Featured Stories | The Morning Show Blog

By Beth Stibal |

Creepy dolls wash up on Texas beach

Creepy Doll HOV
This photo provided by Washington State Patrol shows a Halloween doll buckled up in the passenger seat of a car Tuesday, Oct. 27, 2015, in Tacoma, Wash. During Tuesday’s morning commute, a trooper pulled over the man after he tried to use the doll to gain access to the HOV lane of Interstate 5 in Tacoma. (Guy Gill/Washington State Patrol via AP)

This sounds like the plot of a Stephen King novel… Dozens of creepy dolls washed ashore on the Gulf Coast in Texas since January 2021.

“The creepiest are the ones that have lost all their hair,” according to Jace Tunnell, director of the Mission-Aransas Reserve at the University of Texas Marine Science Institute.

Tunnell says the first one they  found was “the head of a sex doll.”  He says they posted a picture of it and didn’t realize what it was. “We got a lot of followers on the page after that,” Tunnell admits.

The University of Texas Marine Science Institute said that first doll head, found in January 2021, was purchased by a member of the public for $35, and the money was donated a sea turtle rescue program.

Tunnell said the dolls are now being kept in a bucket to be sold at the reserve’s annual fundraising auction.

They plan to sell the rest of the dolls at the reserve’s annual fundraising auction.

The director said these dolls are just a perk alongside their scientific work.