The small town where a mass murder is allegedly taking place was established during a gold rush, and several locals, including suspected shooter Darryl Young, think they are on top of a gold mine.
Bogie, a remote community close to Bowen in the Whitsunday region of Queensland, has just 37 families and a population of roughly 200.
Locals in the tight-knit neighbourhood were shocked to learn on Thursday that a mass shooting had allegedly taken place on a nearby farm.
The bodies of Maree and Mervyn Schwarz and Graham Tighe, Maree’s son, were discovered on their $10 million ($29,000 acre) property.
Longtime resident Young is still detained on murder charges.
Ross Tighe, another son, was shot in the stomach but is now “up and about” thanks to a lucky escape.
According to the police, the neighbours’ argument was about the properties’ adjacent properties’ border lines.
It is known that many of the land parcels in Bogie, which is more of a single long, winding gravel road than a town, do not have clearly defined boundaries. There is instead “a little give and take.”
In May 2021, the Schwarz family bought 29,000 hectares of land next to Young’s 7,700 hectare estate. In 16 years, they became the land’s fifth owners.
When a stockman from a nearby station discovered gold on what is now known as Normanby Road, Bogie became populated for the first time in 1871.
When the Normanby gold mine first started production, there were about 30 miners there. For the following 41 years, they intermittently cultivated the land while harbouring hopes of striking it rich.
As additional gold seekers were drawn to the region, a small township with a hotel, dairy, bakery, three shops, two butchers, and a blacksmith was even built.
But it was extremely tough to keep up because of how far away it was and how harsh the terrain was.
The majority quickly left the town in favour of gold mines that were more lucrative.
However, several families in Bogie continue to hold onto the dream that one day their lands may yield the gold that was too difficult to unearth 150 years ago.
On social media in 2017, Young asserted that he had discovered sizable gold chunks on the Shannonvale Road property that was the scene of Thursday’s suspected mass shooting.
He posted several images to Facebook with the comment, “Some gold I found at Shannonvale this week when my exploration permits came through (sic),” including one of a hand holding 17 flecks of gold and another holding a sizable lump.
If this continues, I won’t be working for much longer.
Later it was discovered that the images came from a standard Google image search.
Whether or not gold is still present in Bogie is still up for debate.
Even at its best, the one winding gravel road through Bogie is reportedly a spooky drive.