The Ghost in the Striped Bikini: Elizabeth Downs

The Ghost in the Striped Bikini: Elizabeth Downs

 She came up from under the water, a beautiful brunette, wearing a striped bikini. With a cheeky grin and a twinkle in her eye, she reached out her hand suggestively, ‘help me out of here, and I am yours’, her eyes said. He reached for her, but as he did, she vanished…

  Di Klose, a self-described psychic began experiencing a haunting that would travel with her through distance and time. It all began in 1973 when Di moved into a home in Elizabeth Downs with her husband Ken.

 Inexplicable events began to occur. Cold chills pierced the warm summer air. Wet spots of stale smelling water would form on the floor and walls. The water was tested and found to be human urine. Objects began to disappear and reappear in new places. The sound of footsteps walking through the house, when the couple knew no one else was inside, echoed throughout the night and day.

 Guests to the house soon began to make claims of seeing a woman sitting in the living room, wearing a striped bikini. But neither Di nor Ken had seen her anywhere in their home, so played it down as overactive imaginations, that was until two plumbers who had come to find the source of the wet patches also witnessed the bikini wearing woman, and left the house, stating they would never return, and that the Klose’s should never call them again!

 In the next few months, 19 people would witness the young woman in the Klose home. Some would never return to visit. During a party, one man witnessed the bikini-wearing girl inside the living room and asked Di who she was?
 Di responded that there is no-one dressed like that at the party and laughed him off as being drunk. The man went outside, where he witnessed the girl swimming in the pool. He walked over to her as she signalled to him to help her out of the water, but she vanished as he touched her hand.

 A few nights later, Di was woken abruptly by the sense someone was trying to choke her, but no-one was physically present. Di spoke in her mind to the spirit she suspected was trying to make contact and asked it to leave her alone. A loud scream pierced the air not long after, coming from the bedroom of Di’s son, she sprinted into the room, to find no one in there but her son, sound asleep, just like her husband in her bedroom. The loud disturbing sound not rousing either of them from their sleep.

 In the coming weeks, Di and the spirit now known as ‘Celia’, started to make contact with each other and became friends. Di claimed that Celia soon began to work as a kind of ‘spirit guide’, helping with Di’s psychic readings.
 Celia soon offered Di a glimpse of what had happened to her. She explained to Di that she had been living in the house with her boyfriend. The boyfriend had shot her, buried her in the backyard, and laid a slab of concrete over her so she would never be found, he then fled interstate.
 Celia claimed to have been into black magic, and this was the reason she, as spirit, had stayed on in the house.

 There have been claims made in the media that there is a small possibility that Celia could have been a murder victim of Christopher Worrall, one of the Truro murderers, who would have been 19 at the time. He had bragged he had killed girls in SA starting around his 18^th year. 

 Interestingly, Radio 5KA broadcast an episode directly from the house (and no I do not know the address) and had several paranormal events happen, such as pictures flying off the walls during the broadcast. I have been searching for a copy of this recording, so if you know of someone with a copy, please ask them to get in touch with me through the Haunts of Adelaide page on Facebook.

 Below is a video from a 1980s Australian television show where Di Klose was interviewed about the haunting!

Watch the Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wEyq3b0bH_4

Researched and written by Allen Tiller © 2019