Welcome to the debauchery dolls. Are you one of those people who
think they're cute or are you of the group that thinks they're
creepy as fuck? Today we'll talk about a man who
thought of them as his children. Also, stay tuned after the main
story for surprise bonus. I'm Dave Jarry Garrett.
Garrett, Where are you Garrett? Garrett Garrett.
Fast as fuck boy. What's good?
All you criminals, the Boston true crime douchebags out there.
And welcome to this episode of Criminal AF.
Fast as fuck boy. I'm Dave Jarry and I'm all by
myself for this one. And why is that Good question.
I'll tell you, there's a lot of you know, I mentioned that
shortly after coming back from my vacation this summer, I I
received the promotion at work And with this promotion, I've
been given a new work schedule. After completing about a month's
worth of training on day shift throughout July and August, I've
been assigned to a new shift that is the total opposite of
the shift Garrett Casey and I had been working on.
Now not just opposite hours, opposite days off as well.
So while Garrett is working, I'm off, and when I'm working,
Garrett is off. So it makes it pretty near
impossible for us to schedule some time together to get into
the studio. So what does that mean for
criminal AF you may be wondering?
Nothing long term, but it'll be a little different for a time.
Not sure what that time frame will be, but I've been I've been
told it could be anywhere from a month to six months, and
considering I'm now into month 2 of this new job, it's looking
more likely the latter. But now that my training is done
and I'm settling into my new role and schedule, I'll be
putting out some episodes for the time being until we can all
get back together on the same schedule.
And we all know Garrett brings a little extra flavor to the show.
I'll do my best to keep that same energy, though it'll never
be the same without my little gear bear being here.
So here we are with criminal AF presents fast as fuck boy.
These episodes will just be me spewing some quick stories about
some random shit and things that I find particularly interesting.
Some stories may not exactly be true crime, but it'll be
provoking to say the least. Now, I do want to personally
apologize to our faithful listeners and Patreon members.
I know we've lost a few of you while this whole transition was
going on, and you know, I can completely understand that.
Why would you want to financially support a show that
hasn't put out any new episodes? No hard feelings, we get it, we
wouldn't want to do it either you know?
So just know that Gary and I, we love you all the same.
For those that have stuck around, we fucking love you too
and you are all amazing and we all owe you so much.
With that being said, we are going to make a slight change to
our Patreon to make it a little more simpler for our listeners.
We will now be offering only two tiers for our amazing friends of
the show. There will be a $2.00 general
support tier where you can contribute less than a cup of
coffee from donkeys a month just to say thanks.
And then we'll have our $5 tier where you can get everything
associated with Criminal AF ad free episodes, bonus episodes,
what else? Whatever else we put out.
So anyone who is currently in the higher tiers can resubscribe
to one of the two tiers mentioned.
So all right, with this being fast as fuck boy, we're just
going to jump right into this fucked up story about a man from
Russia who took doll collecting to the extreme.
How extreme Dave? Well, so extreme.
He ended up having 29 total life-size dolls in an apartment
he shared with his parents. He had names for these dolls,
ages, backstories, you name it. So kick off your shoes, sit
back, relax, get all snuggled in and tell your kids the tooth
fairy ain't bringing any money unless they go to fuck the bed,
because it's time to fuck this episode in the mouth.
So we're going to begin with a man named Anatoly Moskvan.
He was born in Nizhni Novgorod. Say that three times fast.
It's Russia's fifth largest city.
He was the only child of his parents, Elvira and Urim, and he
was born on September 1st, 1966. From a young age, it was a
parent that Anatoly was, to put it nicely, different.
He kept to himself, had trouble socializing with other children
and was often bullied. He was also extremely
intelligent, earning top grades in his class and many throughout
his life considered him a genius.
Those who have studied him believe he was and is on the
autism spectrum. He would spend whatever money he
had earned as a child and buy himself books and by doing so
taught himself multiple languages.
Around the age of 8, Anatoly would experience a traumatic
incident that is said to have changed him and taught him that
the world he lived in could become very dark and cold.
On his way home from school, he was beaten and raped by an adult
male and came home covered in bruises.
According to Anatoly, on March 4th, 1979, when he was 12, he
had a strange experience that significantly changed the course
of his life. Anatoly was participating in a
school project. It was sort of a challenge for
the students, like who can collect the most recycling.
So this led to a number of the children traveling outside the
comfort of their own neighborhoods, including
Anatoly. During one such endeavor,
Anatoly found himself alone in a neighborhood he was unfamiliar
with. He passed a home and went into
the yard to gather up their recycling when he stumbled upon
a group of 13 people holding candles in what appeared to be
some sort of ritual. In one version of the story,
they wore suits and another version they wore black robes.
As he looked closer, he saw a coffin in the center of the
group. It was open, but he couldn't see
inside from where he was standing.
The group noticed Anatoly and he turned to run away, but one of
the adults grabbed him and steered him inside the house.
This is when he learned the group was holding a funeral for
11 year old Natasha Petrova, who had died accidentally from being
electrocuted in her bathtub. The girl's mother approached a
frightened Anatoly and urged him to kiss the corpse of the young
girl, which he refused. However, the mother kept
insisting and eventually forced his face close to Natasha's
until he had no choice but to kiss her forehead again and
again and again. By the third time he kissed her,
he found that he had actually enjoyed the experience.
As if in a bizarre fairy tale, the mother then produced 2 brass
rings, one of which she placed on Anatoly's finger and the
other on Natasha's. There, she proclaimed, now you
are married. He was then made the promise he
would not tell anyone of this ritual for 40 days and then was
sent away with coins and fruit. Now there are countries that
practice like posthumous marriage ceremonies is known as
acrogamy. Although Russia is not one.
It's most commonly performed in China in the form of like ghost
marriages in which one or both of the parties is deceased.
Now, how did this affect Anatoly?
Well, he later reported that following this bizarre
encounter, Natasha visited him in his dreams nightly, where she
would torment him and urge him to return to the cemetery in
which she was buried and performed black magic rituals.
Anatoly refused to ever return to that village and night after
night, for days and weeks on end, Natasha would return to his
dreams urging him to visit and perform black magic.
Eventually Anatoly did visit the cemetery again and acted out the
rituals as Natasha had described in his dreams.
The dream stopped for a while. Anatoly eventually told his
parents with the marriage ritual and that Natasha would visit him
in his dreams nightly. Confused and concern for their
son, Elvira and Urim would bring Anatoly to a Doctor Who
diagnosed these reoccurring dreams as being caused by
puberty. He was prescribed a sedative to
help him sleep and sent back home not long after, the nightly
visits returned, with Natasha now demanding that Anatoly
procure a tooth from another boy and place it under his pillow.
She would then collect it tooth fairy style and attach herself
to the tooth's owner. Somehow, Anatoly managed to get
another boy's tooth, did as he was instructed, and was finally
left in peace by Natasha. He still made an annual visit to
her gravesite, hoping to keep her spirit at rest.
Following this incident, Anatoly developed a macabre fascination
or obsession with death, burial practices, and cemeteries that
would consume him for the rest of his life.
He loved strolling through cemeteries, studying the
gravestones, and enjoying the serenity.
In fact, he coined the term necropolis, meaning expert on
cemeteries, to refer to himself. After secondary school, Anatoly
enrolled in the Gorky Institute of Foreign Languages, where he
earned a degree in philology, which is the study of languages.
Anatoly was a polyglot, speaking 13 different languages, many of
which he had taught himself. As an interesting side note,
this is the age late teens, early to mid 20s, at which
symptoms of schizophrenia such as delusions and hallucinations
usually are diagnosed. Just keep that in mind now.
Anatolia earned a PhD from Moscow State University,
specializing in Celtic history. He was a linguist by profession,
writing scholarly articles and books including dictionaries and
teaching languages. A nerd's nerd and you could say
it was around this time that he took a deeper interest in the
black magic and the occult and found some like minded people
joining a group of Luciferians. Perhaps he was influenced by the
rituals he had supposedly performed at Natasha's behest.
His beliefs would become increasingly bizarre, prompting
him to engage in some truly sinister activities.
After completing his studies at Moscow State University, Anatoly
would work there as a lecturer, but it didn't take long for his
peers and students to realize his eccentric beliefs and his
awkward and sometimes uncomfortable demeanor.
He was very difficult to work with, so he was let go from the
university. Not long after, in 2003, he
began a relationship with a woman named Yalia.
They never consummated the relationship, as this was
against Anatoly's oath of celibacy.
However, they wanted a child together, but Anatoly's parents,
whom he still lived with, were totally against the idea.
Anatolia and Yalia went through the necessary steps of adoption
anyway, and they attempted to adopt A baby girl, but because
of Anatoly's living situation, the fact that they weren't
married and didn't earn enough money, they were denied.
Obviously, the relationship fell apart shortly thereafter.
This is believed to be the tipping point between reality
and fantasy for Anatoly. Since he couldn't have a child
of his own, he would give someone else's child another
chance at life, as we will soon learn.
In 2005, Anatoly began work with a fellow academic to help write
a catalogue of area cemeteries. Countless records were destroyed
during the Cold War, and Anatoly had explored a total of 752
cemeteries in less than three years, noting the information on
the gravestones. Not surprisingly, he loved this
job and was as happy as a proverbial pig in shit, he was
quoted as saying. I am attracted to cemeteries
like a magnet. He would come to know everyone's
names, the dates they were born and died, and the cause of their
deaths, all by memory. He didn't take any food or water
with him during his long hours of documenting gravestones,
often opting to drink out of puddles.
He even slept in the cemeteries, either on benches, the grass, or
in one case, he was found by a group of gravediggers sleeping
in a coffin which had been scheduled to be buried.
He found the accommodation cozy. People began noticing this
strange man occupying the cemeteries at all hours of the
night, including by the undesirables of the villages.
Anatoly was beaten and robbed several times while he was
researching these graveyards. To help make ends meet while
doing this project, Anatoly would accept per diem jobs
working with children as a language tutor.
He would help these children with any number of the 13
languages he was fluent in. His mother, Elvira, said
Anatolia was happiest when working with children.
Oddly enough, this love of children would ultimately lead
to his demise. He began developing very macabre
habits during his time. Perhaps it was something he
learned while practicing black magic or as a Luciferian.
Anatolia began sleeping on the graves of children, particularly
the graves of young girls, and soon he would later say the
children began to talk to him. They would visit him in his
dreams as he slept on their graves and would only sleep on
the graves of children who liked him.
Using his knowledge of local history, he would ask these
children questions to decipher if they were actual spirits or
demonic beings acting like children.
And of course, the children knew the answers to all of Anatoly's
questions, probably because he wanted the children to be real.
I mean, let's face it. Around 2009, strange occurrences
were happening around a number of these cemeteries.
Some visitors noticed that the graves of their loved ones had
been tampered with. Some appeared as though the soil
had been disturbed, while others found letters or cards placed on
the graves. One night in 2011, police
patrolling a cemetery noticed the man who appeared to be
painting a gravestone. They asked for his
identification and found that he was none other than 43 year old
necropolis extraordinaire, Anatoly Muskin.
For one reason or another, Anatoly agreed to take police
back to the apartment he shared with his parents, and what the
officers found would shock and horrify them.
Before even entering the apartment, the police were
assaulted by the sickening smell of human decay.
Once inside, they found that every surface of the small
apartment was covered with clothes, newspapers, Anatoly's
collection of 60,000 books and most disturbingly, numerous life
sized dolls, all female. The dolls ranged from toddler
size to adult size and were clothed in a variety of outfits,
bonnets, dresses, boots, jackets, hats and scarves.
Some appeared to be wearing makeup.
They were everywhere, perched on the furniture, sitting on the
floor or lying randomly about. When Anatoly's parents, who
appeared to be oblivious to the smell, were asked about the
dolls, they replied that their son always had an interest in
lifelike dolls. We knew it was a hobby to make
big dolls, said his mother. When one officer moved the doll,
he heard music and discovered that Anatoly had placed a music
box inside of it. At the same time, police came to
the realization that these were not dolls but mummified human
remains. At the police station, Anatoly
spoke freely. He said that he had been robbing
the graves of newly deceased females since 2003, when he got
the idea to adopt them as his own.
When his own adoption application was denied, he said
that he would go to the cemetery in the middle of the night where
he would dig up the freshly interred corpse and begin the
preservation or mummification process.
First, he wrapped them in a mixture of salt and baking soda,
then stuffed rags inside of them and wrapped nylon tights around
their heads and legs. For their face, he took the
plastic or porcelain from an actual doll face and fit it
carefully over their skull. Eyes consisted of paint or
buttons because the girls had to be able to see so that they
could watch cartoons with Anatoly.
He made sure to record their vital statistics from the
headstones so that he could celebrate their birthdays at
which they would be presented with gifts.
He talked to his girls in their own language.
There was a total of 26 bodies in the apartment, with an
additional 3 bodies in the garage.
Those who had somehow fallen out of favor with their creator.
Like had they misbehaved? Did they stink too much?
Like why were they in the garage now?
The human dolls. They ranged in age from 3 to 25.
The oldest one in terms of seniority had been with Anatoly
for nine years. Not surprisingly, news of the
ghoulish professor as macabre menagerie of human dolls spread
quickly. Anatoly was given the nickname
The Lord of the Mummies and was charged with 44 separate
criminal counts, including desecration of graves.
In 2012, he was given a psychiatric evaluation and found
to be unfit to stand trial, having been diagnosed with
paranoid schizophrenia. He has been in a psychiatric
facility since that time and as of last report was not
considered well enough to be released.
So you're probably wondering what the fuck is wrong with this
guy. Now, Anatoly was diagnosed with
schizophrenia, which is defined as a serious mental illness
marked by being out of touch with reality.
Although it can't be cured, it can be regulated with
medication. Now, looking at his history, we
can see that Anatoly exhibited many signs of schizophrenia, and
it's interesting to note that nobody has been able to verify
the existence of Natasha Petrova, let alone the events of
her funeral. Was this all a delusion?
A figment of Anatoly's imagination Probably never know.
He reported that he only unearthed bodies who told him
that they wanted to be rescued and live with him.
He laid on the ground above their specific grave, and if he
heard a voice saying that they wanted to come out, he would
oblige. Auditory hallucinations or
magical thinking. Again, no way to know.
The reason he was not punished by law is that his mental
disease or defect made him unable to appreciate the
wrongfulness of his acts. He said that while he was aware
that grave robbing was illegal, he felt the need to rescue the
girls from their graves was more important.
He stated that he meant to keep them until he could figure out a
way to reanimate them, either through magic or science.
In court, he expressed no remorse, telling the girls
families. You put them in the ground.
I brought them home and warmed them up.
So what are your thoughts on Anatoly and his dolls?
Do you think he was out of touch with reality?
Can you imagine his parents sharing an apartment with a
bunch of decomposing humans and remaining clueless?
Or did they choose plausible deniability?
Like they knew, but they pretended not to know.
You know, I don't know if my kids brought home death and I
smelt it, yeah, I would 100% know.
You know, I'd be like, what? What the fuck is that?
So leave us a comment about your thoughts regarding the story on
our social media or on Spotify. All comments are welcome, even
the ones that call us douchebags because hey, algorithms work the
same. Doesn't care if it's good or
bad. That comment is a comment.
It shows that there's discussion happening.
So let's hear him now. Shout out goes to Debbie from
True Crime University for writing and sharing this story
with me. She knows how insanely hectic
it's been, so I can't express my gratitude enough.
Now, I promised a bonus to this episode, and since we're on the
topic of dolls and it's nearly Halloween, let's talk about
arguably the most haunted doll on the planet.
No, we're not talking about Annabelle, although she is a
fucking freak of a doll. We're here to talk about Robert.
Now a good part of this story comes from the website
ghostsandgravestones.com with some added tidbits sprinkled in.
So go check out that site and many more regarding Robert the
doll. Now the story of Robert goes
like this. In the early 1900s when a young
boy named Eugene Robert Otto was given a one-of-a-kind handmade
doll by a servant that worked for his parents in his home.
Eugene, who everyone called Robert also named the doll
Robert and told everyone, now my name is Jean, I'm Jean the
doll's Robert. Now, Jean and Robert quickly
became attached and we're now best of friends.
The home where Eugene lived, now called the Artist's House, is
located at 534 Easton St. It was built between 1890 and
1898. It was here that Jean was given
Robert the doll and where a friendship that lasted
throughout his lifetime and beyond was forged.
While he seemed like an ordinary cloth doll, it wasn't long
before Robert was involved in strange and somewhat terrifying
events. The first hint that something
out of the ordinary was happening was one night when
Jean, who was only 10 years old at the time, awoke to find
Robert the doll sitting at the end of his bed, staring at him.
Moments later, his mother was awakened by his screams for help
and the sounds of furniture being overturned in her son's
bedroom. Gene cried for help, begging his
mother to have rescue him. When she finally was able to
wrench the locked door open, she saw a poor Gene curled up in
fear on his bed, his room in shambles, and Robert the doll
sitting at the foot of the bed. Nobody knows for sure why or how
this child's play thing could actually wreak havoc on a
child's bedroom or do anything at all.
After all, it's just a toy, right?
Well, but the weird and inexplicable didn't stop at that
one occurrence. Gene's parents would often hear
their son upstairs talking to the doll and then hear a
response back in a totally different voice.
They reported seeing the doll speak and witnessing his
expression change. Giggling and sightings of
Roberts running up the steps or staring out the upstairs window
were also reported. Now, Robert continued to live
with Gene throughout his lifetime and after Gene's
parents died, he moved back into their home with his wife, Anne.
Jean decided that the doll needed a room of his own and
placed him in the upstairs room that had a window overlooking
the street. Now Anne, you know she felt
uneasy with Robert in the house and although she couldn't put
her finger on it, she wanted Jean to lock the doll up in the
attic where he could do no harm. Now Jean conceded, and as one
could imagine, Robert the doll was not happy with his new
living arrangements. Soon, visitors to the home heard
footsteps in the attic, the sounds of someone pacing back
and forth, and devilish, giggling.
Neighborhood children reported seeing Robert watching them from
the window in the upstairs bedroom, and told accounts of
the doll actually mocking them as they walked to school.
When Gene heard this, he immediately went to investigate,
knowing that he had locked Robert in the attic and there
was no way he could be sitting by the window of the upstairs
bedroom. But to his complete shock, when
he opened the door to the bedroom, there was Robert
sitting in the rocking chair by the window.
Jean locked Robert back up in the attic several times.
He's time discovering him again, sitting by the window in the
same upstairs bedroom, now Jean Otto.
He died in 1974 and when a new owner moved into the house on
Eaton Street, their 10 year old daughter was delighted to find
Robert the doll in the attic. But her delight soon ended when
she claimed that Robert was alive and that the doll wanted
to hurt her. She awoke often in the middle of
the night, screaming in fear and told her parents that Robert had
moved about in the room. Solaris Hills newspaper reporter
Malcolm Ross visited Robert at the artist's house and had a
very eerie experience with the doll.
When Malcolm and a friend entered the room with the doll,
Robert's face had an expression of concern, as if to ask who are
these people and why are they here now?
The friend told Malcolm Robert's back story and pointed out the
children's furniture that had been purchased by Jean.
It was at this moment that Malcolm noticed a change in the
doll's expression. As if he was following the
conversation, one of the men in the room made a comment about
what an old fool Jean Otto must have been to build all this
furniture for a doll. Again, Robert's expression
changed, this time to one of anger.
As Malcolm later stated, there was some kind of intelligence
there. The doll was listening to us
now. Myrtle Reuter, the woman who
bought the artist's house after Jean Otto had passed, kept
Robert for 20 years, even taking him to her next home in 1980.
But she grew tired of his antics.
She donated Robert to the Fort E Martello Museum in 1994, and
Myrtle died a few months after donating him, but Robert still
continues on to this day. Many believe that the origin of
Robert's evil lies in the one who originally gave him to Gene
Otto, the servant who worked for Gene's parents.
This woman was supposedly mistreated by her bosses, and to
punish them, it is believed that she cursed the doll with voodoo
and black magic. That might explain the many
mysterious and frightening experiences people have had with
Robert the Doll, but if so, wouldn't the haunting end when
the owners died? Nobody really knows for sure,
but one thing remains. Robert the Doll continues to
taunt and scare those who come to view him, especially guests
to the 4 E Martella Museum who attempt to take his photo
without express permission. Many have reported their cameras
becoming inoperable when they try to take a picture of Robert,
only to begin working again when they left the museum.
And others experience life altering hardships after leaving
Robert the Doll, like divorces, loss of employment, and even
deaths. This led to people writing
letters or returning to the museum to ask for Robert's
forgiveness for taking his picture without his consent.
Now this is an actual real thing.
People really write letters to this Robert Nadal?
And one such letter reads, Dear Robert, I just want to apologize
for taking a photo of you before I ask permission.
I must not have heard the instructions correctly before I
photographed you. Since our meeting, I've suffered
a series of heartbreaking misfortune.
Please forgive me. Again, please accept my sincere
apologies and if you see fit to forgive and end the bad luck, I
would appreciate it, as would my family.
Thank you your friend and admirer James.
Now, Robert the doll still sits inside a glass case and you can
still see him today, but the glass doesn't seem to stop him
from inflicting fear and discomfort to museum staff and
visitors. So be warned, if you do go to
visit Robert at the Four E Mattel Museum, please afford
Robert the respect he requires and ask him for permission to
take his photo. You could be in for some very
hard times if you don't. All right, that'll do it for the
Puppeteer by Criminal AF. Fast as fuck boy.
Let us all know what you thought of this episode.
Comment on Good Pause or Spotify or leave a review on Apple
Podcast. Thank you all for hanging out
with me. Head on over to
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hit us up on a deer douchebags tab signing off from studio
Chloroform. Keep your head on a swivel and
stay safe. Till next time, See you.
Now give me our theme music. Music.