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Certainly the best known of all urban legends in Brazil, Loira do Banheiro is the ghost of a blonde girl who was murdered in her school bathroom and, from then on, her ghost haunts anyone who dares to disturb her eternal sleep.

Legend[]

Once there was a blonde girl, either a student or a teacher depending on the version, she was beautiful and smart, more than any other girl in her class, which made them envy, extremely envy. Until one day, when she was in her school's bathroom - skipping class, in the version where she was a student - she died for unknown reasons, anyone who believes she was a student will tell you that she was murdered by other girls who were jealous of her beauty, anyone who believes she was a teacher will tell you that it was because of students who were angry at the grades they received, and still there are those who, regardless of the girl's identity, believe it was just an accident: she just slipped and hit her head on the toilet. Regardless of the reason for her death, she was dead to everyone. That is, everyone but herself.

The girl did not conform to her tragic and premature end and continued to do in her post-death the same as she did in her life, but with a small exception: no one else interacted with her or even noticed her. For obvious reasons, of course, but this was still a maddening experience for her. Her trying to communicate with God and the world and no one answering her back and eventually not even speaking her name anymore as if she never really existed in the first place. Over time she stopped going to places with a lot of people, she couldn't stand everyone ignoring her existence anymore. The only place her mind allowed her to go was the place of her death.

But unlike her, her hope was not simply dead. Her friends hadn't forgotten about her, but they were still looking for a way to communicate with her and they found it. All they had to do was go inside where she died, and after saying “Loira do Banheiro” three times in front of the mirror, they had to slam the door three times, flush the toilet three times, and swear three times and then she would appear. But who her friends found was no longer who they knew, but a pale woman, with bloody eyes, and cottons in her nose, wearing a white dress. The only thing that still looked like the living version of her was her blond hair.

This legend supposedly arose from a true story about a girl called Maria Augusta de Oliveira Borges, born at the end of the 19th century, in Guaratinguetá, São Paulo. The young woman would have been forced by her father to marry at the age of 14 with a much older man. Unhappy with the marriage, the girl would have sold her jewelry and fled to Paris, aged 18. At the age of 26, Maria would have died.

The terror would have continued when the young woman's mother decided to take the body back to Brazil. Until the tomb was built, the corpse would have been kept in a glass urn in the family mansion for public viewing. After a while, Maria's mother would have decided not to bury her daughter. However, after several alleged visions of the girl asking for her to be buried, the mother finally decides for the burial.

About a decade later, in 1902, the house gave way to the Conselheiro Rodrigues Alves State School. Rumors that the spirit roamed the school already existed, but the story of the “Blonde in the Bathroom” gained strength when a mysterious fire compromised part of the building in 1916. According to legend, the spirit walks through the school bathrooms opening faucets to quenching his thirst and asking him to be buried.

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