Ghosts of Johannesburg, part II . Hazel Crane

One of the beautiful socialites and businesswomen of Johannesburg was Hazel Crane. She was a firm favourite of A-list personalities after she became close friend of Winnie Madikizela-Mandela. Hazel was present at most of charity events and she was known for her exceptional generosity.

Hazel Crane made headlines of Johannesburg newspapers once again on the 10th of November 2003 after she was shot on her way to the court to testify against a man, who was accused in murdering her estranged husband, and who she helped to arrest. Hazel died shortly afterwards in Millpark Hospital.

Hazel was a self-made millionaire, businesswoman and socialite.

Hazel was born in Northern Ireland, Belfast. Later on she became a nurse in Zimbabwe, she had to care for her family after her first husband died at the age 25. At that time she was pregnant with her second child. She emigrated to South Africa with two children and nevertheless was able to make a fortune for herself.

She was adventurous, loved men, loved risk and was not afraid of doing something that others would consider illegal. She shared her adventures in one of the interviews and described how she would hide diamonds in her son’s nappies or in her hair.

Before her untimely death Hazel was working together with British journalist known as David Kray(not his real name) on her memoirs.

In the book “Hazel Crane, Queen of Diamonds” she speaks about herself:

“It was an exciting world for me: going into Egypt and Saudi, Kuwait and Qatar, to the Lebanon and Dubai. I would gather business group from South Africa and from the UK and take them into these countries and tried to put different deals together.”

She was quite opened about her relationships with her third husband Shai Avissar, describing how she married and later divorced him, because she was afraid Shai would claim half of her estate. Despite all the problems in their relationships her affection to Shai was, probably, the cause for her assassination. Hazel wanted to catch his killers and helped to find and arrest a man, who was known for his connections to the Israeli mafia and was accused in killing Shai Avissar. After Hazel’s death there were some whispering that she knew too much, she could identify some shady people, who were involved with Shai.

Hazel’s death and circumstances around it had shaken society. The book “Hazel Crane, Queen of Diamonds” opened a curtain over how Hazel made her fortune in a shady business of currency trading, smuggling diamonds and emeralds. However, for people and friends who knew her, she was always known as beautiful petit blond, who was able to donate a lot of money to charity and worked tirelessly on many projects; one of them was project of educational sponsorship for poor students. She remained in the memory who knew her as “stylish and elegant”, an” incurable flirt”, “never ending fun”.

Hazel Crane qualifies to be a ghost of Johannesburg. Her soul would never find peace and her ghost was seen near her home in Abbotsford and near Millpark Hospital .