Because porcelain dolls aren't creepy enough on their own...

A bit of explanation showed up in my local news:

http://abc7chicago.com/news/dolls-left-at-8-oc-homes-resemble-homeowners-daughters/217639/

My sisters collected porcelain dolls when they were younger. They didn't bother me. I thought they were pretty.

My daughter, on the other hand, has always thought dolls - any dolls - were creepy.

The OP is definitely creepy though.

Where's Jonathan Coulton when you need him?

Alessandra Kelley said:

I think it possible that there is a well-intentioned but socially off person behind this.

I have known too many people who seem to genuinely find dolls like these appealing to be completely convinced that this is something intended to be sinister.

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This was my thought as well - could just be some little old grandmother trying to do a nice thing for some neighborhood girls, and now she's terrified that the police are looking for a pervert.

It turning out to be a less benign thing wouldn't surprise me either, but this didn't automatically trip my 'sinister intentions' detector.

Just posting the pertinent part of the link up-thread for anyone who can't (or won't) click links.

Investigators discovered that a woman who lived in the community attended church with many of the families. The woman admitted to deputies that she had placed the porcelain dolls.

No further investigation was expected.

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So it was a sweet gesture by a well-meaning woman who was probably a little naive in not leaving an explanation along with the dolls.

I don't know the woman's age, but I've seen this kind of thing happen with older people who were raised in the era of spontaneous generosity toward kids; some of them don't really get a handle on the idea of "stranger-danger" or understand why their gestures are perceived as potentially threatening.

Here's what I'm curious about...did she actually choose dolls that she thought looked liked the little girls? Or did the families just imagine that they looked like their daughters? If they really were just dolls she owned, they can't have looked that much like the children, who probably weren't even born when she got them.

raburrell said:

This was my thought as well - could just be some little old grandmother trying to do a nice thing for some neighborhood girls, and now she's terrified that the police are looking for a pervert.

It turning out to be a less benign thing wouldn't surprise me either, but this didn't automatically trip my 'sinister intentions' detector.

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This was my first thought, too, that it was a nice person trying to give the kids a gift. If that's the case, it's sad that such a thing can't happen without suspicion, and I feel really bad for the lady.

From ABC news:

Lt. Jeff Hallock added that the woman, who knew the girls from church, is now mortified by the media attention after news organizations picked up the story about how creepy dolls had mysteriously appeared in front of at least eight San Clemente homes.
"She was embarrassed and I think a little scared that something she intended to be a good-will gesture turned into something that was terrifying the community for a short time," Hallock said.
The woman, who police haven't named, even tried to match the girls with dolls that looked like them.
"She tried to pick dolls that resembled girls who lived there," he said. "In her mind, her motivation was purely kindness. It was meant as a good-will gesture. In retrospect, I think she wishes she would have left a note."

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There was a Superman comic where a woman whose son was kidnapped and murdered started receiving dolls in her doorstep each time a kid was reported missing in the papers.

This makes me sad. She probably pictured the girls finding the dolls and wondering if it was something magical, like Santa Clause, and instead they were scared. She could have just brought the dolls over, but she wanted to do something more special. It just turned out wrong. But it was a sweet gesture.