People you meet along the way - Episode Six - The man of mystery

On New Year's Day 1963, two boys find a dead man near Lane Cove River, leading to the discovery of a woman's body. Police investigations reveal unclear causes of death amidst the backdrop of the Sydney push movement, where societal norms are challenged. Jeff Chandler reflects on his estrangement and media evasion, while forensic insights suggest LSD use. His decision to write a book adds to the intrigue and speculation surrounding the case.

Transcript

1:10

I first met Manam misery Jeff Chandler, a decade after the death of his wife Margaret, in the arms of her lover, Dr. Gil Bogle on New Year's Day, 1963 as the pear planned to share their orgasms as the sun rose on the New Year. Early on New Year's Day, 19 63, 2 boys were walking along a narrow bushy trek by the Lane Cove River at Chatwood Sydney. They looked closely at a man lying on a grassy patch right beside that track. They realized he was dead. Police who were called found the body of a woman. 44 feet from the man here began a mystery so baffling that even now police scientists, the coroner had been unable to say why or by what means this man and this woman died. The Bogle Chandler Arabia begins at Sydney University where some of the nation's best known artists, academics, and scientists, rejected the establishment and its authority as well as common morality. They found common ground in politics and free love, drug experimentation, and other enjoyments of the emerging hippie era, calling themselves the Sydney push and Libertarians. Some would emerge as household names in the media and arts, including Jermaine Greer, Barry Humphreys, Robert Hughes, Clive James, and Patty beginners. They met in the back room of the Royal George Hotel at the corner of Sussex and King Streets, or at the Lincoln Coffee Shop in Central Sydney where serious left wing politics reigned and the intellectual benefits of cannabis and cocaine received in-depth discussion that New Year's Eve, their colleague at C-S-I-R-O, Kenneth Nash called a party at his Chatswood home for a carefully selected 20 members of the push. Jeff Chandler stepped away in his 19 20 0

Vox Hole car at 11: 3:19

30 PM on the pretense of buying cigarettes, but instead made his way to another push party to meet his then lover, Pam GI Bogle

and Margaret Chandler made their exit 4: 3:31

00 AM in Bogle's, decrepit old Ford prefect, and drove to the Lane Cove National Park, well known as a Lover's Lane. What happened next could not be established by investigators. Still, the investigations go on and police say the whole resources of those vested with the duty of attempting to point to the truth of the cause of death will be pursued with whatever power and knowledge we may have. Just after dawn, two young boys found their partially crab bodies as the boys searched for golf balls in the Lane Cove National Park. When police arrived at the scene, his trousers and a length of carpet covered Gibb Bogle, and a piece of cardboard covered. Margaret Chandler police later established that a local man out for his morning walk also found the bodies and covered them in order to hide their embarrassing condition. At death. Dr. Bogle was naked from the waist down. Mrs. Chandler also semi nude, both showed no physical signs of violence. Their bodies unmarked except both had the several mysterious purple discolorations on their limbs and inquest on the deaths failed to reach any definitive conclusion. In the years since numerous conspiracy theories emerged, including a hit by America's CIA, seeking to suppress Bogle's knowledge of his top secret experiments in the interest of international security or simply two domestic violence killing Dr. Bogle and Jeff Chandler worked hand in glove on a number of projects and experiments of which little has ever been publicly released. It's been the subject of newspaper speculation, television and radio documentaries, and a number of books, each pouting new evidence or mystery witnesses, including Jeff Chandler's own opus entitled, so You Think I did it in the early 1970s, the Suburban newspaper where I worked used Jeff Chandler's typesetting company for his production. In our many conversations, Jeff Chandler explained his philosophies on life and the effect of the death of his wife had on him and her family. Margaret's brother Tony Morford, a well-respected playwright and author, cut Jeff off from any family contact. Jeff also told with some delight how he avoided contact during the inquest with most of the media, and despite a constant stream of interview and picture opportunity requests, each time the mystery received dimension or new theories and information emerged. He also enjoyed telling of his way of escaping the press. During the inquest, after giving his evidence and undergoing cross-examination, Jeff left the Glebe Coroner's Court with the media banging in full pursuit outside the court. He mounted a push bike and rode to a boma address on the opposite footpath to the flow of traffic preventing the convoy of media cars following. Jeff Chandler also appeared during our conversations to enjoy his status as a mystery man. He sported a beard, elected to wear sunglasses and smoked his cigarettes with a long holder. To tell his side of the story, he wrote a book, mischievously entitled, so You Think I Did It? A cover is a black and white photograph of a beard Chandler cigarette holder in his hand, and the whisper smoke curling across the picture. But one man in my acquaintance is adamant he could have ended the speculation surrounding the deaths years ago, but had been prevented from doing so by Officialdom. In 1986, I had a chance to encounter the state forensic pathologist, Dr. Godfrey Oatley at the time of the Bogle Chandler Deaths, the state's deputy forensic pathologist and one of the medical practitioners present at the autopsies on the victims. He says, I am certain beyond reasonable doubt that GI Bogle and Margaret Chandler died after using the drug. L-S-D-L-S-D had just recently come into use by drug users in the United States, and it is known that Australian scientists were investigating the its potency and effects. It's also known that GI Bogle had access to LSD for experiments at the C-S-I-R-O and Bogle and the Chandler also had a history of experiments with recreational drugs. Dr. Bogle and Jeff Chandler worked at the C-S-I-R-O. Dr. Bogle, a scientist working on a number of secretive projects. Jeff Chandler, a technical photographer, Dr. Oatley, said he'd studied intensely the effects of LSD, which in the swinging sixteens had been coming into Vogue, and which scientists at the C-S-I-R-O and in the United States had been studying and carrying out experiments in one of which the drug killed an elephant in his career. As chief pathologist, Dr. Oley performed hundreds of autopsies, collected forensic evidence in some of the state's most notorious killings, and appeared as an expert witness in hundreds of murder, and maam inquests and trials.