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The Bogle/Chandler Mystery

It all began as a social New Year’s Eve gathering for some of Sydney’s middle-class north shore residents – a chance to say goodbye to 1962 and welcome the new year – but by the time the night was over it had produced one of Australia’s most enduring mysteries. Was it murder? Was it suicide? Or was it an experiment gone wrong? It seems we will never know.

The party, held at 12 Waratah Street, Chatswood, was hosted by Ken and Ruth Nash. The Nashes had gone to a lot of trouble to ensure that their guest list of 22 was made up of a variety of cultured and educated people who would mix well together. Among the guests were writers, musicians, business executives and a number of scientists from the CSIRO; Ken Nash worked in the photographic section there.

Certainly the most accomplished guest was New Zealander Dr Gilbert Stanley Bogle, a 38-year-old former Rhodes Scholar with a doctorate in physics from Oxford University. Doctor Bogle had arrived alone, leaving his wife Vivienne to stay at home and look after their four young children.

Soon after his arrival Dr Bogle joined a couple he knew, Geoffrey Chandler – whom he worked with at the CSIRO – and Chandler’s 29-year-old wife, Margaret. At around 11.30 pm, Geoffrey Chandler left the party, saying that he was going to a nearby shop to buy some cigarettes. Instead, Chandler went to a party in Balmain, where he saw the New Year in with a lady friend. When he returned to the Nash residence at 2.30 am, Chandler found his wife still chatting with Dr Bogle.

It was obviously what was called a ‘relaxed marriage’; Geoffrey Chandler told his wife he was going back to the party at Balmain. Margaret Chandler was fine with that, and said that she had already arranged a lift home with Dr Bogle. It was the last time Geoffrey Chandler would see his wife alive.

The following morning two young boys spotted what they thought were two drunks lying near the shore of the Lane Cove River. Given that the previous evening had been a night of celebration, the boys left the ‘drunks’ where they were and went about their fun and games. But when they returned a short time later and the drunks hadn’t moved, they became concerned. They went home and told their parents, who rang the police.

Dr Bogle’s body was lying face down in the dirt, with his arms outstretched. He was partially undressed, but his clothing had been laid on top of his body to give the impression that he was fully clothed. There was no sign of violence or robbery. Dr Bogle had been dead for several hours.

The body of Margaret Chandler was discovered about 50 metres away. The top half of her clothing was in disarray and she was naked from the waist down. A torn beer carton had been placed over her, as if to hide the body. A pair of women’s brown shoes and a pair of panties were found close to the body. The body was warmer than Dr Bogle’s, which meant that she had died some time after he had.

A thorough scientific investigation of the area revealed that the couple had been violently ill before they died – they had thrown up several times.

The police had several theories, none of which made sense, given the circumstances. Had the couple been murdered? Was it a murder suicide? Or even stranger – was it a double suicide of two people who had apparently met only once before the previous evening?

The pair were obviously the victims of some form of poisoning – but what? Though they tried hard, the forensic laboratories failed to produce a positive result that they could put a name to.

Each guest at the party was investigated, and the newspapers had a field day with wild theories of wife swappings and poisonings. Nothing was solved, but it sold a lot of newspapers. It was revealed that the Chandlers had an ‘arrangement’ about extra-marital relationships, and that it was common knowledge that Geoffrey Chandler was having an affair with a certain Pam Logan – whom he was in fact in bed with when the couple died.

Geoffrey Chandler was a bit of a character – he had a long, flowing red beard and drove around Sydney in an open-top vehicle – and his eccentricities practically invited suspicion about his involvement in the deaths of his wife and Dr Bogle, but while rumours were rampant, they amounted to nothing more than that.

Though the case – and the ‘relaxed’ nature of the Nashes’ party in particular – was talked about in Sydney for years, nothing came of any of the leads. The file is still open.

And so, over four decades on, along with the Wanda Beach murders and the missing Beaumont children, the Bogle/Chandler case remains one of Australia’s most haunting unsolved cases. We can only wonder how long it would have remained unsolved had it happened in the modern era, when the police have DNA testing and many other scientific advances to help them.