by On New Years Day 1963, the discovery of two bodies in Sydney would begin one of Australia’s longest standing mysteries: the Bogle-Chandler case.
On the morning of January 1, 1963, two bodies were discovered on the banks of the Lane Cove River in Sydney. One was Dr. Gilbert Bogle, a brilliant physicist, the other was Margaret Chandler, the wife of one of his colleagues.
Both were partially undressed.
The pair lay some distance apart, the bodies covered with pieces of carpet and cardboard. When the police began to investigate, they found no signs of violence, and no clear cause of death.
Over 60 years later, the Bogle–Chandler case remains unsolved.
Gilbert Bogle was born in Wanganui, New Zealand, in January 1924.
A brilliant student with a flair for physics, he was so talented he would be excused from service during World War II, so he could continue his studies. After the war he went to England as a Rhodes Scholar, and studied subatomic particles at Oriel College, Oxford.
He earned his doctorate there, publishing an influential thesis that would be used by subsequent students like a textbook.
In 1950, Bogle married schoolteacher Vivienne Rich, and the pair returned to New Zealand two years later. They settled in Otago, and started a family.
But Bogle now found New Zealand to be scientific backwater. Frustrated at the lack of opportunities, he applied for a position at the National Laboratories of the CSIRO, based in Sydney.
Bogle and his family moved there in September 1956.
His new colleagues were shortly impressed by his abilities as a scientist, and lecturer. Working on cutting-edge research in the field of microwave physics and masers, a forerunner to lasers, Bogle was soon recommended for advancement by the head of his division.
‘He was noteworthy for his mental powers, his breadth of knowledge, his capacity for original ideas, his drive and enthusiasm.’
– G.H.Briggs, CSIRO manager
As well as his intellectual abilities, his peers found him outgoing and charismatic, ‘a real live wire’, as one put it. Known by everyone as ‘Gib’, the popular young physicist seemed to have a promising career ahead of him.
Among Bogle’s CSIRO colleagues was scientific photographer Geoffrey Chandler. The pair worked in the same building and often socialised together, through which Bogle met Chandler’s wife, Margaret.
Margaret Chandler, née Morphett, was born in April 1934 at Wentworthville, New South Wales. Quiet and caring by nature, she became a nurse, and married Geoffrey in 1957.
They would subsequently have two children.
The Chandlers presented as happy couple, but beneath the surface there were tensions. Geoffrey had a number of affairs, which while discrete eventually came to his wife’s attention.
He also had some affiliation with the ‘Sydney Push’ society, an academic group that promoted ‘free love’ among their ideology.
Unhappy with her husband’s behaviour, Margarat was instantly taken with the handsome and charming Gib Bogle. The pair began an affair of their own shortly after meeting; Margaret would later tell her husband, who supposedly gave his blessing.
Bogle was also known to have other lovers in this period.
By 1962, Bogle had ascended through the ranks of the CSIRO, and was often described as the ‘most brilliant’ member of the staff.
Again seeking a fresh challenge, he accepted a position in the United States with Bell Telephones, working in their quantum electronics lab. The CSIRO granted him a two-year leave of absence, the Bogles were set to leave Australia early in 1963.
On December 31, 1962, members of the CSIRO gathered for a New Years Eve party at the home of scientist Ken Nash.
Both the Chandlers and the Bogles were in attendance, although Geoffrey would leave shortly after midnight, to drop in on a Sydney Push party in Balmain. There he met with a lover of his, Pamela Logan, the pair continuing on to Logan’s flat.
Geoffrey returned to Nash’s party around 2.30 am.
He would later say, he did not want to leave his wife ‘in the lurch’, and offered to take her home. Bogle joined the conversation and said he could drive Maragret home later; Geoffrey agreed.
He then sat in his car and smoked a cigarette, before driving home alone. Bogle and Chandler left the party in Bogle’s car around 4.00 am.
It was the last time anyone would see them alive.
Their bodies were discovered around 11 a.m. on January 1, 1963, by a group of young boys playing near the Lane Cove River. Reportedly, they were searching for lost golf balls.
Bogle was found lying on his back, with his trousers and underpants pulled down; Chandler lay 12 metres away, also partly undressed. Both bodies were covered with scrap materials: a piece of carpet, and some cardboard.
Someone had been on the scene, port mortem.
The time of death was established as sometime between 4.45 a.m. and 6.00 a.m. The location, a secluded spot on the riverbank, was well known as a lover’s lane.
The police determined there were no signs of a struggle, no external injuries, and nothing missing from the scene. Toxicology tests would find no traces of poison or drugs, and there was no evidence of drowning or suffocation.
The police and the medical examiner were baffled. Was it murder, suicide, or just a terrible accident?
The resulting investigation would uncover the infidelities in both marriages, and the behaviour of the Sydney Push society. Both were reported in the local press, which caused a minor scandal.
Some of Bogle’s lovers were investigated, but eventually cleared. Police also interviewed a local resident, known to walk his greyhound dogs regularly along the same spot in the river; the man denied any knowledge of the crime, and no motive could be established to link him to it.
A formal inquest was held in May 1963.
Evidence was presented that semen was found on Bogle’s jacket, but that the couple had not had intercourse. Chandler was questioned at length, and came across as moody and indifferent; this and his lack of a concrete alibi – he said he was alseep, alone at home at the time of death – made him in some minds the chief suspect.
But a lack of evidence would ultimately rule him out too. Ongoing suspicion still lingered, and in 1969 he wrote a book, ‘So You Think I Did It’, in an attempt to finally clear his name.
The coroner, J.J. Loomes, would ultimately find that the couple had died of ‘acute circulatory failure’.
‘But as to the circumstances under which such circulatory failure was brought about, the evidence does not permit me to say.’
– JJ. Loomes
The inquest findings were inconclusive.
As an explanation remained elusive, people advanced their own theories to explain what happened.
With the relaxed sexual attitudes of the victims, some speculated it may have been a sex game gone wrong. Although the lack of injuries, or signs of any kind of violence, seemed to exclude this.
Other people thought they may have been taken LSD, or other illegal drugs, which had caused an overdose or fatal reaction. But the toxicology reports ruled this out.
In 1963, the Cold War was in full swing, a strong anti-Communist bent ran through Australian society; could Bogle have been a spy, working for China or Russia? This was widely discussed, and the Australian authorities checked with intelligence agencies in England and America.
No evidence was uncovered linking the case to espionage.
With no new leads or witnesses, the police investigation eventually petered out. The case remained unsolved, and eventually: cold.
As the years past, amateur investigators continued to try and solve the mystery. Articles, books, and even a play were produced, presenting different theories.
In 2006, retired TV producer Peter Butt assembled a documentary called ‘Who Killed Dr Bogle and Mrs Chandler?’ This proposed that the pair had died from exposure to hydrogen sulphide gas: a colourless, toxic gas that is occasionally released from decaying organic matter in waterways.
Butt’s investigation uncovered historical records of hydrogen sulphide build-up in the Lane Cove River area. He suggested that the gas may have collected in a depression near the riverbank and killed the couple as they lay on the ground.
This theory fit the evidence, and was later supported by some forensic experts. Although, decades after the case, could not be proven definitively; hydrogen sulphide breaks down quickly in the body, and even in 1963 could not have been detected with the equipment of the day.
This also did not explain how the bodies came to be covered with carpet and cardboard.
After Butt’s documentary screened on the ABC, several witnesses came forward who said they had the explanation. The greyhound walker, interviewed by police in 1963, was said to be conservative minded; he had apparently told a few close acquaintances after the fact, that he had discovered the bodies and covered them up with nearby refuse, to preserve their modesty.
He was otherwise not involved, and had not reported the matter to police for fear of being considered a suspect.
By this time the man was long deceased, and so these claims could not be corroborated. The Bogle-Chandler case remains officially unsolved.
