Johannesburg, South Africa
It was August 16, 1949: the body of a pretty 18-year-old girl, Jacoba Schroeder, known as Bubbles, was found in an field in Birdhaven, Joburg.
It was 66 years ago, but the mystery still grips the imagination. At the time, there was considerable interest, perhaps along the lines of the celebrity watch today. Bubbles was a good-time girl, a glamour girl. She had no job, no background, no family, but she wined and dined and danced with the rich and influential at Johannesburg’s hotspots.
In the end, she paid the price. Who killed her? Why? The murderer was never found.
She was pretty, “the prettiest girl in the world” and she wanted all the pretty things she felt she deserved. She wanted to be “a lady”, but she had only one thing to sell..
What happened that final night? An accidental death, a panic-stricken cover-up? It’s possible.
Bubbles, according to contemporary accounts …”was a little loose in her morals … but she was very sweet – except when she was drunk. Then she became unmanageable,”
She spent her last night with two young men who were later charged with her murder, but the evidence was circumstantial and they were acquitted.
So what did happen to pretty little Bubbles, the young girl who spent her days at the beauty parlour and her nights at the glamorous night clubs of Johannesburg in the 1940s?
It’s still a mystery.
It is believed by some that the ghost that haunts the home in Central Avenue, Houghton, is that of a young girl known as Bubbles Schroeder. This good-time girl was popular with high society and everyone was shocked when she was found dead in a blue gum plantation near Wanderers Sports Club in August 1949. There are many theories surrounding her murder, but it is said her ghost can be heard walking around the building and howling.
