Cold War-Era Crime Becomes Online Puzzle

A couple found dead in a car and no apparent cause of death are the main “headlines” of a new website, set up as part of her doctoral project by Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology professor Rebecca Young. This isn't just any killing, but one rooted in mystery and dating back from the Cold War. It involved Australian scientist Gib Bogle and Margaret Chandler, the wife of one of his Communist colleagues. Bogle was at the time, in 1963, working on a laser prototype, and was getting ready to leave for America, to work at the Bell Laboratories.

The two were having an affair, although it's not clear whether Margaret's husband Geoffrey knew or approved of it. After departing the go-away party thrown by friends for Bogle, the two were found dead on the banks of the Lane Cove River, in Sydney. Young says that Geoffrey Chandler had a good idea of the attraction that existed between the scientist and his wife, and she shares that he was a believer in “free love.” Bogle's wife remained home that evening to attend the couple's sick children.

This is where the mystery starts. For more than four decades, investigators have turned the case upside down and have investigated numerous people, with no success however. The main question is whether this was a political hit or a crime of passion, or maybe an accidental heist gone wrong. No once can say for sure, and, over time, suspicions have shifted from Geoffrey to the poisonous gases emitted by the mangrove forest in the area.

As part of her project, Young has set up an interactive website at rebeccayoung.org, where she offers viewers the possibility to shift to various points of view inside the story and to listen to testimonies coming from several key figures in the murder.

“After the deaths, my mom and dad would talk about it over the dinner table. Being scientists, my parents would be very analytical, dissecting what could have happened. People in the same place at the same time gave different accounts of what happened. It lent itself to a story told from different perspectives. I think it's quite astonishing, really. It vindicates me having spent nights in front of a computer after the kids went to bed,” Young talks about how the site got started.