On 7 September 2006, the documentary Who Killed Dr Bogle and Mrs Chandler? was broadcast on ABC television 15. The documentary suggested that Bogle and Chandler had been killed by hydrogen sulfide that had leaked from pollution in the Lane Cove River. The documentary further suggested that Edward Batiste had covered the bodies and then lied to police to conceal his involvement.
Hydrogen sulfide was first considered as a possible cause of the Bogle-Chandler deaths in 1971, but was dismissed for four different reasons. However, according to the documentary maker Peter Butt, "one of these was that there was no existing source of the poison, and another was that there was no indication of the gas in the blood of either Dr Bogle or Mrs Chandler." 6 Butt said that his documentary had disproved both these arguments.
According to Mr Butt, during the 1940s the Lane Cove River had started to fall out of favour as a recreational area because of a strange odour. Residents in the area complained that their health was suffering, and that paintwork and bath fittings were becoming discoloured. The problem had worsened to the extent that mass evacuation was considered.
In 1948, the NSW government commissioned Maurice Fry, a maritime scientist, to investigate the problem. Mr Fry's year-long investigation discovered a problem with hydrogen sulfide coming from the river. Mr Fry was reluctant to work at the river because the gas made him feel ill.
As Mr Fry discovered, a local flour and starch factory had been pumping waste, including sulfureous waste, directly into the river. This problem had been further exacerbated by the construction of a weir in 1930, which had prevented tidal flushing. The result of these twin factors was the slow release of gas stuck in the mud of the riverbed, with occasional bursts of gas when the pressure became too great.
According to Mr Fry's account, on one occasion he’d witnessed an explosion of hydrogen sulfide from the bottom of the river, that had killed fish by the truckload.
As a result of Fry's report, nearby factories were forced to treat their waste and ensure it went into the sewage system. However, an overflow valve beneath the Lane Cove River meant that during heavy rain, the sulfurous waste was diverted from the sewerage system directly into the bed of the river. The hydrogen sulfide problem, and the fish kills, continued into the 1960s.
The theory outlined in the documentary was that Dr Bogle and Mrs Chandler had unwittingly lain in a hollow where the gas, heavier than air, had accumulated. As Dr Thomas Milby, a forensic toxicologist and world authority on hydrogen sulfide, put it: 7
In the early morning, before the sun comes up, before the breezes begin, the hydrogen sulfide would sit silently and invisibly in the bowl.
The most toxic area for the gas would have been downstream of the weir, where Bogle and Chandler had died.
Hydrogen sulfide is known colloquially as “rotten egg gas” because it has an unpleasant smell. Most people can detect it at a concentration of less than 1 part per million. However, it is possible, if Bogle and Chandler were distracted by other activities, that the gas could have built up so gradually that they remained unaware of it.
More significantly, according to Dr Milby, at concentrations of 150 parts per million or greater, hydrogen sulfide anesthetises the olfactory glands, meaning that it becomes effectively odourless.
High concentrations of the gas are also dangerous. According to Dr Milby: 10
On about 750 parts per million you're in danger of dying and most people do.
According to Dr Milby's and Mr Butt's theory, Dr Bogle and Mrs Chandler quickly became desensitised to the smell of the gas and therefore remained in the hollow, where the effects of the gas eventually caused unconsciousness and then death.
As evidence to support the theory, Mr Butt and Dr Milby drew attention to the autopsy reports on the bodies of Bogle and Chandler. According to Dr Milby, the gas attacks the brain very quickly and leaves almost no sign of having been there. However, blood samples taken from the bodies showed a blue-purple tinge, which is characteristic of hydrogen sulfide poisoning and often indicates that the gas is the cause of death. Dr Milby said: 11
I saw nothing in either report that would, in my opinion, exclude the possibility of hydrogen sulfide as being the culprit that killed them.
The documentary also said that a semen stain on the inside of Bogle's coat, evidence of which had been suppressed at the time of the inquest "to protect public morality" 12, had been described by a forensic pathologist at the time as being "quite fresh" 10. According to Mr Butt: 10
It meant the couple were unlikely to be suffering any ill-effects of a poison when they arrived at the river to make love.
The chief toxicologist investigating the deaths, Vivian Mahoney, said that this information had not been passed to him at the time and he'd therefore wasted a lot of time searching for poisons that did not fit the circumstances of the deaths.
The documentary also presented evidence of a police diver's description of the blackened, heavily polluted river, as evidence supporting the hydrogen sulfide theory.
After the documentary aired, new witnesses who'd been in the Lane Cove River area on 1 January 1963, came forward. Lindsay Mitchell, a Taree farmer who'd been 19 years old when the deaths occurred, said that he was at the Lane Cove River at dawn on the morning in question. He told the Sydney Morning Herald 13:
We'd had a few drinks and stopped by the river for a nap. I woke up at dawn with a terrible thirst. I got out of the car and walked to the river . . . I was about 20 feet [6 metres] away and suddenly the stink hit me like a wall. It was overpowering. Like rotten egg gas, but much much stronger.
Mr Mitchell said he had phoned the police after they had asked for witnesses, but when he said that he had not seen anyone else at the river they had never spoken to him again.
Further supporting evidence for the theory was given by Derek Foster of Bonny Hills, a former auctioneer. Mr Foster said he had been in the area at about 4 o'clock on New Year's Day, with his son and his brother in law. They had been blocked by police but his dog had run into bushes and down to the riverbank. When the dog returned and climbed back into his brother-in-law's car, it smelt of rotten eggs. Mr Foster said that it had taken months to get the smell out of the car and this had become a family joke.
Not everybody is convinced by the hydrogen sulfide theory, however. Dr Christopher Lawrence, a forensic pathologist with the Tasmanian health department, said that the gas could discolour blood by reacting with haemoglobin, but that this test needed to be carried out very soon after death.
Perhaps more importantly, hydrogen sulfide can be produced afterwards, either in vitro or in a decomposing body that has been left at an ambient temperature for some hours. The bodies of Bogle and Chandler were left outside on a hot day, for several hours.
Reporters who covered the case have also expressed doubts. Basil Sweeney, a former crime reporter with the Sydney Morning Herald, pointed out that there had been other people in the area at the time who weren't affected. Indeed, one witness, Ken Challis described people throwing each other into the river for fun. Similarly, Cecil Styles, a resident of nearby River Avenue, testified at the 1963 inquest that he had spent the night sleeping in a tent on the river bank with his wife. From around 5:30am onwards he'd sat on the bank of the river opposite the Bogle-Chandler death scene, and read a book.
Kevin Perkins, who had been a reporter with the Daily Telegraph when the case broke, said 14:
I watched the ABC documentary and I'm afraid it didn't ring true. They didn't mention the fact that both Bogle and Chandler had been violently ill or the fact that one of the bodies had clearly been dragged away from the other. At that time, the local kids used to swim and fish in the river all the time, so I'm not sure it was as polluted as the film-maker would have us believe.
Mr Perkins' observation about Dr Bogle and Mrs Chandler having been ill was correct. Early newspaper reports exaggerated the extent of the illness, but it was the presence of both faeces and vomit at the scene that led initial investigators to the realisation that Bogle and Chandler had died from the effects of a poison.
The description of the river's condition was based on the observations of a police diver, but it is not certain 16 when this observation was made. Police divers had searched the exposed parts of the river at low tide on 2 January, but did not search the river itself until 12 January.
The then Police Commissioner, Norman Allan, had told the Daily Mirror that the delay in searching the river had been because the water conditions were unsuitable. However, as another journalist, Alan Dower recorded in his book, Deadline:
It was a week or more before the sleazy bed of the Lane Cove River was searched and sieved for possible evidence of a poison phial. Frankly, I believe it would have been one chance in a million if the bed had been dragged immediately and one clue had been unearthed. On the other probably weak hand, however, who then could say that every stone had been unturned? It was not so much the lack of action in this quarter as the attitude of mind which disturbed me at the time when I suggested a river search to a junior policeman combing through the garbage in the mangroves. Testily he said: "It's just a bed of mud down there. Anything would be pretty hard to find ... be swept downstream by now."
The hydrogen sulfide theory does match some of the known facts about the case, and is certainly consistent with the circumstantial evidence that the documentary brought to light. However, it does rely on an extraordinary coincidence of timing for Bogle and Chandler to have been the only people affected, particularly in light of the number of people known to have been in the area at the time.
Furthermore, while Peter Butt says that two of the four reasons for police rejecting the hydrogen sulfide theory have been disproven, he has not stated what the other two reasons were.
Lastly, it is difficult to know whether his account can be trusted, but Ken Challis said that when Dr Bogle arrived in the area, he looked very pale, suggesting that he may already have been ill. This contradicts the suggestion that the presence of semen on Dr Bogle's coat proves that Dr Bogle was not ill when he arrived in the area.
Other speculation: