Nicole Manktelow

It was the ABC’s most-watched program of the year, smashing the ratings with 1.8 million tuning in to a real-life whodunnit - Who Killed Dr Bogel and Mrs Chandler?

Who? Well, perhaps the title should have used the word ‘what’. I know I will probably always think about that unfortunate couple next time I sit at a riverside. Anywhere. And if the air looks a little misty, well, I’m sure the over-active imagination will run riot.

Naming hydrogen sulfide as the killer raises some intriguing questions: Is it possible to somehow test the theory today (without adding to our pollution problems)? Where there any reports of dead animals and fish around the time the bodies were discovered?

Theories rarely please everyone, but for my two cents, I’d say the highly-toxic swamp gas does seem the best explanation for the deaths yet. Certainly more plausible than scenarios involving the CIA!

Of course, the story doesn’t end there. There’s still the mystery (within the mystery) of who covered the bodies of the unlucky lovers. Was it the greyhound trainer? If he lied, why? If his obituary mentioned him finding the bodies, what did his friends and family know of his actions that day?

With new information, more questions arise. At the cast and crew screening Thursday, just an hour or so before the documentary aired on TV, the filmmaker Peter Butt explained that just a few weeks ago a woman came forward with new information about Margaret Chandler’s handbag.

If reliable, it turns out that the bag (long since destroyed, but which had contained pills labelled for Mrs Chandler) was found in an area of bushland along the greyhound trainer’s likely route from the river that morning. It begs us to wonder if and why he may have taken it.

This case has kept Australia guessing for 43-years. I suspect it will for many more years to come, even with the deadly finger of blame pointed at a dying river and its swamp gas.

Despite Butt’s best efforts, I doubt (even after the enormous amount of time and research he has invested) that he would ever be so bold as to suggest he had all the answers.