Zak Bagans Speaks Out on Investigator Dan Rivera’s Death, Annabelle

Ghost Adventures star Zak Bagans spoke exclusively to Us about his experience with Annabelle days after fellow paranormal investigator Dan Rivera died in the presence of the haunted doll.

“My thoughts and prayers go out to his family and friends,” Bagans told Us in an interview on Wednesday, July 16.

Bagans, who had his own experience with the doll in 2017, told Us, “I can only speak to my experiences with Annabelle.”

He explained, “I did have the opportunity to investigate Annabelle when the owner brought her to my museum in 2017.”

“I got very affected by her and it kinda caused me to touch the doll. The owner didn’t like that too much,” he said.

Bagans told Us of a frightening encounter in February that he had with another doll that left him scared and fighting for his life.

He explained, “It was a demonic infestation and severely affected me, and I was literally in the hospital the next day. It was a two-month-long attachment and one of the worst experiences of my life.”

Bagans said in his 21 years of paranormal investigation, the February encounter was one of “the top two worst attachments I have ever had in my career.”

He said a family in Las Vegas and the owner came under possession of the doll — and shockingly, two members of the doll owner’s family tried to take their lives.

Bagans said he was trying to “cast the demon out of this doll” himself after his exorcist wasn’t able to take on the “urgent” case.

“That’s when it backfired. I have never seen a doll like this in my life. I brought it to my house that night and I was projectile vomiting the next morning and had pain in my side,” he told Us.

The terrifying aftermath led the famed investigator to frequent the chapel at his home to say prayers and blessings 10 times a day.

“That’s how bad my attachment was and I had very dark thoughts.”

Bagans said something in his house told him he was “going to die” for two weeks. He added, “There was a black shadow-type figure that I would see in my bedroom. It affected my assistant who had tumors in their neck. My relationship got messed up. It affected my mom. But those things went away. And it all happened around the same time. How did that happen?”

He said his doctors ran tests and took an MRI, but his severe health issues later “disappeared.”

He told Us the “horrible” months-long experience caused him to take a break from paranormal demonic investigations. “It goes to show you as someone who does this for a living, dolls can be vessels for demonic possession and attachment,” he said, adding, “Do I believe that dolls can be vessels for demons? Absolutely. Do I feel they can affect people? Yes, I do.”

On July 13, Rivera died while on the Devils on the Run tour in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, where the reportedly haunted doll Annabelle was being displayed.

The police confirmed they responded to a call at the hotel where the tour was being held over a report of a dead man.

“The decedent was discovered in his hotel room by workers,” the police said. “Nothing unusual or suspicious was observed at the scene.”

According to Francis Dutrow, Adams County coroner, Rivera’s autopsy is completed. A cause of death has been deferred pending toxicology, which could take eight to 10 weeks.

The New England Society for Psychic Research said it planned to continue its scheduled tour across the United States despite Rivera’s death.

Annabelle has been described as “demonically possessed.” People reported that the New England Society for Psychic Research, where Rivera worked and which was founded by famed paranormal investigators Ed and Lorraine Warren, said the doll’s history goes back to 1968.

A woman was gifted the doll, a fictional version of which is depicted in the Conjuring film franchise. After the woman’s roommates claimed to notice weird things happening with the doll, a medium reportedly told them the doll was possessed by a young girl named Annabelle.

Ed and Lorraine took the doll from the woman and kept it locked up for years. The Warren family later displayed the doll in their museum and occasionally lent it out for tours like the one Rivera was part of at the time of his death.