Case 316: Gilbert Bogle & Margaret Chandler

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on your app or on our website. It was nearing
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8am on Tuesday January 1 1963 as 16-year-old Michael McCormick
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made his way east along the bushy banks of Sydney's
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Lane Cove River. Located in the suburb of Chatswood near
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a popular picnic area known as Fuller's Bridge, the area
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was once a thriving spot for swimming, fishing, rowing and
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flower picking. Over the years, rising pollution levels put an
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end to many of these recreational pursuits, with people turned
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off by the discoloured water and its offensive smell. Yet,
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the surrounding bushland of the Lane Cove National Park continued
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to attract many hikers and day trippers. As Michael walked
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along the lower bush track that ran parallel to the waterway,
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he noticed a man lying face down in the grass
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on the riverbank. He was neatly dressed in a dark
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coloured suit with his arms slightly out by his side.
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Michael's first thought was that the man must have had
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too much to drink at a New Year's Eve celebration
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the previous night and was sleeping it off. But as
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he edged close, Michael realised that the man's face appeared
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to be turning blue. Although it didn't look right to Michael,
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he told himself the man was probably just drunk and
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continued on. He had plans to meet his friend Dennis
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at the nearby Chatswood Golf Club to look for discarded
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golf balls, and he didn't want to keep him waiting.
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Michael caught up with Dennis near the 6th tee of
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the golf course, which backed onto the river, and the
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pair spent about an hour hunting for balls before deciding
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to call it a day. They made their way back
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along the lower river track the same way that Michael
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had come. only to discover that the drunk man was
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still in the exact same position Michael had seen him
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in an hour earlier. Michael approached the man again, only
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to realise that the colour of his face had gone
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a bit darker. He also didn't appear to be breathing.
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Fearing that the man might be dead, Michael told Dennis
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that they'd better get going. Dennis stopped him, saying, we
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had better tell the man over in the shop. The
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teens walked to the nearby Lane Cove kiosk and told
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the shopkeeper what they'd found. The shopkeeper accompanied them back
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to the scene to see the man for himself. As
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the trio gathered around him, Michael noticed something he hadn't
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seen before. A piece of carpet was sticking out from
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underneath the man's jacket. While at first glance the man
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appeared to be neatly dressed, Michael looked closer and realised
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this wasn't the case at all. The man's jacket had
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simply been draped over his shoulders and down his back
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to make it look like he was wearing it. It
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had been placed so perfectly that the right sleeve followed
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the bent angle of his right arm. Likewise, his trousers
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had been neatly laid over both of his bare legs,
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the seams perfectly placed to make it appear as though
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he was dressed when he was not. The shopkeeper summoned
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the police who arrived at the scene at around 10am.
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The attending sergeant removed the man's jacket and found that
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underneath he was wearing a white shirt with the top
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buttons undone. A necktie hung loosely around his neck and
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a piece of dirty brown carpet had been draped over
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his torso with his jacket then placed meticulously on top.
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He wore shoes and socks but no underwear and his
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trousers had been placed on top of his bare legs.
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The man's body was in a clear state of rigor
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mortis indicating that he'd been deceased for some time. Yet,
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Despite a trickle of blood that was seeping from his
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right nostril, there were no obvious signs of violence anywhere
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on his body. The only thing out of the ordinary
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was a puddle of vomit that lay nearby. Mystified by
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the scene, the police began a thorough search of the
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area to try and determine what had unfolded. An officer
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made his way down the riverbank towards the mudflats about
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15 metres south from where the man's body lay. Parallel
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to the riverbed, he came across an indentation in the
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mud that was about 5 feet long and 2 feet wide.
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It had been covered up by several flattened down beer
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cartons that had obviously been in the area for some time.
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The officer picked one of the pieces of cardboard up. Sergeant,
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he called out to his superior. I can see part
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of a woman's head. The sergeant joined the officer on
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the riverbed. From underneath the beer cartons, the head and
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shoulders of a young, dark-haired woman lay on display. She
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was on her back as though asleep, her head turned
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slightly to the left with her right arm resting on
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her stomach and her left arm by her thigh. There
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was a small abrasion on her nose which had been
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lightly bleeding. The woman was wearing an imitation pearl necklace,
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but her shoulders were otherwise bare, the straps of her
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dress having been pulled down to expose her breasts. The
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sergeant lifted the woman's arm, noticing that she was wearing
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a wedding ring. He felt for a pulse, but there
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was none, and she wasn't breathing. Although she was clearly deceased,
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her body was still slightly warm to the touch and
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rigor mortis hadn't yet set in. The sergeant pulled the
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rest of the beer cartons aside, revealing that the woman's
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bra had been rolled down across her stomach. She was
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wearing a white dress with a red rose pattern on it,
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which had been rolled up around her waist. Underneath the dress,
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she wore a white half-slip that was torn and muddy.
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She had no underwear or shoes on and her feet
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and knees were smeared with mud. A pair of men's
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underwear lay at her feet, stained with faeces. Vomit and
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excrement dotted the surrounding area, adding to the already foul
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odour of the thick black mud and surrounding mangroves. Other
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than some small scratches on one of the woman's shoulders,
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there were no defensive marks or signs of violence anywhere
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on her body, and it didn't look like her clothing
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had been forcefully removed. Her shoes and underwear were found
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on the exposed riverbed directly below where the man's body
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was found. placed in a neat line along with the
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man's belt. Detectives soon arrived at the scene and were
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baffled by what lay before them. Here they had two
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semi-naked bodies just 15 metres apart, both oddly covered up
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but with no overt signs of violence on either of them.
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Both of the deceased appeared to have been healthy young individuals.
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An unexpected medical event such as a heart attack or
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brain aneurysm could kill one person, but the chances of
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it happening to two was next to impossible. The vomit
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and faeces at the scene suggested a more obvious cause
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of death. The pair had been poisoned. A cursory search
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of the area didn't reveal any pills, powders, hypodermic needles
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or anything else to suggest what had made the couple
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so sick. Police divers took to the water to search
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for any discarded evidence, but the water was too muddy
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and polluted, and the search had to be called off.
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The only prints in the mud belonged to the woman
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and were consistent with her having walked to the riverbed
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before collapsing onto all fours. The surrounding area didn't show
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any obvious signs of disturbance such as flattened grass or
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drag marks to suggest that anyone else was involved. Detectives
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wondered if they could be dealing with a double suicide
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or a murder-suicide, but this didn't explain the precise way
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in which the bodies had been covered up. They considered
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a third, more plausible theory. What they were dealing with
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was a double homicide. Police searched the area for the
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woman's handbag or purse, but couldn't find one. A search
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of the dead man's pockets didn't turn up any drugs
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or poisons, but it did reveal his wallet. Inside were
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several £ 5 notes, a driver's licence and personal papers all
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in the same name. Dr Gilbert Bogle. The 39-year-old lived
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in Taramurra, a suburb in Sydney's Upper North Shore, approximately
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10 kilometres north of the crime scene. Detectives were sent
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to Gilbert's address where they knocked at the door of
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the attractive brick home. A woman holding a baby in
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her arms answered and introduced herself as Vivian Bogle. She
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was soon joined by three more young children, the eldest
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of whom was just 11. The detectives handed Vivian Gilbert's
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wallet and explained where they had found it. Vivian's eyes
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immediately filled with tears. She'd been worried sick about her
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husband ever since he'd failed to return home from a
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New Year's Eve party the previous evening. Vivian told the
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detectives that Gilbert worked as a physicist for the government-run
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Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation, known as the CSIRO,
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where he'd been a much-loved member of the faculty for
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the past seven years. A gifted physicist originally from New Zealand,
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Gilbert had completed a doctorate in philosophy at England's Oxford
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University after being awarded with a highly coveted Rhodes Scholarship.
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It was there that he met and married Vivian before
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accepting the position of Senior Research Officer in the CSIRO's
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Division of Physics at the National Standards Laboratory in Sydney.
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During Gilbert's time with the CSIRO, his superiors were so
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impressed with him that he was given an indefinite appointment
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with the organisation, with his chief deeming him to be
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the most brilliant member on staff. Gilbert was equally admired
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outside of the workplace. Not only did he speak several languages,
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play the clarinet and have four great children, He was
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an extroverted character and a conversationalist who got along well
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with everyone he met. Vivian Bogle told the detectives that
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at around 9 o'clock the night before, Gilbert had left
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home to attend a party thrown by one of his colleagues,
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Ken Nash and his wife Ruth. Vivian couldn't go to
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the party because their baby was sick and she had
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to stay home and tend to the children. She woke
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up at around 5am only to find that Gilbert still
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wasn't home. When he still hadn't surfaced by 6.45, her
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worry grew. Vivian called the Nash residence to see if
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they could shed any light on her husband's whereabouts. Ruth
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Nash told Vivian not to stress. She said the party
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had run into the early hours of the morning and
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Gilbert had only left a short while earlier. With Vivian
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receiving the news that her husband had been found dead
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next to the Lane Cove River, her worst fears had
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come true. As she tried to get her head around
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the reality of it, the detectives delivered the second blow,
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explaining that a deceased woman had also been found just
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a few metres from Gilbert's body. Vivian was stunned. She
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had no idea who the woman could be. Back at
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Lane Cove, detectives checked the parking area near Fuller's Bridge,
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which was about 70 metres from where the bodies were found. There,
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they found an old Ford Prefect with its doors unlocked
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and its keys tucked into the driver's side sun visor.
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A check of the Ford's registration confirmed that the car
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belonged to Gilbert Bogle. On the back seat was a
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leather case with a clarinet inside and, strangely, an abstract
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painting depicting what appeared to be a two-headed woman surrounded
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by a severed foot and hand. The car didn't smell
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of gas or any other unusual odour. There was nothing
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inside the car that could explain how the pair had died,
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nor was there anything that could help identify the mystery woman.
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Detectives visited the home of the party hosts, Ken and
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Ruth Nash. The Nash's lived on Waratah Street in Chatswood,
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which was about five kilometres east of Fuller's Bridge. They
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were stunned to hear that Gilbert Bogle had been found dead.
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Gilbert had been one of 22 guests who had attended
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their annual New Year's Eve celebration the previous night, and
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when they'd last seen him, he'd been in perfect health.
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The Nashers recalled that Gilbert had arrived at around 9.30pm
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with his clarinet in hand. He also brought with him
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a Picasso-inspired drawing of an abstract figure, the one that
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had been found in the back of his car. He
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had drawn this at Ken and Ruth's request. To keep
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things interesting, they had asked their guests to bring some
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kind of abstract art project they could display for the evenings.
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Most guests let the Nash's keep their projects at the
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end of the night, but Gilbert wanted to take his home.
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The detectives asked Ken and Ruth if there happened to
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be a dark-haired woman at their party who wore a
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white rose-patterned dress. The husband and wife exchanged a look. Yes,
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they said, there was a guest who fit that description.
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Her name was Margaret Chandler, but they didn't know her
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very well. She was the 29-year-old wife of another CSIRO employee,
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32-year-old Geoffrey Chandler. The Chandlers had been a late addition
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to the Nash's guest list, having been invited to the
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party just a week before, at Gilbert Bogle's request. They'd
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arrived at around 10.30pm, dressed in more casual attire than
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the Nashers had requested on their invite, and without any
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00:17:26.690 --> 00:17:31.910
artwork to contribute. Ken and Ruth told the detectives that
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Margaret Chandler had been reserved at the party, perhaps even
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a bit shy. She mostly sat on the lounge, sipping
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a drink. In contrast, Gilbert Bogle was the life of
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the party, as per usual. He mingled freely, dancing and
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00:17:49.559 --> 00:17:54.759
sometimes speaking to other guests in Spanish and Italian. The
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00:17:54.799 --> 00:17:58.920
Nash's didn't particularly notice Gilbert paying Margaret any more attention
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than he did the other guests. However, they did notice
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that the two left the party at around the same time,
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shortly after 4am, and Margaret's husband wasn't with them. With
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this revelation, the detectives started putting the pieces together. They
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00:18:21.490 --> 00:18:24.250
were familiar with the area of Lane Cove where the
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00:18:24.289 --> 00:18:27.569
two bodies were found, as the parking lot near Fuller's
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Bridge was a well-known lover's lane. Officers were routinely dispatched
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00:18:33.329 --> 00:18:35.950
there to keep an eye out for any peeping toms
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00:18:36.230 --> 00:18:38.819
or anyone who might be illegally dumping rubbish in the
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00:18:38.859 --> 00:18:43.869
surrounding bushland. It stood to reason that Gilbert Bogle and
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00:18:43.970 --> 00:18:47.579
Margaret Chandler could have left the party together and stopped
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00:18:47.630 --> 00:18:52.579
at Lane Cove to have some time alone. Given that
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00:18:52.619 --> 00:18:56.220
they were both in a state of undress, detectives considered
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00:18:56.279 --> 00:18:59.390
whether they had willingly taken their clothes off to engage
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00:18:59.450 --> 00:19:05.230
in consensual sex when they both became gravely ill. The
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00:19:05.269 --> 00:19:07.759
problem with this theory was that the area they were
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00:19:07.799 --> 00:19:12.500
found in wasn't exactly a picturesque or romantic spot. The
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00:19:12.539 --> 00:19:16.240
polluted river gave off an unpleasant smell, while rubbish was
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00:19:16.279 --> 00:19:20.859
strewn throughout the bush track and riverbed. If the pair
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00:19:20.900 --> 00:19:24.220
had wanted some privacy, it seemed odd that they'd walked
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00:19:24.220 --> 00:19:28.269
70 metres from the parking lot to this undesirable location
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00:19:28.710 --> 00:19:30.509
when they could have just stayed in the comfort of
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00:19:30.589 --> 00:19:36.099
Gilbert's car. It also didn't explain what had happened to
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00:19:36.160 --> 00:19:40.440
them once they reached the bush track. The Nashers said
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00:19:40.500 --> 00:19:43.589
that neither Gilbert or Margaret had drunk much throughout the
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00:19:43.690 --> 00:19:47.509
evening and neither seemed intoxicated or sick when they left
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the party. This meant... that something had occurred in the
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00:19:52.000 --> 00:19:54.700
period of time when they left the party at around
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00:19:54.720 --> 00:19:59.240
4am and when Michael McCormack first walked past Gilbert's body
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00:19:59.440 --> 00:20:05.269
at 8am. Forensic examiners estimated that Gilbert had died shortly
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00:20:05.369 --> 00:20:09.630
after leaving the party at around 5am with Margaret dying
279
00:20:09.690 --> 00:20:13.809
an hour or two later. Although, it was also possible
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00:20:13.869 --> 00:20:16.970
that she'd died around the same time, but her body
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00:20:17.029 --> 00:20:19.410
had been better preserved due to the way it was
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00:20:19.490 --> 00:20:24.289
covered up. A medical officer at the scene examined their
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00:20:24.309 --> 00:20:28.329
bodies for stab marks, bullet holes, strangulation or any other
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00:20:28.430 --> 00:20:33.390
signs of assault. He found nothing, further solidifying the theory
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00:20:33.470 --> 00:20:38.380
that the pair had been poisoned. and detectives suspected they
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00:20:38.460 --> 00:20:46.519
knew who was responsible. It was nearing 1pm on New
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00:20:46.539 --> 00:20:50.140
Year's Day when detectives arrived at a modest weatherboard home
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00:20:50.220 --> 00:20:54.619
in the Sydney suburb of Croydon, located roughly 18km south
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00:20:54.680 --> 00:20:58.710
of Fuller's Bridge. A sign in the front yard read,
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Ducks and Pups for Sale. It was the home of
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00:21:02.890 --> 00:21:08.220
Margaret and Geoffrey Chandler. The couple had bought the house
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00:21:08.299 --> 00:21:11.960
several years prior and were renovating it slowly while raising
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00:21:12.019 --> 00:21:17.609
their nine-month-old and two-year-old sons. Margaret was a former nurse
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00:21:17.670 --> 00:21:21.309
turned stay-at-home mum while Geoffrey worked as an engineer at
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00:21:21.349 --> 00:21:26.230
the CSIRO. He'd started with the company as a technical
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00:21:26.299 --> 00:21:30.160
assistant but had slowly risen the ranks while studying diligently
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for his master's degree in engineering. His hard work paid off,
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00:21:35.170 --> 00:21:38.769
and coupled with Margaret's smart budgeting, they'd managed to pay
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00:21:38.809 --> 00:21:43.650
off their mortgage in just two years. They lived simply,
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00:21:43.970 --> 00:21:47.759
their only indulgence being their shared love for vintage cars.
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The detectives knocked on the door, and a slightly dishevelled
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Geoffrey Chandler answered, having obviously just woken up. In his
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00:21:59.049 --> 00:22:02.289
arms was his grizzling baby son while his older son
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00:22:02.349 --> 00:22:06.970
stood by his side. The detectives asked Jeffrey if his
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00:22:07.069 --> 00:22:11.740
wife was at home. He said she was not. They
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00:22:11.859 --> 00:22:16.599
asked if he knew where she was. Jeffrey responded, no.
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00:22:18.500 --> 00:22:21.049
He said the last time he'd seen Margaret was at
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00:22:21.109 --> 00:22:24.450
around 4 o'clock that morning when he'd left the Nash's
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00:22:24.569 --> 00:22:28.980
New Year's Eve party. Jeffrey asked if there had been
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00:22:29.019 --> 00:22:33.339
an accident. The detectives told him no and asked if
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00:22:33.359 --> 00:22:37.839
he would accompany them to the police station. Jeffrey agreed,
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but didn't ask why, nor did the detectives offer him
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00:22:41.619 --> 00:22:48.029
any explanation. At the station, a detective presented Jeffrey with
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the afternoon edition of the Daily Mirror newspaper. The front
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00:22:52.650 --> 00:22:59.670
page headline read, SCIENTIST WOMAN IN DEATH MYSTERY The article
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00:22:59.730 --> 00:23:03.259
went on to explain that Gilbert Bogle and Margaret Chandler
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00:23:03.319 --> 00:23:06.240
had been found dead on the banks of Lane Cove River,
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00:23:06.700 --> 00:23:12.180
the cause of their death unknown. Jeffrey Chandler showed no
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00:23:12.259 --> 00:23:16.440
reaction as he read the story. He took a cigarette
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00:23:16.500 --> 00:23:18.940
from his shirt pocket and lit it up in a
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00:23:19.039 --> 00:23:26.160
stony silence. The detective asked Jeffrey how he knew Gilbert Bogle.
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00:23:27.660 --> 00:23:31.759
Jeffrey explained that they had worked together at the CSIRO
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00:23:31.819 --> 00:23:36.769
for several years, but in different departments. He said they
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00:23:36.829 --> 00:23:40.109
didn't know each other well, but would say hello in passing.
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00:23:42.109 --> 00:23:46.049
Jeffrey explained that Margaret had only met Gilbert, or Gib
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00:23:46.130 --> 00:23:49.410
as he was known, ten days earlier at a CSIRO
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00:23:49.490 --> 00:23:54.220
Christmas barbecue. Margaret had been looking forward to the event.
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00:23:55.000 --> 00:23:58.220
Having given birth only months earlier, she hadn't been out
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00:23:58.279 --> 00:24:03.940
much and was looking forward to some adult interaction. Gilbert
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00:24:04.009 --> 00:24:07.309
Bogle attended the barbecue alone as his wife was at
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00:24:07.369 --> 00:24:11.869
home nursing their sick baby. He soon started chatting with
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00:24:11.950 --> 00:24:17.000
Margaret and the two immediately hit it off. After the barbecue,
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00:24:17.220 --> 00:24:20.279
Ken and Ruth Nash invited some of the guests back
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00:24:20.319 --> 00:24:25.230
to their place for drinks. There, Gilbert suggested that the
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00:24:25.269 --> 00:24:28.950
Nashers invite the Chandlers to their upcoming New Year's Eve party,
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and they obliged. Geoffrey wasn't particularly excited about the invite,
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00:24:35.650 --> 00:24:39.490
but he could tell that Margaret was. In the days
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00:24:39.589 --> 00:24:43.049
following the barbecue, she seemed to have a renewed spark.
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00:24:44.650 --> 00:24:47.930
Margaret told Geoffrey that Gilbert Bogle had been the most
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00:24:48.150 --> 00:24:52.859
interesting person there. She admitted she felt quite attracted to
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00:24:52.920 --> 00:24:55.740
him and that she found the prospect of sleeping with
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00:24:55.779 --> 00:25:01.460
him alluring. Jeffrey told her, If you want to take
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00:25:01.619 --> 00:25:04.059
Gibb as a lover, if it would make you happy,
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00:25:04.779 --> 00:25:12.440
you do it. Jeffrey explained to the incredulous detectives that
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00:25:12.480 --> 00:25:15.420
while he and Margaret had a happy marriage, they had
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00:25:15.460 --> 00:25:18.119
an arrangement in which they were both free to pursue
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00:25:18.259 --> 00:25:22.890
intimate relations with other people. He said they had attended
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00:25:22.910 --> 00:25:26.349
the Nash's New Year's party with the understanding that Margaret
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00:25:26.390 --> 00:25:29.059
was free to take Gilbert Bogle home at the end
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of the night if she so desired. Jeffrey had even
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00:25:33.619 --> 00:25:36.599
agreed to stay elsewhere and take care of the children
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00:25:36.759 --> 00:25:41.819
so that the two could have some privacy. Jeffrey told
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00:25:41.859 --> 00:25:44.799
the detectives that on New Year's Eve he and Margaret
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00:25:44.839 --> 00:25:48.319
had dropped their two sons at Margaret's parents' house before
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00:25:48.380 --> 00:25:54.119
arriving at the Nash's party at around 10pm. Jeffrey could
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00:25:54.160 --> 00:25:57.180
tell straight away that the party was not his scene.
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00:25:58.119 --> 00:26:01.700
He felt inadequately dressed in his shirt sleeves and sandals
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00:26:01.900 --> 00:26:05.599
while all the other men were in suits. He was
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00:26:05.680 --> 00:26:10.200
also the only one there with a beard and Overall,
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00:26:10.319 --> 00:26:13.400
the party was quieter and more formal than what Jeffrey
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00:26:13.460 --> 00:26:16.910
was used to, and although it was pleasant enough, he
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00:26:16.970 --> 00:26:22.569
found it quite pretentious and wasn't eager to stick around. However,
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00:26:22.890 --> 00:26:25.809
he'd made a promise to Margaret and he intended to
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00:26:25.869 --> 00:26:32.190
keep it. Jeffrey told the detectives that at around 11.30pm
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00:26:32.430 --> 00:26:34.430
he slipped out of the party to go and buy
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00:26:34.539 --> 00:26:38.599
cigarettes without telling Margaret or anyone else that he was leaving.
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00:26:40.190 --> 00:26:42.630
As he drove along looking for a shop that was
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00:26:42.710 --> 00:26:45.769
still open, he got further and further away from the
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00:26:45.809 --> 00:26:48.970
Nash's house until he decided he might as well stop
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00:26:49.049 --> 00:26:53.710
in at another party he'd been invited to. This one
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00:26:53.789 --> 00:26:57.029
was at the Balmain home of Ken Buckley, a friend
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00:26:57.089 --> 00:27:00.430
who worked as an economic history lecturer at the University
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00:27:00.470 --> 00:27:06.009
of Sydney. Ken Buckley's party was much more to Geoffrey's tastes.
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There were about 100 guests and it was a more
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00:27:09.450 --> 00:27:13.869
laid back and casual affair. He also had an extra
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00:27:13.950 --> 00:27:18.660
incentive to pop by. His girlfriend was going to be there.
377
00:27:26.859 --> 00:27:30.390
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Jeffrey Chandler told the detectives that he'd been romantically involved
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00:30:16.680 --> 00:30:20.599
with a 21-year-old woman named Pamela Logan for about five
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00:30:20.680 --> 00:30:24.799
or six months. Pamela worked as a secretary at the
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00:30:24.880 --> 00:30:29.670
University of Sydney, where the CSIRO building was located. and
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00:30:29.690 --> 00:30:34.450
the two had met through mutual acquaintances. Jeffrey told the
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00:30:34.490 --> 00:30:37.470
detectives that he'd been at the Balmain party for about
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00:30:37.529 --> 00:30:40.759
an hour when they decided to go back to Pamela's place,
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00:30:40.960 --> 00:30:44.660
which was about six kilometres away in the suburb of Darlington.
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00:30:46.559 --> 00:30:50.299
Jeffrey agreed to drive his car, with Pamela following behind
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00:30:50.359 --> 00:30:54.470
in her own. She'd only recently gotten her driver's licence
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00:30:54.650 --> 00:30:57.430
and still had trouble navigating the streets on her own.
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00:30:59.940 --> 00:31:02.589
By the time they got to Pamela's house, she wasn't
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00:31:02.660 --> 00:31:05.410
feeling very well, so Geoffrey made her a cup of
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00:31:05.490 --> 00:31:10.109
coffee and left at around 2am. He drove back to
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00:31:10.150 --> 00:31:13.730
Chatswood and slipped back into the Nash's party, where nobody
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00:31:13.789 --> 00:31:18.769
seemed to have taken much notice of his absence. Geoffrey
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00:31:18.829 --> 00:31:22.410
said he apologised to Margaret for being gone for so long,
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00:31:22.690 --> 00:31:26.339
but she didn't appear to be phased at all. A
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00:31:26.420 --> 00:31:33.579
supper of chicken, ham, sausage, cheese and vegetables was then served. Afterwards,
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00:31:33.839 --> 00:31:36.759
Geoffrey asked Margaret if she still had the same opinion
437
00:31:36.819 --> 00:31:41.240
of Gilbert Bogle as she did before. She said that
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00:31:41.329 --> 00:31:44.490
she did, and that Gilbert had offered to drive her
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00:31:44.549 --> 00:31:50.970
home if Geoffrey hadn't returned. A little while later, shortly
440
00:31:51.029 --> 00:31:55.609
before 4am, Jeffrey saw Margaret and Gilbert chatting together on
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00:31:55.650 --> 00:31:59.700
the couch. He went over and told them he was
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00:31:59.779 --> 00:32:04.160
ready to leave. When Margaret made no move to join him,
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00:32:04.740 --> 00:32:09.819
Jeffrey asked Gilbert if he could take her home. Gilbert
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00:32:09.900 --> 00:32:12.640
looked at him quizzingly, as though he was trying to
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00:32:12.680 --> 00:32:17.440
make sure he interpreted the question correctly. After a pause,
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00:32:17.750 --> 00:32:25.450
he responded, Jeffrey told the detectives he then left without
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00:32:25.509 --> 00:32:29.309
saying goodbye to anyone else. He felt a bit embarrassed
448
00:32:29.450 --> 00:32:32.109
to be leaving by himself and didn't want to draw
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00:32:32.210 --> 00:32:36.430
any attention to this fact. Jeffrey sat in his car
450
00:32:36.509 --> 00:32:39.380
and lit a cigarette, waiting a few minutes just in
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00:32:39.420 --> 00:32:43.720
case Margaret changed her mind. When she didn't come out,
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00:32:44.220 --> 00:32:50.059
he drove off. Jeffrey claimed that he drove straight back
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to Pamela Logan's house via the Sydney Harbour Bridge. He
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00:32:54.660 --> 00:32:58.500
got to Pamela's house at around 4.30am, woke her up,
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and asked if she'd go with him to pick up
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00:33:01.019 --> 00:33:06.759
his children. Pamela seemed slightly annoyed by this request, but
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00:33:06.859 --> 00:33:11.400
she agreed. The two then drove to Margaret's parents' house,
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00:33:11.559 --> 00:33:15.970
where Jeffrey dropped Pamela to wait around the corner. Jeffrey
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00:33:16.049 --> 00:33:19.529
retrieved his kids, picked Pamela up and took them all
460
00:33:19.569 --> 00:33:24.460
back to Pamela's house in Darlington. They stayed there for
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00:33:24.500 --> 00:33:27.539
a couple of hours before returning to the Chandlers' home
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00:33:27.599 --> 00:33:32.259
in Croydon. Jeffrey said he was surprised to find that
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00:33:32.319 --> 00:33:35.720
Margaret wasn't home, but he assumed she must have gone
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00:33:35.799 --> 00:33:38.630
out for a drive with Gilbert Bogle and would be
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00:33:38.670 --> 00:33:42.990
back soon. He went to sleep with the boys and
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the next thing he knew, the detectives were knocking at
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his door. The detectives weren't buying Jeffrey's story at all.
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00:33:54.809 --> 00:33:57.670
They found it difficult to believe that a happily married
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00:33:57.730 --> 00:34:02.150
couple could have such an arrangement. It seemed much more
470
00:34:02.210 --> 00:34:05.700
believable that Jeffrey could have sensed a mutual attraction between
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00:34:05.759 --> 00:34:08.980
Margaret and Gilbert and killed them in a jealous rage.
472
00:34:10.340 --> 00:34:13.679
Either that, or he wanted Margaret out of the picture
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00:34:13.760 --> 00:34:17.570
so he could freely pursue the relationship with his younger girlfriend,
474
00:34:17.969 --> 00:34:23.710
and Gilbert Bogle was just collateral damage. Perhaps Jeffrey had
475
00:34:23.829 --> 00:34:27.389
discreetly slipped something into the pair's food or drink before
476
00:34:27.429 --> 00:34:30.650
they left the party together, and the effects had only
477
00:34:30.690 --> 00:34:34.210
taken their toll once the two were canoodling by the riverside.
478
00:34:36.449 --> 00:34:44.369
Just before 4.30pm on New Year's Day, detectives have They
479
00:34:44.489 --> 00:34:47.329
asked her if she had spent time with Jeffrey Chandler
480
00:34:47.369 --> 00:34:52.679
the previous evening. Yes, Pamela replied. Why do you want
481
00:34:52.719 --> 00:34:58.059
to know? Pamela told the detectives the exact same story
482
00:34:58.159 --> 00:35:02.829
as Jeffrey. She also said that when he'd returned to
483
00:35:02.869 --> 00:35:07.449
her house at around 4.30am, he mentioned that he'd arranged
484
00:35:07.570 --> 00:35:12.110
for another man to take his wife home. Pamela lived
485
00:35:12.139 --> 00:35:14.690
in a share house and one of her housemates had
486
00:35:14.750 --> 00:35:18.889
also been at the Balmain party the night before. This
487
00:35:18.949 --> 00:35:22.510
housemate confirmed that Geoffrey Chandler had been at the party
488
00:35:22.909 --> 00:35:26.590
and brought the children over in the morning. They'd all
489
00:35:26.610 --> 00:35:31.289
eaten breakfast together before the Chandlers had left at around 10am.
490
00:35:33.750 --> 00:35:37.869
With Pamela backing Geoffrey's alibi to the T, the detectives
491
00:35:37.929 --> 00:35:43.070
were left scratching their heads. They visited Margaret's parents, who
492
00:35:43.110 --> 00:35:46.159
confirmed that Geoffrey had arrived at their house at around
493
00:35:46.179 --> 00:35:50.820
5am to pick up their children. This was the same
494
00:35:50.920 --> 00:35:56.440
time that Gilbert Bogle was thought to have died. Although
495
00:35:56.519 --> 00:35:59.679
this meant Geoffrey couldn't have been present when Gilbert and
496
00:35:59.739 --> 00:36:03.659
Margaret became fatally ill, it didn't rule out the possibility
497
00:36:03.719 --> 00:36:06.679
that he'd managed to poison them before they left the
498
00:36:06.719 --> 00:36:12.409
Nash's party. Given that the Chandler's house had been empty
499
00:36:12.489 --> 00:36:16.179
at the time, it made detectives even more curious about
500
00:36:16.219 --> 00:36:18.820
why Margaret and Gilbert had ended up in the spot
501
00:36:18.880 --> 00:36:22.760
that they had. Perhaps they were driving back to the
502
00:36:22.800 --> 00:36:27.449
Chandler's home when they were overcome with illness. Gilbert might
503
00:36:27.469 --> 00:36:30.050
have urgently parked his car and the two had run
504
00:36:30.090 --> 00:36:34.409
into the bush to be sick in private. Then again,
505
00:36:34.429 --> 00:36:38.369
if they were so violently ill, why go 70 metres
506
00:36:38.429 --> 00:36:41.130
into the bush when there were plenty of other spots
507
00:36:41.250 --> 00:36:49.000
closer by? The news that Margaret had been found dead
508
00:36:49.099 --> 00:36:53.579
left her parents utterly devastated. Margaret was one of four
509
00:36:53.619 --> 00:36:57.239
children in their close-knit family, and as the only girl,
510
00:36:57.489 --> 00:37:03.400
she was particularly beloved. But equally crushing to them was
511
00:37:03.519 --> 00:37:06.880
Geoffrey's claim that he and Margaret had an open marriage.
512
00:37:08.219 --> 00:37:11.360
While they'd always had a good relationship with Geoffrey, the
513
00:37:11.429 --> 00:37:14.260
thought that he had been liaising with other women while
514
00:37:14.320 --> 00:37:19.570
encouraging Margaret to pursue relations with other men left them flabbergasted.
515
00:37:21.110 --> 00:37:24.869
They couldn't imagine Margaret would ever agree to such an arrangement.
516
00:37:27.760 --> 00:37:31.420
Back at the police station, Jeffrey Chandler explained to the
517
00:37:31.460 --> 00:37:35.019
detectives that he and Margaret had made the mutual decision
518
00:37:35.179 --> 00:37:38.880
not to regulate their marriage according to the rules of suburbia.
519
00:37:40.260 --> 00:37:43.639
He said that neither of them were jealous, possessive or
520
00:37:43.699 --> 00:37:48.400
demanding in nature and they recognised each other's rights as individuals.
521
00:37:50.099 --> 00:37:53.179
According to Jeffrey, the fact that they were married and
522
00:37:53.280 --> 00:37:56.900
intended to stay married did not eliminate their interest in
523
00:37:56.980 --> 00:38:01.869
other people. While he didn't think Margaret knew about his
524
00:38:01.929 --> 00:38:06.630
relationship with Pamela Logan specifically, she knew he was involved
525
00:38:06.730 --> 00:38:10.530
with other women. He also made it clear that he
526
00:38:10.610 --> 00:38:14.159
never intended to pursue a future with Pamela and she
527
00:38:14.300 --> 00:38:20.340
expected nothing of him. But the detectives were sceptical of
528
00:38:20.420 --> 00:38:24.280
Jeffrey's claims, believing there was every chance he was using
529
00:38:24.360 --> 00:38:29.099
this as an excuse for his own bad behaviour. If
530
00:38:29.199 --> 00:38:32.590
the police didn't believe him, Jeffrey said they could ask
531
00:38:32.639 --> 00:38:36.010
his friend, Bill Berry, as he'd had a brief affair
532
00:38:36.050 --> 00:38:41.929
with Margaret in the past. Bill backed up Jeffrey's claims completely.
533
00:38:43.000 --> 00:38:45.659
He said he'd slept with Margaret a few times about
534
00:38:45.760 --> 00:38:49.619
four years prior and that Jeffrey had been fully aware,
535
00:38:50.139 --> 00:38:55.349
even making jokes about it. Bill claimed that Jeffrey Chandler
536
00:38:55.409 --> 00:38:59.369
was an easygoing and placid fellow and definitely not the
537
00:38:59.429 --> 00:39:03.989
jealous type. The affair only came to an end when
538
00:39:04.070 --> 00:39:10.679
Bill started dating his future wife. The police interrogated Jeffrey
539
00:39:10.719 --> 00:39:14.539
Chandler for close to 13 hours, but he never veered
540
00:39:14.639 --> 00:39:17.840
from his original story, and there was no evidence to
541
00:39:17.880 --> 00:39:22.679
tie him to the scene at Lane Cove. Eventually, he
542
00:39:22.739 --> 00:39:25.670
was free to go, but the next morning he was
543
00:39:25.710 --> 00:39:31.199
summoned to the city morgue to identify Margaret's body. Police
544
00:39:31.239 --> 00:39:34.719
hoped that this might prompt a reaction or perhaps even
545
00:39:34.840 --> 00:39:40.380
elicit a confession. Several detectives gathered around the room, their
546
00:39:40.599 --> 00:39:43.679
eyes on Geoffrey as the coroner lifted back the sheet
547
00:39:43.780 --> 00:39:49.099
to reveal Margaret's body. She's a bit dishevelled, isn't she?
548
00:39:49.719 --> 00:39:59.940
Jeffrey remarked. He made no other show of emotion. Meanwhile,
549
00:40:00.199 --> 00:40:04.050
forensic investigators searched the home of Ken and Ruth Nash
550
00:40:04.130 --> 00:40:07.829
for any evidence that Margaret Chandler and Gilbert Bogle could
551
00:40:07.869 --> 00:40:12.289
have been poisoned before they left the party. If Jeffrey
552
00:40:12.349 --> 00:40:16.579
Chandler wasn't responsible, maybe one of the other partygoers was.
553
00:40:17.460 --> 00:40:21.090
Or maybe their deaths hadn't been intentional at all, but
554
00:40:21.119 --> 00:40:25.309
the result of contaminated food or drink, or a practical joke,
555
00:40:25.449 --> 00:40:31.610
gone horribly wrong. Officers confiscated all of the leftover food
556
00:40:31.650 --> 00:40:35.360
scraps and drinks that had been served, and were surprised
557
00:40:35.579 --> 00:40:40.880
to discover that very little alcohol had been consumed. Between
558
00:40:40.940 --> 00:40:44.699
the 24 people present, only four bottles of spirits and
559
00:40:44.699 --> 00:40:48.559
16 bottles of beer had been drunk throughout the entire evening.
560
00:40:50.070 --> 00:40:54.570
Testing revealed no traces of poison or food-borne bacteria in
561
00:40:54.730 --> 00:40:59.269
any of the consumables served at the party. Officers also
562
00:40:59.369 --> 00:41:03.349
seized a collection of medicines and household chemicals taken during
563
00:41:03.389 --> 00:41:06.300
a search of Jeffrey Chandler's home, as well as the
564
00:41:06.360 --> 00:41:11.440
home of Pamela Logan. They also confiscated the clothes that
565
00:41:11.480 --> 00:41:14.639
Jeffrey had worn to the party and swabbed the insides
566
00:41:14.679 --> 00:41:20.900
of his pockets for any poison residue. Without knowing exactly
567
00:41:20.940 --> 00:41:24.780
what had killed Margaret Chandler and Gilbert Bogle, police weren't
568
00:41:24.880 --> 00:41:29.179
sure what to do next. Because their bodies were discovered
569
00:41:29.219 --> 00:41:32.820
on a public holiday, detectives had to wait 36 hours
570
00:41:32.900 --> 00:41:37.800
for their autopsies to be conducted. The carpet square that
571
00:41:37.820 --> 00:41:40.659
had been draped over Gilbert's body was determined to have
572
00:41:40.719 --> 00:41:43.920
come from the boot of his car, indicating he'd taken
573
00:41:43.960 --> 00:41:46.500
it with him so they'd have a comfortable place to
574
00:41:46.559 --> 00:41:52.380
lay down. Microscopic examination revealed that the pair hadn't had
575
00:41:52.500 --> 00:41:56.889
full sexual intercourse, but fresh semen was detected on Gilbert's
576
00:41:56.949 --> 00:42:01.110
jacket and genitals, confirming that some form of sexual activity
577
00:42:01.190 --> 00:42:06.550
had taken place. This meant that whatever had happened, the
578
00:42:06.570 --> 00:42:09.269
pair had been healthy and well when they arrived at
579
00:42:09.309 --> 00:42:14.380
the riverbed seeking privacy. The fact that they'd been unable
580
00:42:14.440 --> 00:42:17.800
to put their clothes back on indicated that something had
581
00:42:17.860 --> 00:42:24.489
struck them down rapidly and without warning. Initial toxicology testing
582
00:42:24.550 --> 00:42:29.369
showed no alcohol in either of their systems. Tissue samples
583
00:42:29.449 --> 00:42:33.389
were taken from various organs and then tested against numerous
584
00:42:33.469 --> 00:42:39.710
readily available poisons, including strychnine, cyanide, arsenic, and other household chemicals,
585
00:42:40.050 --> 00:42:46.030
agricultural products, and prescription medications such as barbiturates and sleeping pills.
586
00:42:47.889 --> 00:42:51.510
But to the great shock of everyone involved, none of
587
00:42:51.570 --> 00:43:00.050
the tissue samples showed any traces of poisons. While this
588
00:43:00.190 --> 00:43:03.190
didn't rule out the possibility that Margaret and Gilbert had
589
00:43:03.250 --> 00:43:07.389
been poisoned, it just meant the toxicologists had to dig deeper.
590
00:43:08.739 --> 00:43:12.039
Whatever had killed the pair, it wasn't an ordinary run
591
00:43:12.079 --> 00:43:17.079
of the mill drug or toxin. Investigators considered whether it
592
00:43:17.139 --> 00:43:20.380
was something that only a highly educated professional in the
593
00:43:20.420 --> 00:43:24.119
medical or scientific field would have knowledge of or access to.
594
00:43:25.139 --> 00:43:32.690
Someone such as a CSIRO employee. Police searched the Chandler's
595
00:43:32.710 --> 00:43:35.449
home again and found a receipt in one of Margaret's
596
00:43:35.469 --> 00:43:41.010
handbags for Hyderex. It had been issued by Windswept Kennels
597
00:43:41.170 --> 00:43:46.909
on Saturday December 29 1962, just three days before she died.
598
00:43:48.630 --> 00:43:53.360
Detectives visited the business owner, a well-known Dachshund breeder named
599
00:43:53.550 --> 00:43:58.909
Sheridan Pawsey. Sheridan confirmed that she'd had multiple dealings with
600
00:43:58.929 --> 00:44:01.789
the Chandlers in the past, as Margaret was a dog
601
00:44:01.829 --> 00:44:06.769
lover who had dotingly raised several Dachshunds. She viewed the
602
00:44:06.789 --> 00:44:10.469
Chandlers as a normal family and described Geoffrey as a
603
00:44:10.590 --> 00:44:16.320
gentle man. The Chandlers' dog had recently had puppies, and
604
00:44:16.460 --> 00:44:19.960
Sheridan confirmed that Margaret had brought the litter over for
605
00:44:20.019 --> 00:44:23.420
her to have a look at. She remembered the visit
606
00:44:23.460 --> 00:44:28.420
well because Margaret hadn't quite been her usual self. While
607
00:44:28.460 --> 00:44:31.659
she usually took pride in her appearance, on this visit
608
00:44:31.820 --> 00:44:36.489
she seemed a little unkempt. It also seemed like something
609
00:44:36.550 --> 00:44:41.829
was worrying her. The two women started chatting and Margaret
610
00:44:41.909 --> 00:44:45.429
mentioned that she'd had an argument with her husband, but
611
00:44:45.570 --> 00:44:50.730
Sheridan made a joke which had lightened the mood. Sheridan
612
00:44:50.769 --> 00:44:54.690
confirmed that she'd given Margaret some Hydrex pills, which were
613
00:44:54.849 --> 00:44:59.489
used to treat tapeworm in dogs. They were brand new
614
00:44:59.530 --> 00:45:02.619
to the market and Sheridan had warned Margaret to keep
615
00:45:02.699 --> 00:45:05.340
them away from her children as they were not safe
616
00:45:05.400 --> 00:45:10.940
for human consumption. However, Sheridan said she only gave Margaret
617
00:45:11.079 --> 00:45:13.960
four of the pills and this wouldn't have been enough
618
00:45:14.039 --> 00:45:19.300
to kill a person. Regardless, as far as the detectives
619
00:45:19.360 --> 00:45:24.739
were concerned, this was their first solid lead. They considered
620
00:45:24.780 --> 00:45:28.039
whether Jeffrey Chandler could have used the Hydrex to spike
621
00:45:28.139 --> 00:45:31.619
Margaret and Gilbert's drinks to prevent them from being physical
622
00:45:31.719 --> 00:45:36.110
with one another. Maybe he'd given them too much without
623
00:45:36.170 --> 00:45:42.750
realising their potency and this plan had fatally backfired. Police
624
00:45:42.809 --> 00:45:45.949
returned to the Chandler's house to search for the Hydrex
625
00:45:46.010 --> 00:45:50.070
pills but couldn't find them anywhere. and Jeffrey claimed he
626
00:45:50.110 --> 00:45:59.079
knew nothing about them. Investigators remained convinced that Margaret and
627
00:45:59.159 --> 00:46:02.840
Gilbert had both been poisoned by the same thing, they
628
00:46:02.880 --> 00:46:07.079
just had to figure out what. They interviewed the other
629
00:46:07.119 --> 00:46:09.599
guests who had attended the New Year's Eve party at
630
00:46:09.639 --> 00:46:14.780
the Nash residence. None of them had fallen even remotely ill,
631
00:46:15.159 --> 00:46:18.159
even though one guest had eaten food directly off of
632
00:46:18.260 --> 00:46:23.739
Gilbert's plate. No one recalled anything unusual about Gilbert or
633
00:46:23.780 --> 00:46:28.429
Margaret's behaviour towards the end of the night either. One
634
00:46:28.489 --> 00:46:31.889
guest had given Gilbert a handshake goodbye and noted that
635
00:46:31.929 --> 00:46:35.880
he'd been in good spirits and appeared perfectly sober and healthy.
636
00:46:37.940 --> 00:46:38.360
However.
637
00:46:38.739 --> 00:46:45.260
The detectives were slightly dubious about one guest. 39-year-old Joan Gordon,
638
00:46:45.530 --> 00:46:48.659
not her real name, worked as a research scientist at
639
00:46:48.699 --> 00:46:52.949
the CSIRO. She had left the party at the same
640
00:46:53.010 --> 00:46:55.969
time as Gilbert, making her one of the last people
641
00:46:56.110 --> 00:47:00.530
to have seen him alive. Joan described Gilbert as a
642
00:47:00.570 --> 00:47:04.809
kind man. She said the two occasionally ran into each
643
00:47:04.869 --> 00:47:07.500
other at work or at the tennis club. and he
644
00:47:07.559 --> 00:47:09.780
always made a point of being nice to her and
645
00:47:09.880 --> 00:47:13.780
giving her compliments. He'd even kissed her at the Nash's
646
00:47:13.820 --> 00:47:19.789
party when the clock struck midnight. The significance for police
647
00:47:20.050 --> 00:47:23.250
was that Joan Gordon was the only single woman who
648
00:47:23.309 --> 00:47:27.389
attended the New Year's Eve party. She also suffered from
649
00:47:27.429 --> 00:47:30.789
a chronic skin condition which resulted in an apparent lack
650
00:47:30.829 --> 00:47:36.710
of self-esteem. Police theorised that Joan could have been infatuated
651
00:47:36.769 --> 00:47:40.090
with Gilbert Bogle and was overcome with jealousy when she
652
00:47:40.170 --> 00:47:45.019
saw him leave the party with another woman. As a scientist,
653
00:47:45.280 --> 00:47:48.400
she certainly knew a thing or two about poisons, and
654
00:47:48.559 --> 00:47:51.460
she could have followed Gilbert and Margaret to Lane Cove
655
00:47:51.679 --> 00:47:56.929
and killed them both. Joan told detectives that she drove
656
00:47:57.030 --> 00:48:00.510
straight home after the party, but given that she lived alone,
657
00:48:00.750 --> 00:48:05.429
there was no one to verify her alibi. Police remained
658
00:48:05.570 --> 00:48:09.130
suspicious of Joan, but it didn't seem likely that she
659
00:48:09.170 --> 00:48:11.949
would have been driving around in possession of some kind
660
00:48:11.989 --> 00:48:16.599
of undetectable poison. Secondly, even if she did have the
661
00:48:16.639 --> 00:48:19.840
poison and had followed Gilbert and Margaret down to the river,
662
00:48:20.500 --> 00:48:25.679
how would she have managed to administer it? While everyone
663
00:48:25.719 --> 00:48:29.789
detectives spoke to painted Gilbert Bogle as a loyal family man,
664
00:48:30.269 --> 00:48:35.300
several women came forward to report otherwise. At least two
665
00:48:35.400 --> 00:48:38.559
married women reported that Gilbert had asked them out or
666
00:48:38.619 --> 00:48:41.960
made moves on them in the past, while another claimed
667
00:48:42.159 --> 00:48:44.769
she'd been having an affair with Gilbert for the past
668
00:48:44.969 --> 00:48:50.809
three years. Margaret Fowler was a married librarian who worked
669
00:48:50.849 --> 00:48:56.070
at the CSIRO's scientific library. She claimed that she'd begun
670
00:48:56.110 --> 00:49:00.219
a physical relationship with Gilbert in 1959 and and the
671
00:49:00.260 --> 00:49:03.199
two would occasionally have sex at work or at a
672
00:49:03.260 --> 00:49:08.610
private location in a public park. During these encounters, he'd
673
00:49:08.650 --> 00:49:12.110
always keep his shirt, shoes and socks on and remove
674
00:49:12.289 --> 00:49:15.710
only his pants and underwear, just like he'd done at
675
00:49:15.769 --> 00:49:21.579
Lane Cove on New Year's Day. Marks Fowler quickly found
676
00:49:21.639 --> 00:49:25.079
herself falling in love with Gilbert, even though he treated
677
00:49:25.119 --> 00:49:29.099
her poorly and made it clear the relationship was purely sexual.
678
00:49:30.420 --> 00:49:33.219
She once threatened to take her own life after he
679
00:49:33.280 --> 00:49:38.670
rejected her. Eventually, Margaret's husband, Robert Fowler, who was a
680
00:49:38.710 --> 00:49:42.400
colleague of Gilbert's, agreed that his wife was free to
681
00:49:42.420 --> 00:49:45.420
have sex outside of their marriage as long as it
682
00:49:45.440 --> 00:49:50.380
didn't happen under their roof. She went against her husband's
683
00:49:50.420 --> 00:49:53.940
wishes and one night Robert came home to find Gilbert
684
00:49:54.019 --> 00:49:59.550
jumping over the balcony with his shoes in hand. From
685
00:49:59.610 --> 00:50:02.730
the stories Margaret Fowler told, it was clear to the
686
00:50:02.769 --> 00:50:07.190
detectives that she was infatuated with Gilbert Bogle, possibly to
687
00:50:07.230 --> 00:50:11.769
the point of delusion. but it also proved that Gilbert
688
00:50:11.829 --> 00:50:15.030
was no stranger to taking women to public parks for
689
00:50:15.110 --> 00:50:21.039
sexual encounters. Bizarrely enough, it also turned out that Margaret
690
00:50:21.119 --> 00:50:27.260
Fowler had shared the occasional kiss with Jeffrey Chandler. Jeffrey
691
00:50:27.340 --> 00:50:31.739
told detectives that at the CSIRO Christmas BBQ where his
692
00:50:31.820 --> 00:50:35.590
wife had met Gilbert for the first time, Margaret Fowler
693
00:50:35.630 --> 00:50:40.199
had been in an emotional state. She told him that
694
00:50:40.260 --> 00:50:43.780
she'd been having an affair with Gilbert and he'd recently
695
00:50:43.920 --> 00:50:49.780
called it off. Detectives wondered whether Margaret Fowler could have
696
00:50:49.800 --> 00:50:53.460
been motivated to murder Gilbert and his new romantic interest
697
00:50:53.760 --> 00:50:56.579
under the mindset that if she couldn't have him, then
698
00:50:56.679 --> 00:51:02.199
no one could. Alternatively, maybe her jealous husband Robert wanted
699
00:51:02.280 --> 00:51:07.170
Gilbert out of the picture for good. The couple's whereabouts
700
00:51:07.289 --> 00:51:11.349
on New Year's Eve were looked into. It turned out
701
00:51:11.449 --> 00:51:15.260
they'd attended a party in Taramurra, 12 kilometres north of
702
00:51:15.380 --> 00:51:19.780
the Nash's party in Chatswood, where they'd stayed until 4am
703
00:51:20.079 --> 00:51:24.960
before walking the short distance home. There was no way
704
00:51:25.139 --> 00:51:27.619
either of them could have ran into Gilbert Bogle and
705
00:51:27.699 --> 00:51:36.199
Margaret Chandler in those early morning hours. The case immediately
706
00:51:36.280 --> 00:51:40.699
became a media sensation, with the local tabloids publishing story
707
00:51:40.820 --> 00:51:46.389
after story to keep feeding the intense public interest. Sydneysiders
708
00:51:46.469 --> 00:51:50.590
were left scandalised by the lurid details about open marriages,
709
00:51:50.909 --> 00:51:55.250
late night affairs and suspected murder plots, even more so
710
00:51:55.349 --> 00:51:58.150
when it was revealed that Geoffrey Chandler was a member
711
00:51:58.210 --> 00:52:04.829
of a libertarian subculture known as the Sydney Push. Unofficially
712
00:52:04.909 --> 00:52:08.630
formed in the 1940s, The Push was the name given
713
00:52:08.750 --> 00:52:11.369
to an amorphous group who had a shared interest in
714
00:52:11.409 --> 00:52:17.550
the anti-authoritarian movement and left-wing politics. Members of The Push
715
00:52:17.630 --> 00:52:24.219
consisted of university students, academics, musicians, artists, journalists and public servants.
716
00:52:25.820 --> 00:52:28.760
While there was no formal shape or goal for The Push,
717
00:52:29.099 --> 00:52:32.780
members would typically attend meetings before frequenting one of several
718
00:52:32.860 --> 00:52:36.760
pubs around Sydney with many of those pub visits eventually
719
00:52:36.840 --> 00:52:42.579
turning into late-night parties. Although members of the Push were
720
00:52:42.639 --> 00:52:47.309
mostly well-educated and had good jobs, many outsiders viewed them
721
00:52:47.469 --> 00:52:51.750
as beatniks who lived outside the rules of conventional society.
722
00:52:53.230 --> 00:52:56.329
They had a reputation for believing in free love and
723
00:52:56.449 --> 00:53:00.809
being heavy drinkers, and Geoffrey Chandler's association with the group
724
00:53:00.929 --> 00:53:03.719
made the story of his wife's death all the more
725
00:53:03.840 --> 00:53:09.000
titillating for conservative members of the public. It didn't help
726
00:53:09.179 --> 00:53:13.480
that publicly, Jeffrey appeared to show little emotion or respect
727
00:53:13.579 --> 00:53:18.389
for his dead wife. Margaret's brother told the police that
728
00:53:18.449 --> 00:53:22.409
just two days after Margaret died, Jeffrey had introduced him
729
00:53:22.469 --> 00:53:28.900
to Pamela Logan and described her as his girlfriend. In
730
00:53:28.960 --> 00:53:32.119
addition to the rampant speculation that the pair had been
731
00:53:32.179 --> 00:53:36.340
murdered by a jealous lover or spouse, wild theories also
732
00:53:36.429 --> 00:53:41.489
started surfacing about Gilbert Bogle's possible involvement in top secret information.
733
00:53:42.969 --> 00:53:46.210
A man of great intelligence, he'd recently been offered a
734
00:53:46.269 --> 00:53:49.829
fellowship position working at the Bell Telephone Company in the
735
00:53:49.909 --> 00:53:54.190
United States, and before he died, his family had intended
736
00:53:54.230 --> 00:53:58.530
to move there in just a few weeks' time. The
737
00:53:58.570 --> 00:54:01.929
possibility was raised that Gilbert could have been working as
738
00:54:01.989 --> 00:54:05.960
a spy or had been the target of espionage-related nerve
739
00:54:06.000 --> 00:54:10.699
gas or even a death ray. It was the height
740
00:54:10.719 --> 00:54:14.300
of the Cold War and public concern about nuclear bombs
741
00:54:14.400 --> 00:54:19.739
was at its peak. Investigators considered these theories but found
742
00:54:19.880 --> 00:54:23.960
nothing to support any of them. They even looked into
743
00:54:24.000 --> 00:54:27.059
the possibility that Geoffrey Chandler could have been involved in
744
00:54:27.099 --> 00:54:30.659
military research and had been given access to a laboratory
745
00:54:30.800 --> 00:54:34.420
in which chemical and biological warfare was being looked into.
746
00:54:36.739 --> 00:54:40.849
At the time, Sydney's two major afternoon tabloids, The Sun
747
00:54:41.130 --> 00:54:43.489
and The Daily Mirror, were in the midst of a
748
00:54:43.570 --> 00:54:48.210
vicious war to take out the number one spot. Reporters
749
00:54:48.289 --> 00:54:51.289
from both publications pulled out all the stops to be
750
00:54:51.329 --> 00:54:54.210
the first to break any developments in what was coming
751
00:54:54.250 --> 00:54:59.570
to be known as the Bogle-Chandler case. Reporters lurked around
752
00:54:59.590 --> 00:55:03.820
the Chandler's home, as well as the CSIRO building, desperate
753
00:55:03.880 --> 00:55:06.820
for any new detail they could turn into a story.
754
00:55:08.300 --> 00:55:11.639
The public interest in Geoffrey Chandler was so intense that
755
00:55:11.679 --> 00:55:14.820
he began moving between the homes of friends and acquaintances
756
00:55:14.940 --> 00:55:20.619
to avoid the media onslaught. Gilbert Bogle's wife Vivian promptly
757
00:55:20.679 --> 00:55:23.860
packed up her four children and returned to her homeland
758
00:55:23.920 --> 00:55:27.480
of New Zealand, refusing to believe that her husband was
759
00:55:27.599 --> 00:55:31.239
anything but the faithful family man she knew him to be.
760
00:55:33.340 --> 00:55:36.650
The advantage of the public interest was that people were
761
00:55:36.769 --> 00:55:39.769
eager to come forward with any information that could help
762
00:55:39.829 --> 00:55:45.159
with the case. Various witnesses made statements confirming they had
763
00:55:45.239 --> 00:55:50.880
seen Geoffrey Chandler's distinctive 1924 model vintage Vauxhall driving west
764
00:55:51.000 --> 00:55:56.159
from the suburb of Burwood sometime between 4.45am and 5am,
765
00:55:56.659 --> 00:56:03.449
roughly 20km from Lane Cove. These statements further supported Geoffrey's
766
00:56:03.530 --> 00:56:07.469
version of events, proving he was nowhere near Fuller's Bridge
767
00:56:07.530 --> 00:56:12.699
at the time that Margaret and Gilbert died. But for investigators,
768
00:56:13.159 --> 00:56:17.300
this just left the question. If Jeffrey didn't kill them,
769
00:56:18.159 --> 00:56:29.469
then who did? Thank you for listening to this episode's ads.
770
00:56:39.869 --> 00:56:43.750
By supporting our sponsors, you support Casefile to continue to
771
00:56:43.789 --> 00:56:54.280
deliver quality content. When the tabloids started reporting on the
772
00:56:54.340 --> 00:56:57.860
Hydrex tablets that Margaret Chandler had purchased in the days
773
00:56:57.920 --> 00:57:01.780
before her death, members of the public began speculating that
774
00:57:01.840 --> 00:57:03.940
she could have brought them with her to the party,
775
00:57:04.300 --> 00:57:07.519
where she and Gilbert Bogle took them together in some
776
00:57:07.579 --> 00:57:12.269
kind of suicide pact. Maybe the reason her handbag hadn't
777
00:57:12.309 --> 00:57:14.969
been found at the scene was because she ditched it
778
00:57:15.070 --> 00:57:19.969
to get rid of the evidence. But testing of Margaret
779
00:57:20.010 --> 00:57:23.389
and Gilbert's tissue samples came back negative for any sign
780
00:57:23.409 --> 00:57:27.880
of the drug in either of their systems. Jeffrey Chandler
781
00:57:27.960 --> 00:57:31.920
clarified that the reason police couldn't find Margaret's handbag was
782
00:57:31.960 --> 00:57:34.559
because she hadn't been carrying one at all on the
783
00:57:34.619 --> 00:57:38.349
night that she died. She'd left it at her parents'
784
00:57:38.389 --> 00:57:41.510
house at the last minute after deciding that it clashed
785
00:57:41.570 --> 00:57:46.400
with her outfit. Whatever poison had killed the pair, it
786
00:57:46.480 --> 00:57:52.420
hadn't been in Margaret's possession. Loved ones of the deceased
787
00:57:52.500 --> 00:57:55.119
insisted there was no way either of them would have
788
00:57:55.159 --> 00:57:59.619
taken their own lives. Gilbert was a happy, popular and
789
00:57:59.699 --> 00:58:03.659
well-adjusted man who had great career satisfaction and loved his
790
00:58:03.739 --> 00:58:08.110
wife and children. Not only was he looking forward to
791
00:58:08.150 --> 00:58:10.969
his upcoming move to America to work with the Bell
792
00:58:11.010 --> 00:58:15.610
Telephone Company, but before offering Gilbert the position, Bell had
793
00:58:15.690 --> 00:58:20.739
conducted a thorough background check into his personal life. They
794
00:58:20.800 --> 00:58:25.079
found nothing to suggest he was in any way suicidal, depressed,
795
00:58:25.440 --> 00:58:33.219
or mentally ill. Similarly, Margaret's medical history revealed no such concerns.
796
00:58:34.610 --> 00:58:37.739
Although some of Margaret's loved ones had noticed a change
797
00:58:37.800 --> 00:58:41.019
in her personality and appearance since giving birth to her
798
00:58:41.079 --> 00:58:45.179
second child, they were adamant she would never voluntarily leave
799
00:58:45.219 --> 00:58:50.469
her two sons without a mother. Geoffrey admitted he'd been
800
00:58:50.530 --> 00:58:54.590
neglecting Margaret's needs and that their otherwise happy marriage had
801
00:58:54.650 --> 00:58:57.469
been at a lull, but he said her encounter and
802
00:58:57.570 --> 00:59:04.949
potential liaison with Gilbert Bogle had seemingly reinvigorated her. On Friday,
803
00:59:05.059 --> 00:59:09.469
January 11, ten days after Gilbert and Margaret's bodies were found,
804
00:59:09.849 --> 00:59:13.050
a team of police divers returned to Lane Cove for
805
00:59:13.110 --> 00:59:17.829
a second attempt at searching the river for clues. Donning
806
00:59:17.909 --> 00:59:22.110
special equipment, they launched themselves into the murky water, but
807
00:59:22.159 --> 00:59:26.159
it was still too dark to see anything. They used
808
00:59:26.300 --> 00:59:29.639
their hands to crawl along the muddy river floor, feeling
809
00:59:29.679 --> 00:59:33.469
for a syringe, bottle, anything that could account for the
810
00:59:33.510 --> 00:59:44.170
two mysterious deaths. Nothing was found. While police weren't prepared
811
00:59:44.230 --> 00:59:47.469
to rule any theory out, the fact that Gilbert and
812
00:59:47.550 --> 00:59:50.380
Margaret barely knew each other made the idea of a
813
00:59:50.460 --> 00:59:56.369
suicide pact highly unlikely. Given that neither showed any signs
814
00:59:56.429 --> 00:59:59.449
of wanting to end their own lives and had zero
815
00:59:59.530 --> 01:00:03.389
history of violence, it seemed equally improbable that one would
816
01:00:03.429 --> 01:00:08.730
have killed the other before killing themselves. Yet, the fact
817
01:00:08.849 --> 01:00:11.659
that both of their bodies had been so carefully covered
818
01:00:11.820 --> 01:00:14.940
up sparked debate about who could have done such a thing.
819
01:00:17.010 --> 01:00:20.699
Some investigators thought that if the pair was murdered, a
820
01:00:20.760 --> 01:00:23.280
killer would have dragged their bodies a few metres off
821
01:00:23.320 --> 01:00:26.119
the track instead of leaving them out in the open.
822
01:00:27.699 --> 01:00:30.989
The precise way in which Gilbert's clothes were placed over
823
01:00:31.050 --> 01:00:36.409
his body ruled out the possibility that he'd covered himself up. However,
824
01:00:36.650 --> 01:00:40.320
Margaret was a trained nurse and some wondered whether she
825
01:00:40.360 --> 01:00:43.510
could have covered Gilbert's body to keep him warm. before
826
01:00:43.590 --> 01:00:46.510
stumbling to the riverbed where she pulled the broken beer
827
01:00:46.570 --> 01:00:52.860
cartons over herself. Others thought this made no sense. If
828
01:00:52.960 --> 01:00:56.340
Margaret wanted to cover herself, wouldn't she have pulled her
829
01:00:56.400 --> 01:01:00.199
rumpled dress back on instead of using dirty, weathered pieces
830
01:01:00.260 --> 01:01:08.469
of cardboard? After considering all possible scenarios, investigators unequivocally agreed
831
01:01:08.610 --> 01:01:13.539
that a third person had been involved. Not necessarily as
832
01:01:13.579 --> 01:01:17.360
a perpetrator, but at the very least, someone else had
833
01:01:17.400 --> 01:01:20.250
been present at the scene and had covered the bodies up,
834
01:01:20.809 --> 01:01:26.289
perhaps to preserve their dignity. Detectives asked anyone who had
835
01:01:26.329 --> 01:01:29.539
been at Lane Cove on New Year's morning to come forward.
836
01:01:30.639 --> 01:01:34.610
One man, who identified himself only as Mr Roberts, called
837
01:01:34.670 --> 01:01:38.570
to say he'd seen Dr Bogle's Ford Prefect parked near
838
01:01:38.630 --> 01:01:44.489
Fuller's Bridge at around 4.30am with a woman inside. He
839
01:01:44.570 --> 01:01:48.320
hung up the call before providing any further information and
840
01:01:48.420 --> 01:01:53.510
the call couldn't be traced. Four days later, the same
841
01:01:53.570 --> 01:01:57.340
man called back after his car, a Ford Escort, had
842
01:01:57.380 --> 01:02:00.099
been identified as being in the area at the time
843
01:02:00.159 --> 01:02:06.260
in question. This time he identified himself as Kenneth Shelley.
844
01:02:07.719 --> 01:02:11.280
Shelley provided an in-person statement in which he said that
845
01:02:11.300 --> 01:02:14.800
he'd arrived at the Lane Cove River around 4am on
846
01:02:14.860 --> 01:02:19.300
January 1. He claimed he often went there to look
847
01:02:19.340 --> 01:02:23.300
for plants for his gardens. but under pressure from the police,
848
01:02:23.539 --> 01:02:26.719
he cracked and admitted he was really there to spy
849
01:02:26.780 --> 01:02:33.110
on couples having sex. Shelley said that at around 4.30am
850
01:02:33.329 --> 01:02:37.170
he'd been walking along Lady Game Drive, which runs parallel
851
01:02:37.250 --> 01:02:40.710
to the river, when a Ford Prefect matching the description
852
01:02:40.750 --> 01:02:44.210
of Gilbert Bogle's car passed him and stopped halfway off
853
01:02:44.250 --> 01:02:48.250
the road. A man and woman were in the front seat,
854
01:02:49.719 --> 01:02:52.960
Shelley locked eyes with the man, who he later identified
855
01:02:53.059 --> 01:02:56.699
as Gilbert Bogle, and noted that he looked very pale.
856
01:02:58.010 --> 01:03:00.690
He also got the impression that Gilbert was about to
857
01:03:00.769 --> 01:03:07.210
say something to him, but then stopped. Shelley kept walking
858
01:03:07.489 --> 01:03:10.469
and when he returned half an hour later, the prefect
859
01:03:10.530 --> 01:03:14.519
was gone. He continued on and found it was now
860
01:03:14.579 --> 01:03:20.010
parked near Fuller's Bridge with no one inside. Shelley got
861
01:03:20.050 --> 01:03:22.809
into his car and drove along the dirt track where
862
01:03:22.849 --> 01:03:28.079
Gilbert's body was later found. He didn't see Gilbert or Margaret,
863
01:03:28.420 --> 01:03:31.460
but he did claim to see a tall, well-built man
864
01:03:31.539 --> 01:03:34.320
with long blonde hair who jumped out of the bushes
865
01:03:34.539 --> 01:03:41.139
and then disappeared down the riverbank. Kenneth Shelley vehemently denied
866
01:03:41.239 --> 01:03:45.320
being the one who covered up the two bodies. Although
867
01:03:45.380 --> 01:03:49.329
investigators found him to be a suspicious character, they thought
868
01:03:49.369 --> 01:03:53.929
he was likely telling the truth. Shelley only had one
869
01:03:54.130 --> 01:03:56.849
arm and it seemed highly improbable that he could have
870
01:03:56.889 --> 01:04:00.900
placed the clothes so precisely over Gilbert Burgle's body in
871
01:04:00.920 --> 01:04:08.840
the way they were. Weeks passed and the mysterious case
872
01:04:08.949 --> 01:04:12.550
remained in the headlines as the tabloids continued to discuss
873
01:04:12.650 --> 01:04:18.869
various theories. Despite the ongoing speculation, there still hadn't been
874
01:04:18.969 --> 01:04:24.030
any breakthroughs in the investigation. By the third week, the
875
01:04:24.070 --> 01:04:26.920
police put out another call for anyone who had been
876
01:04:26.980 --> 01:04:30.019
near Fuller's Bridge in the early morning hours of January
877
01:04:30.019 --> 01:04:35.420
1 to come forward. One tipster reported having seen a
878
01:04:35.480 --> 01:04:39.550
green and white Ford sedan parked in the area. After
879
01:04:39.630 --> 01:04:43.099
this detail was broadcast by the media, the owner of
880
01:04:43.139 --> 01:04:48.400
the car presented himself as Eddie Batiste. Eddie was a
881
01:04:48.440 --> 01:04:52.340
greyhound trainer who claimed he'd passed over Fuller's Bridge just
882
01:04:52.420 --> 01:04:57.300
after 4.30am on New Year's Day. He said he'd driven
883
01:04:57.340 --> 01:05:00.159
along the upper bush track of the Lane Cove River,
884
01:05:00.530 --> 01:05:03.090
where he parked his car and then took his dogs
885
01:05:03.170 --> 01:05:07.869
for a walk to the golf course. Eddie claimed he
886
01:05:07.949 --> 01:05:11.030
never went on the lower bush track where Gilbert Bogle
887
01:05:11.070 --> 01:05:15.780
and Margaret Chandler's bodies were found. He recalled seeing a
888
01:05:15.840 --> 01:05:19.800
Fort Prefect parked near Fuller's Bridge, but claimed he didn't
889
01:05:19.860 --> 01:05:25.699
see either of its occupants. Detectives were a little suspicious
890
01:05:25.780 --> 01:05:29.920
of Eddie. If he had nothing to hide, they wondered
891
01:05:29.980 --> 01:05:33.880
why it took him three weeks to come forward. They
892
01:05:33.940 --> 01:05:37.300
considered whether Eddie's greyhounds had actually sniffed out the two
893
01:05:37.389 --> 01:05:40.570
bodies and Eddie had felt compelled to cover them up
894
01:05:40.750 --> 01:05:45.889
to protect their modesty. Inquiries with those who knew Eddie
895
01:05:46.010 --> 01:05:48.110
revealed that he was known to be a bit of
896
01:05:48.150 --> 01:05:51.659
a prude, while his son also claimed that Eddie had
897
01:05:51.699 --> 01:05:55.300
arrived home on New Year's morning in an agitated state.
898
01:05:57.179 --> 01:06:00.909
But Eddie firmly denied having ever seen the two bodies,
899
01:06:01.320 --> 01:06:06.429
and police had no evidence to prove otherwise. Like everything
900
01:06:06.530 --> 01:06:09.690
else in the case, his potential presence at the scene
901
01:06:09.789 --> 01:06:15.969
became yet another unfounded supposition. By the end of the
902
01:06:16.030 --> 01:06:21.059
investigation's first month, toxicologists had conducted tests on all the
903
01:06:21.079 --> 01:06:26.570
standard poisons available in Australia. checking everything from aphrodisiacs to
904
01:06:26.619 --> 01:06:32.789
weed killers to carbon dioxide, and eliminated each one. They
905
01:06:32.849 --> 01:06:36.710
moved on to the rarer poisons, enlisting help from international
906
01:06:36.769 --> 01:06:41.670
police forces such as Interpol and Scotland Yard. It was
907
01:06:41.750 --> 01:06:44.369
speculated that the pair could have been bitten by a
908
01:06:44.429 --> 01:06:50.250
venomous creature such as a funnel-web spider. Every possibility was
909
01:06:50.329 --> 01:06:55.500
seriously considered. but eventually, in mid-March, the families were given
910
01:06:55.539 --> 01:06:58.679
the go-ahead to proceed with funerals for their loved ones.
911
01:07:00.500 --> 01:07:04.239
Gilbert was buried in a northern Sydney cemetery, while Margaret
912
01:07:04.300 --> 01:07:10.750
was cremated two days later. By late April, four months
913
01:07:10.809 --> 01:07:14.750
had passed, and rigorous testing of Margaret and Gilbert's organs,
914
01:07:14.909 --> 01:07:18.010
tissue and blood samples, as well as swabs of their
915
01:07:18.070 --> 01:07:21.989
skin and clothing, had revealed nothing to indicate the presence
916
01:07:22.070 --> 01:07:28.659
of any poisonous substance. Investigators had interviewed over 200 people
917
01:07:29.039 --> 01:07:36.760
and still no answers had come to light. The only
918
01:07:36.820 --> 01:07:40.269
thing left to do was hold an official coronial inquest.
919
01:07:41.610 --> 01:07:46.070
In May 1963, the inquest commenced in what was then
920
01:07:46.130 --> 01:07:51.429
known as Sydney's Central Court of Petty Sessions. Curious members
921
01:07:51.489 --> 01:07:54.710
of the public lined up outside the courthouse, hoping to
922
01:07:54.730 --> 01:07:57.710
get one of the 50 seats available in the public
923
01:07:57.829 --> 01:08:00.920
gallery so they could catch a real-life glimpse of the
924
01:08:00.980 --> 01:08:04.699
people who had filled their newspapers for the past four months.
925
01:08:06.920 --> 01:08:10.050
Over the next three weeks, the court heard from close
926
01:08:10.110 --> 01:08:15.050
to 50 witnesses, including Jeffrey Chandler, Pamela Logan, Ken and
927
01:08:15.130 --> 01:08:18.939
Ruth Nash, and an array of investigators and analysts who
928
01:08:18.979 --> 01:08:23.630
had been involved with various aspects of the case. The
929
01:08:23.670 --> 01:08:27.430
collective hope was that a seemingly insignificant fact would be
930
01:08:27.470 --> 01:08:30.369
dropped that would solve the mystery of how Gilbert and
931
01:08:30.449 --> 01:08:35.359
Margaret had died once and for all. Witnesses appeared in
932
01:08:35.420 --> 01:08:39.399
chronological order, starting with the New Year's Eve party, before
933
01:08:39.460 --> 01:08:42.420
moving on to the discovery of the bodies, the official
934
01:08:42.479 --> 01:08:49.609
police investigation, the toxicology testing, and so on. 63 exhibits
935
01:08:49.649 --> 01:08:54.850
were tended and dissected, witnesses were cross-examined and carefully probed,
936
01:08:55.289 --> 01:09:01.340
and any criticisms were openly debated. Tensions were high at
937
01:09:01.380 --> 01:09:04.279
the end of the month as the coroner, Jack Looms,
938
01:09:04.439 --> 01:09:12.020
presented his findings. Looms declared, quote, every person I felt
939
01:09:12.159 --> 01:09:15.039
could give any information as to the deaths of these
940
01:09:15.140 --> 01:09:20.890
unfortunate persons has been summoned to appear. A mass of evidence,
941
01:09:21.170 --> 01:09:25.100
in addition to the scientific and medical evidence, has been presented.
942
01:09:26.560 --> 01:09:29.380
One would like to think that no stone has been
943
01:09:29.439 --> 01:09:35.819
left unturned. Despite all this, the coroner said he was
944
01:09:35.880 --> 01:09:39.189
no closer to ascertaining the manner and cause of Gilbert
945
01:09:39.250 --> 01:09:42.989
and Margaret's deaths than he was before the inquest started.
946
01:09:44.569 --> 01:09:48.789
Forensic pathologists still couldn't even determine exactly how the pair
947
01:09:48.810 --> 01:09:53.220
had died. All Looms could say for sure was that
948
01:09:53.260 --> 01:09:57.770
the two had suffered from acute cardiac failure associated with
949
01:09:57.850 --> 01:10:03.069
anoxia and pulmonary edema. In other words, their hearts had
950
01:10:03.130 --> 01:10:06.609
stopped beating and they'd stopped breathing, but it couldn't be
951
01:10:06.649 --> 01:10:10.840
determined why or even in what order those two things happened.
952
01:10:13.369 --> 01:10:17.170
Coroner Looms clarified that it wasn't his role to theorise
953
01:10:17.369 --> 01:10:20.909
or provide an opinion unless it could be supported by evidence,
954
01:10:21.569 --> 01:10:25.640
nor was it a court of morals. He commended the
955
01:10:25.699 --> 01:10:32.039
investigative efforts, stating, quote, Everything humanly possible has been done.
956
01:10:33.020 --> 01:10:35.899
There is one thing, however, I feel I can say
957
01:10:35.960 --> 01:10:39.350
with absolute certainty, and that is that each of these
958
01:10:39.430 --> 01:10:44.159
unfortunate persons died an unnatural death. but as to the
959
01:10:44.220 --> 01:10:53.250
manner or cause, I am unable to say. The lack
960
01:10:53.289 --> 01:10:56.270
of answers brought by the inquest left everyone who had
961
01:10:56.289 --> 01:10:59.109
been following the case in a state of shock and
962
01:10:59.189 --> 01:11:02.569
only added to the public speculation and growing fears that
963
01:11:02.609 --> 01:11:06.649
a murderer could be on the loose. A press conference
964
01:11:06.710 --> 01:11:10.010
was called in which the police commissioner reassured the public
965
01:11:10.130 --> 01:11:13.489
that the investigation was ongoing and that a new team
966
01:11:13.529 --> 01:11:16.479
of detectives would take over to review the case with
967
01:11:16.600 --> 01:11:21.659
fresh eyes. One week later, a letter arrived at the
968
01:11:21.699 --> 01:11:26.430
police station from a Brisbane-based zoologist who introduced a new theory.
969
01:11:28.539 --> 01:11:32.029
Dr Robert Endeen worked in a lab that specialised in
970
01:11:32.130 --> 01:11:36.949
Conus geographus, a highly venomous species of predatory cone snail.
971
01:11:38.369 --> 01:11:42.810
After reading about the Bogle-Chandler case, Dr Endeen believed the
972
01:11:42.850 --> 01:11:46.199
pair showed symptoms that were akin to being poisoned by
973
01:11:46.279 --> 01:11:50.479
Conus geographus, and he suggested that someone with this knowledge
974
01:11:50.560 --> 01:11:54.100
could have used the species as an unsuspecting murder weapon.
975
01:11:56.109 --> 01:12:01.039
Police looked into Dr. Rendine's theory and discovered something unexpected.
976
01:12:02.560 --> 01:12:06.300
His research assistant was a young woman named Clara Berry.
977
01:12:07.600 --> 01:12:11.699
Despite living in Queensland, Clara had a surprising connection to
978
01:12:11.760 --> 01:12:16.670
Geoffrey and Margaret Chandler. She was married to Bill Berry,
979
01:12:17.069 --> 01:12:20.050
the friend of Geoffrey's who Margaret had once had an
980
01:12:20.109 --> 01:12:25.430
affair with. She was also an expert on Conus Geographus Venom.
981
01:12:28.310 --> 01:12:33.350
Detectives flew to Queensland to interview Clara Berry. She said
982
01:12:33.430 --> 01:12:37.050
that despite their toxicity, she didn't believe it was possible
983
01:12:37.109 --> 01:12:41.050
to kill someone with the cone shell. Doing so would
984
01:12:41.109 --> 01:12:45.609
require the venom to be stabilised, extracted and then injected.
985
01:12:46.930 --> 01:12:49.260
It wouldn't be toxic if it was mixed into a
986
01:12:49.310 --> 01:12:54.840
drink or eaten. But for the investigative team, suspicions were
987
01:12:54.920 --> 01:12:59.689
officially aroused. even more so after they contacted the airlines
988
01:12:59.850 --> 01:13:02.029
and discovered that a passenger by the name of G
989
01:13:02.409 --> 01:13:06.470
Chandler had flown from Sydney to Brisbane just weeks before
990
01:13:06.489 --> 01:13:12.869
New Year's Day 1963. Samples of the toxin were taken
991
01:13:12.909 --> 01:13:16.710
back to Sydney to test against Margaret and Gilbert's tissue samples.
992
01:13:18.090 --> 01:13:21.449
It was a suspenseful 10-day wait before the results of
993
01:13:21.489 --> 01:13:27.789
the toxicology test were delivered. There was no match, While
994
01:13:27.829 --> 01:13:31.800
the case remained in the headlines and various scientists, medical
995
01:13:31.859 --> 01:13:35.779
professionals and concerned members of the public continued to come
996
01:13:35.840 --> 01:13:39.279
forward with their own theories and suggestions about what could
997
01:13:39.300 --> 01:13:44.460
have killed the pair, nothing of note was uncovered. In
998
01:13:44.500 --> 01:13:49.859
the years that followed, detectives continued to seriously consider every possibility,
999
01:13:50.479 --> 01:13:54.109
but eventually the chief toxicologist ran out of viable tissue
1000
01:13:54.149 --> 01:13:59.880
samples to test against. and the case ran cold. Conspiracy
1001
01:13:59.920 --> 01:14:03.909
theories continued to thrive over the following two decades, with
1002
01:14:03.949 --> 01:14:07.569
the case becoming somewhat of an urban legend, but the
1003
01:14:07.630 --> 01:14:13.569
truth of the matter remained unknown. Then, in the late 1980s,
1004
01:14:14.109 --> 01:14:21.939
came a potential breakthrough. At the time of Gilbert Bogle
1005
01:14:21.979 --> 01:14:26.189
and Margaret Chandler's deaths in 1963, there had been some
1006
01:14:26.289 --> 01:14:29.210
whispers that the two could have been experimenting with the
1007
01:14:29.229 --> 01:14:34.630
psychedelic drug lysergic acid diethylamide, more commonly known as LSD,
1008
01:14:35.109 --> 01:14:39.689
and accidentally overdosed. Some thought they could have taken the
1009
01:14:39.710 --> 01:14:42.729
drug willingly, or that someone could have slipped it into
1010
01:14:42.779 --> 01:14:48.750
their drinks. Some tabloids even incorrectly claimed that several guests
1011
01:14:48.829 --> 01:14:51.750
at the Nash's New Year's party had been frequent users
1012
01:14:51.810 --> 01:14:54.970
of LSD, when in reality the party had been a
1013
01:14:55.050 --> 01:15:00.920
relatively sober event. The possibility that Margaret and Gilbert could
1014
01:15:00.960 --> 01:15:04.439
have overdosed on LSD was never given much weight due
1015
01:15:04.479 --> 01:15:08.520
to the fact that LSD had never caused any known overdoses.
1016
01:15:10.199 --> 01:15:13.649
While people had died using the drug, This was typically
1017
01:15:13.689 --> 01:15:17.149
due to misadventure, such as jumping from heights while under
1018
01:15:17.210 --> 01:15:23.149
its influence, not as a direct result of the drug itself. Furthermore,
1019
01:15:23.609 --> 01:15:27.270
LSD wasn't even considered an illegal substance at the time.
1020
01:15:28.789 --> 01:15:32.649
It was mostly used for scientific and medical research rather
1021
01:15:32.689 --> 01:15:36.340
than as a recreational drug, and it wasn't readily available.
1022
01:15:38.579 --> 01:15:42.739
Gilbert Bogle's lab at the CSIRO had been searched following
1023
01:15:42.920 --> 01:15:47.140
unfounded speculation that he could have been manufacturing the drug himself.
1024
01:15:47.859 --> 01:15:51.220
But nothing used in the production of LSD was found,
1025
01:15:51.800 --> 01:15:55.960
and toxicology tests revealed no trace of LSD in either
1026
01:15:56.000 --> 01:16:02.529
of the deceased's systems. Then in 1987, an inmate at
1027
01:16:02.569 --> 01:16:05.869
a British prison asked his girlfriend to sneak a capsule
1028
01:16:05.930 --> 01:16:09.390
of LSD in and transfer it to his mouth via
1029
01:16:09.430 --> 01:16:14.720
a kiss. She granted his request, but the man accidentally
1030
01:16:14.800 --> 01:16:18.779
swallowed the capsule, which was estimated to be around 400
1031
01:16:18.779 --> 01:16:23.939
times the usual dosage. He subsequently died, making him the
1032
01:16:23.979 --> 01:16:27.350
first person on record to have taken a lethal overdose
1033
01:16:27.470 --> 01:16:33.369
of LSD. A scientist who examined the man realised he'd
1034
01:16:33.449 --> 01:16:37.750
read about similar symptoms before, in the Bogle Chandler case,
1035
01:16:38.250 --> 01:16:40.800
and he suspected they could have fallen victim to a
1036
01:16:40.880 --> 01:16:46.699
similar overdose. He believed that the reason toxicology testing returned
1037
01:16:46.760 --> 01:16:50.270
a negative result was that the proper testing techniques were
1038
01:16:50.279 --> 01:16:55.729
not available at the time. LSD is a synthetic drug,
1039
01:16:55.989 --> 01:16:59.270
and when extracted from the body and exposed to sunlight,
1040
01:16:59.590 --> 01:17:05.720
it decomposes before it can be identified in any physical test. Instead,
1041
01:17:06.100 --> 01:17:08.960
testing needs to be done in a dark room, a
1042
01:17:09.020 --> 01:17:12.659
fact that the pathologists who conducted the autopsies on Gilbert
1043
01:17:12.699 --> 01:17:19.310
and Margaret hadn't been aware of. In 1989, an article
1044
01:17:19.409 --> 01:17:23.430
in the Sydney Morning Herald newspaper by award-winning journalist Philip
1045
01:17:23.510 --> 01:17:30.000
Knightley sensationally claimed, New scientific evidence has broken one of
1046
01:17:30.079 --> 01:17:35.460
Australia's most baffling homicides. Today, the cause of death can
1047
01:17:35.500 --> 01:17:43.560
be confidently established. The couple overdosed on LSD. The article
1048
01:17:43.659 --> 01:17:47.819
reported that the NSW Health Department's Division of Forensic Medicine
1049
01:17:48.000 --> 01:17:51.659
agreed that an LSD overdose was the likely cause of
1050
01:17:51.699 --> 01:17:56.350
the pair's deaths. Knightley wrote that Gilbert Bogle and his
1051
01:17:56.409 --> 01:18:00.130
colleagues had been creating the drug at the CSIRO labs
1052
01:18:00.470 --> 01:18:03.199
and their deaths had been part of a government cover-up
1053
01:18:03.260 --> 01:18:08.439
to conceal this fact. He stated that the CSIRO staff
1054
01:18:08.460 --> 01:18:12.119
had been using LSD as, quote, a party drug for
1055
01:18:12.199 --> 01:18:16.869
sexual debauchery in which wife-swapping was not unusual, and that
1056
01:18:16.949 --> 01:18:19.350
Gilbert had brought a supply of the drug to the
1057
01:18:19.390 --> 01:18:23.909
New Year's Eve party. He and Margaret took it to
1058
01:18:23.949 --> 01:18:28.279
heighten their sexual awareness without knowing the safe amount for consumption,
1059
01:18:28.859 --> 01:18:36.310
and subsequently overdosed and died. In reality, there was nothing
1060
01:18:36.369 --> 01:18:42.050
to substantiate this theory. Colleagues of Gilbert's fiercely denied that
1061
01:18:42.090 --> 01:18:45.470
he would have had any access to or interest in LSD,
1062
01:18:45.810 --> 01:18:49.359
while Jeffrey Chandler said he didn't even know about LSD
1063
01:18:49.399 --> 01:18:52.500
at the time and Margaret wouldn't have been interested in
1064
01:18:52.560 --> 01:18:58.699
such a thing. But the theory persisted and in 1996,
1065
01:18:58.699 --> 01:19:03.489
a renowned American forensic toxicologist claimed he had advanced equipment
1066
01:19:03.609 --> 01:19:06.869
that could detect if LSD was present in Gilbert and
1067
01:19:06.970 --> 01:19:12.449
Margaret's systems. Relic tissue samples were sent to the United
1068
01:19:12.529 --> 01:19:17.590
States where they were subject to new forensic techniques. A
1069
01:19:17.670 --> 01:19:23.949
first test indicated the presence of LSD. Sydney newspapers were
1070
01:19:24.010 --> 01:19:27.050
quick to declare that the mystery had finally been solved
1071
01:19:27.250 --> 01:19:31.069
once and for all, yet a second more sensitive test
1072
01:19:31.140 --> 01:19:36.279
was conducted and this one came up negative. It was
1073
01:19:36.319 --> 01:19:45.850
yet another in a long series of red herrings. In 2004,
1074
01:19:45.850 --> 01:19:49.899
Australian filmmaker Peter Butt began looking into the Bogle Chandler
1075
01:19:49.939 --> 01:19:55.119
case for a possible documentary. Having followed the case for
1076
01:19:55.119 --> 01:19:58.739
20 years and already read everything that was publicly available,
1077
01:19:59.220 --> 01:20:02.460
Peter wrote to the New South Wales Police requesting access
1078
01:20:02.539 --> 01:20:07.199
to the full case files. While he waited for a reply,
1079
01:20:07.729 --> 01:20:11.050
something occurred to him that had never crossed his mind before.
1080
01:20:13.560 --> 01:20:18.010
As a schoolboy, Peter remembered learning that mangroves produce gases,
1081
01:20:18.329 --> 01:20:24.829
including the potentially toxic hydrogen sulfide. Low concentrations of hydrogen
1082
01:20:24.869 --> 01:20:28.430
sulfide are detectable by the human nose thanks to its
1083
01:20:28.510 --> 01:20:34.029
offensive stench of rotten eggs. But, as concentrations increase, the
1084
01:20:34.069 --> 01:20:37.479
gas overcomes the olfactory receptors in the nose that are
1085
01:20:37.520 --> 01:20:40.859
responsible for picking up odours, and it can no longer
1086
01:20:40.960 --> 01:20:46.689
be detected. At low levels, the gas is harmless, but
1087
01:20:46.989 --> 01:20:51.529
as concentrations increase, it can be as deadly as hydrogen cyanide.
1088
01:20:53.090 --> 01:20:56.989
Once hydrogen sulfide reaches a level of 300 parts per million,
1089
01:20:57.270 --> 01:21:00.100
it can cause fluid to build up in a person's lungs,
1090
01:21:00.319 --> 01:21:06.859
leading to dizziness, clumsiness, and diarrhea. At 700 parts per million,
1091
01:21:07.239 --> 01:21:11.800
it paralyzes the respiratory center, causing rapid unconsciousness and death.
1092
01:21:13.729 --> 01:21:16.949
over 800 parts per million, and all it takes is
1093
01:21:17.130 --> 01:21:20.449
one or two breaths for a person to die instantly.
1094
01:21:23.170 --> 01:21:27.090
Peter Butt recalled that hydrogen sulfide is heavier than air
1095
01:21:27.289 --> 01:21:30.350
and will linger in open spaces close to the ground
1096
01:21:30.449 --> 01:21:33.489
if the air is cool and still, just like it
1097
01:21:33.560 --> 01:21:38.439
was in the early morning hours of New Year's Day 1963.
1098
01:21:39.939 --> 01:21:42.619
Although it had been the peak of summer, The week
1099
01:21:42.739 --> 01:21:45.930
following Christmas Day had been the coldest on record for
1100
01:21:45.970 --> 01:21:49.310
this time of year, and mornings around Lane Cove had
1101
01:21:49.329 --> 01:21:55.170
been dank and misty. His curiosity aroused, Peter visited the
1102
01:21:55.229 --> 01:21:58.489
site at Lane Cove River where Gilbert Bogle and Margaret
1103
01:21:58.529 --> 01:22:02.680
Chandler had died, and saw that mangroves lined the waterway,
1104
01:22:02.960 --> 01:22:05.760
their aerial roots sticking out of the mud in a
1105
01:22:05.800 --> 01:22:11.640
way Peter likened to dead man's fingers. It occurred to
1106
01:22:11.699 --> 01:22:15.199
him that the answer to this 41-year mystery could have
1107
01:22:15.239 --> 01:22:18.979
been sitting in front of everyone's face this entire time.
1108
01:22:21.420 --> 01:22:25.149
Peter Butt began researching the river's history and discovered that
1109
01:22:25.189 --> 01:22:29.270
the once-thriving waterway began to lose favour with visitors around
1110
01:22:29.289 --> 01:22:35.859
the late 1930s due to its increasingly polluted state. Growing
1111
01:22:35.939 --> 01:22:39.619
industrialisation and the construction of a sewer line along the
1112
01:22:39.680 --> 01:22:44.020
river had proved to be environmental hazards, with increasing sediment
1113
01:22:44.149 --> 01:22:49.090
prompting the spread of mangrove swamps. Green weeds thrived in
1114
01:22:49.130 --> 01:22:52.770
the waterway, with fish and eels dying by the truckload.
1115
01:22:54.449 --> 01:22:59.380
By 1939, local residents started complaining that the river smelt
1116
01:22:59.479 --> 01:23:05.439
like rotten eggs, particularly in the early morning hours. Similar
1117
01:23:05.479 --> 01:23:10.600
complaints cropped up year after year until 1947 when residents
1118
01:23:10.640 --> 01:23:15.310
started reporting that the stench was impacting their health. Not
1119
01:23:15.430 --> 01:23:19.210
only was it causing vomiting and breathing difficulties, but some
1120
01:23:19.289 --> 01:23:21.989
residents noted that it was causing the paint on their
1121
01:23:22.029 --> 01:23:27.510
homes to peel off. Health inspectors from the Lane Cove
1122
01:23:27.590 --> 01:23:31.119
Council investigated the matter at the time but couldn't find
1123
01:23:31.140 --> 01:23:35.380
the cause of the problem. They assumed it was likely
1124
01:23:35.439 --> 01:23:40.609
a combination of rotting algae and industrial waste. A marine
1125
01:23:40.670 --> 01:23:45.829
scientist was tasked with investigating the matter further. He collected
1126
01:23:45.890 --> 01:23:49.909
samples over several months and determined the odour was actually
1127
01:23:50.159 --> 01:23:55.439
hydrogen sulphide. A five kilometre stretch of the riverbed from
1128
01:23:55.579 --> 01:23:59.020
Fuller's Bridge to the river mouth was saturated with it.
1129
01:24:00.770 --> 01:24:04.090
It wasn't just the result of the mangroves, but chemical
1130
01:24:04.189 --> 01:24:07.760
action in the water caused by decaying marine life and
1131
01:24:07.840 --> 01:24:11.899
increasing industrial pollution from the factories that disposed of their
1132
01:24:11.939 --> 01:24:17.460
waste fluid directly into the river. The hydrogen sulphide levels
1133
01:24:17.539 --> 01:24:20.770
were at their highest about 400 metres from the Lane
1134
01:24:20.810 --> 01:24:25.350
Cove Weir, right near where Gilbert Bogle and Margaret Chandler
1135
01:24:25.510 --> 01:24:33.350
had died. The New South Wales Police refused Peter Budd
1136
01:24:33.430 --> 01:24:35.949
access to the case file on the basis that the
1137
01:24:35.989 --> 01:24:39.869
case was still open, but when he explained his theory
1138
01:24:39.949 --> 01:24:42.909
that the two could have been poisoned by hydrogen sulphide,
1139
01:24:43.270 --> 01:24:47.720
they agreed to make a rare exception. As Peter looked
1140
01:24:47.800 --> 01:24:51.659
through all the scientific and forensic evidence, he was shocked
1141
01:24:51.800 --> 01:24:55.319
to discover that several gases had been considered and tested
1142
01:24:55.359 --> 01:25:00.619
by toxicologists in the Bogle-Chandler case, but not hydrogen sulphide.
1143
01:25:02.279 --> 01:25:06.539
The gas was only mentioned once during a 1971 review
1144
01:25:06.579 --> 01:25:09.340
of the case when it was ruled out based on
1145
01:25:09.420 --> 01:25:13.199
various factors, including that there was no obvious source of
1146
01:25:13.260 --> 01:25:16.779
the gas and that even if there were, it wouldn't
1147
01:25:16.920 --> 01:25:22.789
kill two people in an open environment. Peter Butt began
1148
01:25:22.869 --> 01:25:27.310
reaching out to various experts, including Dr Thomas Milby, an
1149
01:25:27.369 --> 01:25:32.569
American forensic toxicologist specialising in poisonous gases, who had served
1150
01:25:32.630 --> 01:25:38.380
on the World Health Organisation's Hydrogen Sulfide Committee. Dr Milby
1151
01:25:38.399 --> 01:25:42.899
had investigated over a hundred cases involving hydrogen sulfide poisoning
1152
01:25:43.180 --> 01:25:45.939
and was well aware that the gas was capable of
1153
01:25:46.020 --> 01:25:49.670
killing people out in the open if the environmental conditions
1154
01:25:49.729 --> 01:25:54.310
were right. He was so intrigued by Peter's theory that
1155
01:25:54.350 --> 01:25:56.829
he flew to Sydney to see the Lane Cove death
1156
01:25:56.869 --> 01:26:03.479
scene for himself. Environmental awareness had led to improvements in
1157
01:26:03.520 --> 01:26:06.609
the river and the hydrogen sulphide levels in the mud
1158
01:26:06.689 --> 01:26:10.409
were no longer at dangerous levels, but the waterway still
1159
01:26:10.489 --> 01:26:16.020
suffered from neglect and pollution. If hydrogen sulphide had been
1160
01:26:16.069 --> 01:26:20.439
released from the river bottom on New Year's Day 1963,
1161
01:26:20.439 --> 01:26:23.960
Dr Milby told Peter that the bowl-shaped depression in the
1162
01:26:24.000 --> 01:26:27.470
riverbed where Margaret and Gilbert lay would have been the
1163
01:26:27.550 --> 01:26:32.750
worst place to be. The private spot they'd chosen was
1164
01:26:32.829 --> 01:26:36.130
at water level between the bank and a small mangrove swamp,
1165
01:26:36.470 --> 01:26:39.909
where in the cool, still air, higher concentrations of the
1166
01:26:39.949 --> 01:26:45.449
gas could accumulate and get trapped. Breathing heavily during a
1167
01:26:45.510 --> 01:26:49.310
sexual encounter, the gas could have overcome them very suddenly
1168
01:26:49.550 --> 01:26:54.600
and they could have found themselves suffocating. Quickly overcome with
1169
01:26:54.739 --> 01:26:58.720
delirium and desperate for air, Margaret could have grabbed Gilbert's
1170
01:26:58.800 --> 01:27:03.680
underwear by mistake before stumbling down the riverbank where she collapsed.
1171
01:27:06.119 --> 01:27:11.479
Dr Milby studied the autopsies and concluded to Peter, I
1172
01:27:11.560 --> 01:27:14.979
saw nothing in either report that would, in my opinion,
1173
01:27:15.279 --> 01:27:19.189
exclude the possibility of hydrogen sulfide as being the culprit
1174
01:27:19.279 --> 01:27:19.930
that killed them.
1175
01:27:22.449 --> 01:27:22.789
Dr.
1176
01:27:22.850 --> 01:27:27.130
Milby explained that hydrogen sulfide poisoning isn't easy to detect
1177
01:27:27.270 --> 01:27:32.060
during an autopsy because it produces no characteristic abnormalities other
1178
01:27:32.079 --> 01:27:35.460
than fluid in the lungs, congestion of the internal organs,
1179
01:27:35.920 --> 01:27:39.979
and small purple spots on the skin. If no other
1180
01:27:40.020 --> 01:27:43.229
cause of death is found, the only telltale sign of
1181
01:27:43.289 --> 01:27:46.710
hydrogen sulfide poisoning is a greenish or purple color in
1182
01:27:46.750 --> 01:27:50.649
the blood. but this doesn't always occur and nothing in
1183
01:27:50.789 --> 01:27:54.430
either of the autopsies had mentioned a discolouration to the blood.
1184
01:27:56.789 --> 01:28:00.210
Peter then made contact with the chief toxicologist who had
1185
01:28:00.250 --> 01:28:04.710
worked on the Bogle-Chandler case, Vivian Marnie, without making any
1186
01:28:04.789 --> 01:28:09.399
mention of his new theory. Vivian agreed to talk Peter
1187
01:28:09.439 --> 01:28:14.350
through every step of his testing process. He recalled each
1188
01:28:14.470 --> 01:28:18.770
detail meticulously, concluding that he found nothing in either Gilbert
1189
01:28:18.949 --> 01:28:25.079
or Margaret's tissue samples except caffeine. He then told Peter
1190
01:28:25.140 --> 01:28:30.319
something he'd only ever discussed with his superior. One thing
1191
01:28:30.420 --> 01:28:33.989
I am certain of, he said. They both died of
1192
01:28:34.050 --> 01:28:37.130
the same thing. I base this on the appearance of
1193
01:28:37.170 --> 01:28:30.470
their blood. Both their bloods had a distinction. Vivian said
1194
01:28:30.569 --> 01:28:33.390
he tried to find a reason for the discoloration, but
1195
01:28:33.529 --> 01:28:36.800
careful analysis hadn't brought him any closer to the answer.
1196
01:28:53.220 --> 01:28:55.899
He was a little sceptical upon learning of Peter Bart's
1197
01:28:55.939 --> 01:28:59.449
hydrogen sulphide theory until Peter looped him in on a
1198
01:28:59.529 --> 01:29:04.850
detail he'd never been privy to before. Nobody had ever
1199
01:29:04.930 --> 01:29:08.569
informed Vivian about the semen found on Gilbert Bogle's body
1200
01:29:08.649 --> 01:29:11.630
and jacket that proved the two were engaging in a
1201
01:29:11.670 --> 01:29:17.159
sexual act before they died. This meant he'd been investigating
1202
01:29:17.359 --> 01:29:21.640
all manners of poison that didn't fit the timeline or circumstances,
1203
01:29:22.060 --> 01:29:24.619
including that they could have been suffering the effects of
1204
01:29:24.680 --> 01:29:29.609
a poison when they'd arrived at the river. Annoyed that
1205
01:29:29.630 --> 01:29:33.210
this information had been kept from him, Vivian researched the
1206
01:29:33.229 --> 01:29:38.270
hydrogen sulphide theory for himself. He told Peter that if
1207
01:29:38.369 --> 01:29:41.369
Gilbert and Margaret went to the riverbank with the intention
1208
01:29:41.409 --> 01:29:44.510
of having sex, it was highly unlikely they would have
1209
01:29:44.569 --> 01:29:48.670
drank from the river or eaten anything before lying down together.
1210
01:29:50.229 --> 01:29:53.630
That meant that whatever had killed them was present in
1211
01:29:53.649 --> 01:29:57.189
the depression where they lay and had acted very swiftly.
1212
01:29:58.989 --> 01:30:02.260
The only sensible explanation was that while they were in
1213
01:30:02.310 --> 01:30:06.270
close contact with one another, they'd positioned their faces near
1214
01:30:06.310 --> 01:30:11.939
a heavy concentration of a very toxic gas. Vivian told
1215
01:30:12.020 --> 01:30:15.920
Peter that if he'd known about their sexual interaction 42
1216
01:30:15.920 --> 01:30:18.899
years ago, he would have attributed the purple colour of
1217
01:30:18.939 --> 01:30:24.229
their blood to something like hydrogen sulphide and, quote, the
1218
01:30:24.289 --> 01:30:31.619
case would have been over in a week. Peter Butt
1219
01:30:31.699 --> 01:30:35.739
revealed his findings in a television documentary titled Who Killed
1220
01:30:35.819 --> 01:30:39.079
Dr Bogle and Mrs Chandler? and later in a book
1221
01:30:39.239 --> 01:30:44.560
and podcast series dedicated to the case. After the documentary
1222
01:30:44.600 --> 01:30:47.750
was first aired by the Australian Broadcasting Commission in 2006,
1223
01:30:47.729 --> 01:30:52.130
two people contacted Peter who claimed to have been at
1224
01:30:52.170 --> 01:30:57.930
Lane Cove on New Year's Day 1963. They both recalled
1225
01:30:58.090 --> 01:31:01.810
just how heavily polluted and putrid-smelling the water had been.
1226
01:31:03.229 --> 01:31:05.630
One of their dogs had rolled in the mud and
1227
01:31:05.729 --> 01:31:09.170
the stench of rotten eggs was near impossible to remove.
1228
01:31:11.310 --> 01:31:15.739
But another curious revelation came before the documentary even aired.
1229
01:31:17.300 --> 01:31:21.239
After seeing the film advertised, a woman named Lorraine Blackwood
1230
01:31:21.359 --> 01:31:24.420
contacted Peter Butt with something to get off her chest.
1231
01:31:25.859 --> 01:31:28.479
Lorraine was 11 years old at the time that Gilbert
1232
01:31:28.539 --> 01:31:32.500
and Margaret died. She told Peter that a few days
1233
01:31:32.640 --> 01:31:36.000
after the mysterious deaths, she was exploring an area of
1234
01:31:36.079 --> 01:31:39.340
bushland about 5 kilometres from the death scene with her
1235
01:31:39.439 --> 01:31:42.619
sister and some other boys when they found a woman's
1236
01:31:42.689 --> 01:31:48.689
cream-coloured handbag next to a stormwater drain. Inside was some make-up,
1237
01:31:48.909 --> 01:31:52.729
a handkerchief and two bottles of white pills prescribed to
1238
01:31:52.770 --> 01:31:57.840
a Mrs Margaret Chandler. Lorraine claimed she bought the bag
1239
01:31:57.880 --> 01:32:01.100
home and her mother panicked, not wanting to get involved
1240
01:32:01.189 --> 01:32:04.989
in the notorious case. She hid it in the garage
1241
01:32:05.130 --> 01:32:10.449
before getting rid of it entirely. Margaret's husband, Geoffrey Chandler,
1242
01:32:10.550 --> 01:32:13.430
had told police that Margaret didn't bring a handbag with
1243
01:32:13.489 --> 01:32:17.159
her to the Nash's party, leaving this detail supplied by
1244
01:32:17.199 --> 01:32:22.319
Lorraine up for debate. But for Peter Butt, the most
1245
01:32:22.439 --> 01:32:26.180
compelling aspect of Lorraine's story was the location where the
1246
01:32:26.220 --> 01:32:30.949
handbag was supposedly found. It was opposite the home of
1247
01:32:31.029 --> 01:32:34.810
the nephew of Eddie Batiste, the greyhound trainer who police
1248
01:32:34.850 --> 01:32:37.789
suspected might have covered the bodies of Margaret and Gilbert,
1249
01:32:38.310 --> 01:32:43.840
and not far from where Eddie himself lived. Eddie Batiste
1250
01:32:43.859 --> 01:32:48.020
had died in 1976, but Peter tracked down his children
1251
01:32:48.079 --> 01:32:50.850
who agreed that their father probably wouldn't have told the
1252
01:32:50.859 --> 01:32:54.810
police if he had seen the bodies. His daughter described
1253
01:32:54.869 --> 01:32:57.850
him as a very secretive man, while his son said
1254
01:32:57.909 --> 01:33:00.409
he was a moralist who had an aversion to the
1255
01:33:00.470 --> 01:33:06.140
sight of bare human flesh. Eddie Batiste's obituary was published
1256
01:33:06.180 --> 01:33:10.149
in the magazine National Greyhound News and and it stated
1257
01:33:10.229 --> 01:33:12.869
that he was the one who had found Margaret and
1258
01:33:12.970 --> 01:33:17.899
Gilbert's bodies. He had allegedly told this to a close friend.
1259
01:33:19.439 --> 01:33:22.260
Whether Eddie really was the one who covered the bodies
1260
01:33:22.520 --> 01:33:31.750
remains unknown. The enduring mystery of the Bogle-Chandler case has
1261
01:33:31.789 --> 01:33:36.649
become somewhat of folklore among Australians familiar with the story. But,
1262
01:33:36.970 --> 01:33:42.819
as Coroner Jack Loom stated at the inquest in 1963,
1263
01:33:42.819 --> 01:33:45.899
One can never lose sight of the fact that the deceased,
1264
01:33:46.140 --> 01:33:51.229
whoever it may be, is someone's mother, someone's father, someone's sister,
1265
01:33:51.649 --> 01:33:55.949
or someone's brother. And very often the ones left behind
1266
01:33:55.970 --> 01:33:59.819
are the ones to suffer or find their reputation damaged.
1267
01:34:02.319 --> 01:34:05.810
Looms acknowledged he'd found it incredibly difficult to balance the
1268
01:34:05.850 --> 01:34:09.189
need for answers with his desire to protect the privacy
1269
01:34:09.229 --> 01:34:13.649
of those involved. If indeed the pair did die by
1270
01:34:13.710 --> 01:34:17.579
hydrogen sulphide poisoning, then the personal lives of many were
1271
01:34:17.619 --> 01:34:23.880
publicly aired and their reputations tarnished for no reason. Gilbert
1272
01:34:23.920 --> 01:34:28.119
Bogle's wife Vivian avoided the public attention by promptly moving
1273
01:34:28.180 --> 01:34:31.779
to New Zealand, with the press once describing her as
1274
01:34:32.020 --> 01:34:36.100
the unknown living victim of the tragedy, but others were
1275
01:34:36.159 --> 01:34:41.390
also affected. Ruth Nash, the co-host of the fateful New
1276
01:34:41.430 --> 01:34:44.189
Year's Eve party, died on New Year's Day 1974. Two
1277
01:34:44.229 --> 01:34:47.810
years later, on New Year's Day 1976, her husband Ken
1278
01:34:47.829 --> 01:34:58.100
shot himself. Geoffrey Chandler sacrificed his privacy by releasing a
1279
01:34:58.159 --> 01:35:02.500
book about the case in 1969 titled, So You Think
1280
01:35:02.600 --> 01:35:06.949
I Did It. Geoffrey wanted to set the record straight
1281
01:35:07.010 --> 01:35:11.329
about various elements of the case, including his seemingly emotionless
1282
01:35:11.409 --> 01:35:17.329
reaction upon being told that Margaret was dead. Jeffrey explained
1283
01:35:17.449 --> 01:35:20.229
that he'd been disgusted by the way police had pushed
1284
01:35:20.289 --> 01:35:23.590
a newspaper article in his face rather than delivering the
1285
01:35:23.649 --> 01:35:29.590
news with humanity. He wrote, Whatever their reasons or motives,
1286
01:35:29.850 --> 01:35:32.470
the manner of the revelation dealt me a blow of
1287
01:35:32.590 --> 01:35:36.489
such shocking cruelty I can find no words to describe it.
1288
01:35:37.680 --> 01:35:41.300
I sat there in the station, waiting, the children half
1289
01:35:41.359 --> 01:35:48.369
asleep beside me. Nobody explained anything. From that point on,
1290
01:35:48.630 --> 01:35:51.689
he was determined not to give them the reactions they
1291
01:35:51.760 --> 01:35:58.300
so obviously wanted. Jeffrey later told filmmaker Peter Butt that
1292
01:35:58.340 --> 01:36:02.819
both he and his two sons suffered quite severe psychological
1293
01:36:02.899 --> 01:36:08.529
and emotional damage arising from this event. In the prologue
1294
01:36:08.649 --> 01:36:12.890
of So You Think I Did It, Jeffrey wrote, This
1295
01:36:12.949 --> 01:36:16.130
book is written for my sons to get the record straight.
1296
01:36:17.020 --> 01:36:20.359
Margaret longed for her children and went through much to
1297
01:36:20.399 --> 01:36:24.199
give them birth. She looked forward to glorious years of
1298
01:36:24.279 --> 01:36:30.729
enjoyment with them. Instead, she was cruelly deprived. They too.
1299
01:36:32.229 --> 01:36:37.409
Our eldest has a cloudy memory of his mother. Our youngest, nothing.
1300
01:36:38.989 --> 01:36:42.590
My sons deserve something better than the fragmented facts and
1301
01:36:42.689 --> 01:36:47.760
wild speculations that accompanied their mother's death. I want my
1302
01:36:47.840 --> 01:36:51.000
sons to know the truth, because the truth is the
1303
01:36:51.119 --> 01:36:57.010
one thing that cannot harm them. Prior to his death
1304
01:36:57.109 --> 01:37:01.590
in 2009, Jeffrey agreed that Peter Butt's theory about hydrogen
1305
01:37:01.649 --> 01:37:07.239
sulfide poisoning seemed like the most realistic explanation. Many other
1306
01:37:07.319 --> 01:37:14.529
scientists and investigators agree. This possibility was bolstered further in
1307
01:37:14.529 --> 01:37:18.199
2012 when a retired psychologist from Canberra contacted Peter Butt
1308
01:37:18.340 --> 01:37:24.920
with another surprise revelation. He claimed that back in 1965,
1309
01:37:24.920 --> 01:37:28.260
a young woman he'd met through a chance encounter confided
1310
01:37:28.340 --> 01:37:30.739
in him that she'd been at Lane Cove on New
1311
01:37:30.779 --> 01:37:34.609
Year's morning 1963 and had seen a man and woman
1312
01:37:34.689 --> 01:37:37.970
whom she believed to be Gilbert Bogle and Margaret Chandler
1313
01:37:38.270 --> 01:37:43.399
having sex on the riverbank. They'd stopped all of a sudden,
1314
01:37:43.640 --> 01:37:47.140
with Margaret grabbing her throat, making a strangling noise and
1315
01:37:47.279 --> 01:37:52.300
staggering off, while Gilbert rolled away. The air reeked of
1316
01:37:52.420 --> 01:37:58.159
rotten eggs. The woman who claimed to have witnessed this
1317
01:37:58.430 --> 01:38:01.569
initially thought the pair were on drugs and she left
1318
01:38:01.689 --> 01:38:05.210
the scene, becoming dizzy and stumbling as she did so.
1319
01:38:06.890 --> 01:38:10.590
When she heard about the Bogle-Chandler deaths in the following days,
1320
01:38:10.869 --> 01:38:13.720
she was too afraid to come forward because she hadn't
1321
01:38:13.739 --> 01:38:18.560
been alone on the river. She'd been with her female partner,
1322
01:38:18.960 --> 01:38:22.460
and the pair didn't want their relationship outed as same-sex
1323
01:38:22.520 --> 01:38:28.470
relationships were frowned upon at the time. In 2016, Peter
1324
01:38:28.529 --> 01:38:31.140
Butt made a public appeal, for this woman or her
1325
01:38:31.199 --> 01:38:34.859
partner to come forward and make an official statement, but
1326
01:38:34.979 --> 01:38:41.119
they never did. The truth about exactly what happened to
1327
01:38:41.159 --> 01:38:44.819
Gilbert Bogle and Margaret Chandler on that riverbank will likely
1328
01:38:44.960 --> 01:38:49.460
never be known for certain. With no viable blood or
1329
01:38:49.539 --> 01:38:55.100
tissue samples left to test, everything is circumstantial. As one
1330
01:38:55.159 --> 01:39:00.029
reporter for the Sydney Morning Herald once stated, In many ways,
1331
01:39:00.390 --> 01:39:04.369
the answers are lost in another time, another place, a
1332
01:39:04.449 --> 01:39:08.720
different country. So many things have changed.