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Geoffrey Chandler

Chandler, 32, was a research scientist in the CSIRO* division of radiophysics. He lived in Croydon, Sydney, with his wife Margaret Chandler and their two sons, aged 18 months and 2 years. They shared a love of vintage cars and dachshund dogs.
Chandler was a member of the Communist Party and one of ASIO's people inside the CSIRO.

Margaret Chandler

Margaret, 28, had worked as a nurse before her marriage to Geoffrey Chandler. They lived in Croydon, Sydney, with their two sons, aged 18 months and 2 years. They shared a love of vintage cars and dachshund dogs.

Gib Bogle

Gib, 38, was a former Rhodes scholar with a Doctorate of Physics from Oxford University. He was an expert in solid state physics and maser technology, and was well known as a brilliant scientist. He could also play the clarinet and speak several languages.
He was married to Vivienne Bogle, with whom he had four young children.

Margaret Fowler

Margaret, 39, worked for the CSIRO* as a scientific librarian. She lived in Turramurra, Sydney, with her husband Robert Fowler, a Professor of Chemical Engineering at Sydney University. Margaret sometimes intimated that her husband was involved in secret chemical weapon research.
Margaret had an affair with Gib Bogle for the three years prior to his death.

Ken Nash

Ken, 41, was chief photographer in the CSIRO* division of radiophysics. He and his wife, Ruth Nash, regularly held parties for colleagues and friends at their house in Chatswood. Described by his friend Leicester Cotton as: "...short and slender with a large head of wavy, greying hair. It is not a handsome profile by today's accepted standards, but it is a striking one with fine sensitive features."
p. 12. Silk, S, 1963. The Bogle Mystery. Horwitz Publications Inc., Melbourne.

Ruth Nash

Ruth was married to Ken Nash, and was the hostess of the New Year's Eve party at her home in Chatswood. Described by her friend Leicester Cotton as: "...a strikingly handsome woman... There is a marked resemblance to Hedy Lamarr, the film actress of the thirties..."
p.11 .Silk, S, 1963. The Bogle Mystery. Horwitz Publications Inc., Melbourne.

Leicester Cotton

Leicester, 63, and his wife Francis were close friends of the Nashes. He was a reporter for the Sydney Morning Herald, and had written several true crime books. In 1963, he wrote a book about the deaths, The Bogle Mystery under his pen name Stafford Silk. Cotton died in 1966.

Nanna Day-Hakkar

Nanna Day-Hakkar was the second last guest to arrive at the party. Shortly after midnight Ken Nash and Jack Johnson drove to Forestville to pick her up. She arrived at the party at around 12:30am. Her husband, James Day-Hakkar, was the last guest to arrive at 3.30am.

James Day-Hakkar

James was the last guest to arrive at the party at 3.30 am. He was a musician and had been playing at a King's Cross nightclub.

Kenneth Challis

Kenneth Challis was a carpenter from Rushcutter's Bay. He told police he often went walking around Fuller's Bridge in the early hours of the morning. It was suggested at the inquest that Challis may have been a voyeur, someone who liked to 'secretly observe the conduct of other people'.
p.6, Sydney Morning Herald, Wednesday, May 16, 1963

Michael McCormick

Michael was sixteen years old. He regularly collected golf balls on the Chatswood golf course with his friend Dennis Wheway.

Dennis Wheway

Dennis was seventeen years old. He regularly collected golf balls on the Chatswood golf course with his friend Michael McCormick.

Geoffrey Little

Geoffrey ran the Lane Cove National Park kiosk. He had been a soldier and had seen the faces of many dead men.

Sergeant Andrews

Andrews was the first policeman at the scene.

Detective Sergeant Parsons

Parsons of the CIB had come to the scene after hearing a call on his car radio. It was Parsons who, later that day, interviewed Geoffrey Chandler about the murder. He said later, "It is the strangest and possibly the most sinister case any of us can recall".

J.J.Loomes

After hearing 50 witnesses, Sydney City Coroner J.J.Loomes concluded that Bogle and Chandler had died because of "...acute circulatory failure. But as to the circumstances under which such circulatory failure was brought about, the evidence does not permit me to say."

The Sydney Morning Herald; Date: May 30, 1963; Section: Front page; Page: 1

Media

During the slow news period of the summer of 1963, the media presented lurid accounts of the investigation and inquest into the murders. Tabloid reports of wife-swapping, drug-taking and shady foreign assassins entertained the Australian public. Press reports speculating about the case have continued to this day.