya Velez said her daughter, Maren Velez, 16, had a friend prank her with the doll. She left it outside Maren’s bedroom window, and when she opened her blinds, there was Millie.
For 10 to 20 days after that, Amaya Velez said, the doll lived with her and her husband, and Maren and her other daughter, Anne Velez. Millie was so creepy, she became part of a game.
Millie would show up under pillows, in the laundry, in the pantry and other places around the house until Velez threatened to stash the doll in the attic.
“Millie needed to find a better place than my house before I had a heart attack,” Velez said.
“None of us wanted it in the house,” Adams said.
The girls had a sleepover and thought of places where they could put Millie, said James Castillo, father to twins Via and Sara Castillo.
“We were going to take it to The Keller Pointe and leave it there, but we decided not to because not very many people go to the park,” Via said.
Via said that’s when the girls and a parent driving them decided they’d leave it at the town hall. Lucy, Anne, Via and Sara picked the bench, leaving the doll behind.
“I stayed in the car because I thought we were going to get in trouble,” Sara said, “but as soon as I saw them put it down I just started laughing.”
A video the girls took shows them kissing Millie goodbye.
Several of the girls said they weren’t expecting Millie to get so much attention. They figured she would end up in the garbage somewhere. Castillo said business owners have asked them to have Millie featured at their shops.
Only one problem: Millie is still missing.
Where is Millie?
Security cameras show the doll was only in front of the town hall for roughly 21 hours before being taken by three people who passed by just after 6 p.m. Thursday — which is “perfectly legal,” Reynolds said. The group may not have realized the doll had become a “little internet phenomenon,” she said.
Sara said Millie’s disappearance is “bittersweet” but it’s also funny and cool.
“It’s also sad because as a joke we used to treat her like our kid or whatever,” Sara said. “The fact that she’s missing from her bench is sad, but it’s also funny at the same time.”
Some Keller residents said they were glad they went to see Millie before she disappeared.
Julie Mock, 41, said she saw the Facebook post and stopped by with her kids Nikolas, 9, and Katarina, 7, after a doctor’s appointment. Mock said Katarina loved the doll. Nikolas was more hesitant. He was “hamming” it up for the photo.
“My kids had a really rough year last year, so anytime I see something like that, where I’m like, ‘Oh, that would be fun. It would make them smile,’ I kind of try to do that,” Mock said.
She said the kids’ dad died last summer, so she’s always looking for fun and spontaneous ways for them to make memories.
“I love how the city and the people who live here really kind of embraced it,” Mock said.
Brian Loveless, 34, said he works at a hotel next to the town hall and could see the doll from the rooms he inspects. Once he saw the city’s post, he said he went to see the doll immediately because he loves things that are spooky or otherworldly. But he wasn’t afraid.
“I want the doll to know that we would like to see her,” Loveless said. “We’d like to see more of her, and we’d like to know a little bit more about her.”
The girls are hoping the doll is returned so they can eventually sell her and make their donation. They’ve made Millie Instagram and TikTok accounts. They’ve also started a petition to make her a town landmark.
Now they’re waiting to see where she turns up next.
CORRECTION, 8:25 p.m. Feb. 11: An earlier version of this story misstated Julie Mock’s age.
