Crime Junkie - MURDERED: Scott Johnson
Episode Date: April 22, 2024When 27-year-old Scott Johnson is found deceased at the bottom of a cliff in Australia, authorities are quick to rule his death as a suicide. However, his brother, Steve, isn’t convinced, and begins... a multi-decade quest to get answers – and justice. Please take a minute to check out these resources and organizations in support of the LGBTQ+ communities:The Trevor ProjectIt Gets Better ProjectGLSEN (Gay, Lesbian & Straight Education Network)SAGE (Services & Advocacy for Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual & Transgender Elders)National Center for Transgender EqualityPFLAG (Parent, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays)Matthew Shepard FoundationAnti-Violence Project This year, audiochuck is sponsoring NLGJA: The Association of LGBTQ+ Journalists, an organization of journalists, media professionals, educators and students working from within the news industry to foster fair and accurate coverage of LGBTQ+ issues. To learn more about this organization, and/or join us in supporting them, please visit their website. Don’t forget to also check out all the incredible organizations that audiochuck has previously sponsored over the years that are just as deserving of your support and attention!Indiana Youth GroupOut & EqualOut On The LakeshoreThe LGBTQ+ Bar If you or a loved one are struggling with suicidal thoughts, help is available. If you’re in the U.S., you can call or text the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline at 988. If you’re in Australia, you can call Lifeline at 13 11 14, or text or chat with a trained crisis supporter on their website. Source materials for this episode cannot be listed here due to character limitations. For a full list of sources, please visit: crimejunkiepodcast.com/murdered-scott-johnsonDid you know you can listen to this episode ad-free? Join the Fan Club! Visit https://crimejunkie.app/library/ to view the current membership options and policies.Don’t miss out on all things Crime Junkie!Instagram: @crimejunkiepodcast | @audiochuckTwitter: @CrimeJunkiePod | @audiochuckTikTok: @crimejunkiepodcastFacebook: /CrimeJunkiePodcast | /audiochuckllc Crime Junkie is hosted by Ashley Flowers and Brit Prawat. Instagram: @ashleyflowers | @britprawatTwitter: @Ash_Flowers | @britprawatTikTok: @ashleyflowerscrimejunkieFacebook: /AshleyFlowers.AF Text Ashley at 317-733-7485 to talk all things true crime, get behind the scenes updates, and more!
Transcript
Discussion (0)
Hi, Crime Junkies. I'm your host, Ashley Flowers.
And I'm Brett.
Brett, when I see familiar dates, I don't know if you do this,
but like my mind immediately tries to put the story
in the context of my own life. Where was I? What was I doing?
When someone else's life was being changed so drastically.
And most of the time, I'm making like big guesses,
but this time, I know exactly where both of us were.
Because it was December of 1988.
Oh, we were being born.
Just about to be. It's December 10th, 1988. It was such an innocuous day for them back then,
but eventually it ended up making national and international headlines. And now it's not so
strange that we're talking about that day, especially because it had such an important underlying message.
But again, back then, back on December 10th, 1988,
I don't think anyone expected two girls who were just about to enter the world
to eventually be talking about this case some 35 years later.
This is the story of Scott Johnson. The red light on Steve Johnson's answering machine is blinking.
He doesn't know when he missed a call, because time has been a bit of a blur since he and
his wife Rosemary had their first baby six weeks ago.
But when he presses play, he hears a familiar voice.
It's his brother's partner, Michael.
It's a little out of the ordinary for Michael to be calling.
The calls normally come from Steve's brother, Scott, and even those are kind of rare since
he'd moved to Australia to pursue his doctorate.
But something must be wrong, because Michael sounds really upset, and he says that
he just needs Steve to call him back right away, which he does. But when the line picks up, it's
not Scott or even Michael on the other end. It's Michael's dad who is also upset, to the point of
crying. But through his tears, he says that Scott has died. The details are few and far between at
this point.
Police are still looking into it, they say, and Steve should really get out there.
All of this is a complete blow to Steve.
Even though he hadn't talked to Scott a ton recently, the brothers are super close.
So to Steve, this is like losing his best friend, and Scott hadn't even gotten to meet
his niece yet.
The little girl who Steve kisses goodbye
as he makes the trek to the other side of the world
to his brother.
When he arrives, Michael picks him up at the airport
and the two head straight for the police station in Manly,
which is a suburb of Sydney.
And that's where Scott's body had been found.
And it's not until they get there
that Steve finally gets the full story,
or at least what police think is the full story, or at least what
police think is the full story, which is this.
That on December 10th, Scott's body was found by some spear fishermen below the cliffs
at North Head.
He was naked, and it looked like he'd been there for a few days, but they thought that
all of his injuries were consistent with a fall from the top of the cliff, which, by
the way, is where they ended up finding his clothes and stuff, like at the top. They told Steve that up there, his clothes were all
like in a pile, neatly folded, with a few items placed on top, like a student ID and a bank card,
a bus ticket, just to name a few. And that's how they were able to tentatively ID Scott and track
down Michael, who was over three hours away in the city
of Canberra where he and Scott live.
Was Michael not worried that Scott had been MIA for multiple days?
Not really.
He told police that Scott had been up in Sydney to meet with a professor because he was, when
I say like he went to there for a doctorate, he was like just about to finish his doctorate.
I mean, literally finishing his dissertation.
So he wasn't even supposed to be home.
But he also wasn't supposed to be at those cliffs either, so he has no idea why he would
have been up there.
Except maybe one thing.
Michael had, I guess, told Constable Hardy that even though Scott was well-liked and
super smart and generally a very kind person, he had previously discussed suicide, and possibly even attempted
it once.
But when Steve hears them even considering this, he is more confused and concerned, because
he hadn't seen or heard any red flags with Scott's behavior, and he didn't know about
any previous suicidal ideation or attempt.
So he starts asking questions like, okay, well, have you checked his phone records?
What are his friends saying?
Have you talked to the people at his school?
Was there a note?
Did you find his wallet?
Because Scott always carried
this one specific wallet with him.
But all of Constable Hardy's answers are
less than impressive because he says that
in addition to Michael, he spoke to one of Scott's professors
but like that was it. And professors, but like, that was
it.
And granted, I mean, it's only been like a day or two, but apparently that's all the
investigating they've done.
So it kind of dawns on Steve as he's talking with the constable that Scott's case has pretty
much been closed.
Like, it's clear they believe he died by suicide.
And then Constable Hardy says something that throws Steve off.
He asks, quote, Did you know your brother was homosexual?
What does that have to do with anything?
Well, apparently to Constable Hardy, a lot because he tells Steve that the cliff where
Scott's body was found was known to be a common place where people would go to die
by suicide, especially, he says, members
of the LGBTQ plus community.
What does that even mean?
I mean, does this place have a history?
Well, so, Constable Hardy later says that a few people had died by suicide nearby over
the years and he'd previously seen some same-sex couples in the parking lot.
Okay.
But like, that's it.
Yeah, and he's just putting like two and two together.
But I don't think there's like an actual real correlation.
Certainly nothing like studied or documented.
But all of that to say, Constable Hardy is pretty clear in that he thinks this is a suicide.
Now understandably, Steve wants to go see the cliff.
So Constable Hardy takes him there.
It's only like three or four minutes from the police station.
They park, they walk up this wooded path, and they come to this outcropping with a steep
drop to the rocks below.
And as he's standing up there, Steve can't help but wonder, what if someone else was
responsible for Scott's fall?
It's not like there's anything there.
I mean, he doesn't see anything.
It's just this feeling that he can't quite shake.
But it doesn't seem like police are interested in doing much else, especially when Scott's
autopsy comes back and it doesn't indicate that he was assaulted.
Based on what he sees, the pathologist rules Scott's death a suicide.
And that's that.
The case is closed.
But Steve still has that feeling.
He knows in his bones that this just doesn't feel right.
So he tries to retrace Scott's movements to see if he can piece anything together,
starting with Michael.
Now, from the sounds of things, it doesn't seem like Steve knows Michael super well.
Michael's originally from Australia, and he and Scott met when they both went to Cambridge
in the UK for grad school.
And I know that Scott and Michael had visited Steve in the US, but I don't get the impression
that Michael and Steve were super close on their own.
But regardless, he goes over to Michael's parents' house there in Sydney, where Scott
had actually been staying while he was in town, and where Michael is staying now that he's in town too.
And the two take a walk together.
And on this walk, Steve basically asks what happened.
He says he doesn't blame Michael at all, whether it really was suicide, homicide, accident,
anything, but he just wants to know what happened on top of that cliff.
Is he suspecting Michael of something?
I don't think so.
I think he's just like feeling the pressure.
I think he's asking all the questions.
He just wants to know more about everything. Yeah.
Yeah. But I mean, if you were Michael,
I can understand like it rubs Michael the wrong way.
He basically walks back inside the house,
tells his parents that Steve just accused him of killing Scott.
I don't know if he did or I don't know if that's like what Michael heard
from the questions, if that was his perception.
I mean, like you gotta imagine all these emotions
are so heightened right now.
Yeah, everyone is grieving.
Yeah, and I'm learning more and more as I get older,
everyone processes everything through their own filters.
So it could have come out of Steve's mouth one way,
or maybe it did come out exactly how he heard it.
I don't know, and Michael doesn't really clear it up.
He's stayed out of the vast majority of the reporting surrounding Scott's case.
So I don't have his side of things.
All I know is that after this confrontation, Michael's mom tells Steve that he is no longer welcome at their house,
which makes Steve panic a bit.
So he hops on a flight back to the U.S., but he can't just let it go and move on.
I mean, this is his brother. He has to do something.
So he starts by typing up everything he had written down while he was out there.
Like he was like feverishly taking notes with every meeting, every interaction he had, and along with those notes
he writes out a bunch of questions that he and his family have for the police.
And when he's all done it, all of this is compiled,
he sends this 50 page document over to the police
with all of the notes and all of the questions.
And he also has a bit of an ace up his sleeve.
You see, Steve's best friend is in politics
and it just so happens that he knows
then Senator Ted Kennedy.
So somehow, word of Scott's death gets to Ted,
and Ted Kennedy sends a letter to the U.S. ambassador
to Australia and asks them to look into Scott's death.
And they do.
What a connection.
I know.
It makes you wonder if we'd even be here
if Steve didn't have that really,
really high up connection like that.
It makes me wonder how many cases we've never heard about
because they didn't.
Yeah.
So after that letter is sent, investigators announce
that there will be an inquest into Scott's death
and it's set to kick off in March,
which feels like a step in the right direction.
But, there's always a but.
Almost as soon as Steve's hopes are up, he is let down
and so is the rest of their family.
Because at the inquest, Constable Hardy testifies
that everything he saw at the scene
and knew about Scott pointed to suicide
being his manner of death.
And Michael testifies that Scott
had attempted suicide in the past.
So the coroner, after hearing all of this,
agrees that Scott's manner of death was
suicide.
And after this, Scott's family is just kind of left to pick up the pieces.
The ruling leaves everyone wondering how they could have missed any of the warning signs.
They feel like they let him down.
And even though Steve still has something in him that's doubting, he also has a family and a life
that he has to keep living in the States.
Steve and his wife go on to have a second
and then third child,
and for over a decade,
Scott's case is considered solved and therefore closed.
That is, until Steve gets a letter from Michael in 2005 that opens everything back up.
Michael's letter and the article attached to it says that police are renewing their investigations
into the murders or mysterious deaths of six gay men who died from 1987 to 1990,
two of whom were found dead
at the bottom of cliffs.
Now, Scott's death isn't in this list.
He's not one of them.
And these cliffs that these other men were found at
weren't even the same ones that Scott's body was found by.
But still, this feels huge to Steve
and the rest of the Johnson family.
So once they get this news,
anyone who thought Scott's death might have been a suicide are convinced.
Like, no, maybe Steve's feelings at the beginning were justified.
Maybe Scott really was murdered.
And what's even better is that Scott's case is being investigated separately by the New South Wales police.
Except, problem, it's hard to reopen an investigated case when you can't
even find the file.
No.
Yes. Which wasn't necessarily a concerning response the first time that Steve called.
Like, oh, you know, we're like, we're looking for it. Okay, old records. It's been a while.
But he calls back every few months and every few months. We're looking for it. We're looking
for it. We can't find it, but we're looking for it. We're looking for it. We can't find
it, but we're looking for it.
Don't tell me they got rid of it when his death was ruled a suicide.
That's exactly what happened. I know. But Steve, he's not going to let it end there,
right? Like, just because you can't find a file doesn't mean that it's over. And who
do you turn to when you have nothing else? Like, who is really good at digging stuff
up when no one else can find anything? Journalists.
So, through a mutual friend, Steve gets in contact with this investigative journalist
named Dan Glick.
And if that name sounds familiar to anyone, it might be because he's actually best known
for doing a lot of the coverage on the Jean-Béné Ramsey case.
But Dan agrees to look into Scott's death.
And at first, he's really upfront with Steve.
Basically, he's like, look, if I think Scott died by suicide, I'm going to tell you that.
Like, I'm not like working for you, I'm working for Scott basically.
But if I think he was murdered, I will go all in.
I will investigate like Scott was my own brother.
So in May of 2007, Dan gets on a plane and heads to Australia.
And he starts by trying to get a lay of the land,
a sense of the community,
and particularly hear from members of the gay community
who were around back in 1988.
And what he finds out is that the cliffs where Scott died
were known to be a place where men could meet up
and have sex.
They call it a beat.
Is that where the comments from Constable Hardy came from,
do you think?
I don't know, because like police are that the Cliffs were a beat at all.
Oh.
So no, like again, the Constable Hardy stuff was like just his own weird assumptions, but
no.
Okay.
Anyways, so now Dan can't help but think, okay, Scott was found naked.
He was at this known spot.
Could he have gone there in the interest of hooking up with someone and then was met with foul play?
And if that's the case, who was he with?
Like that's the next natural question.
So Dan decides to go to Michael
to see if he can answer that question
or any of the questions.
But Michael is not interested in talking.
From what Dan gets out of him,
it sounds like he and Scott
were in a pretty committed relationship,
but Scott had had sexual encounters outside of Michael while they were together.
And I couldn't find if Michael was cool with that or not.
I don't know if that was like an arrangement they had, so I'm not going to assume one way or the other.
But from what Dan can gather, it is a possibility that Scott had gone up there with the intention of hooking up with someone.
Though, even after talking to Michael, no clue who that might be.
Now while he's in Sydney, Dan is able to put together a pretty detailed timeline of
Scott's final week before his body was found.
He learns that on Saturday, December 3rd, seven days before he was found,
he celebrated his birthday at Michael's parents' house there in Sydney.
On Sunday, the two went to the beach, and then on Monday, Michael went back home to
Canberra while Scott stayed in Sydney because he had a meeting with his professor about
his dissertation.
That meeting happened on Wednesday, and after that, they have confirmation of him using
an ATM there in Sydney.
It seems like at some point after that he went back to
Michael's parents house because Michael's sister remembers hearing him
come in late that night and then the next day she saw him in bed in his room.
But as far as anyone knows she is the last person to have seen him alive. But
she's not the last person to talk to him, because later that morning, his professor
got a call from Scott to go over his dissertation, and they set another meeting for the following
Wednesday.
Then, that same day at around noon, a friend of Michael's had called the house wanting
to talk to Michael, but Michael wasn't there, so this friend and Scott chatted for a bit
before hanging up, and that friend says that Scott sounded totally fine.
The conversation was perfectly normal.
But that phone call, that is the last time anyone heard from Scott.
And then fast forward to two days later, that's when his body is found at the bottom of the
cliffs.
So do we know how he got to the cliffs?
No, this was a question I had too.
It could have been public transportation.
I don't know if he had a car.
I mean, there's nothing in the source material that says where exactly in Sydney Michael's
parents live.
So I don't even know if it's feasible for him to walk or ride a bike there.
Now to go back to Dan and his reporting, while he's doing all of this digging, he also starts
talking to local reporters.
And one person he talks to is so invested in what he's doing
that he writes an article about Dan
and why he's investigating Scott's case.
And at the end of the article,
the reporter writes that Dan's interested in speaking
to gay men from the area who would have been around
like in the late 80s.
And this article stirs up a bunch of leads for Dan to follow
as well as an influx of media attention.
And not only do numerous men come forward
confirming once and for all that the Cliffs were a beat,
others tell Dan about the horrific levels of violence
that they lived in fear of.
Even though homosexuality was decriminalized
in Australia in 1984,
it was still super dangerous to be openly gay.
In fact, assaults on gay men were disgustingly commonplace in the 80s and 90s, specifically
with the rise due to the AIDS epidemic.
And so much so that there were these groups of people who would specifically go to these
beats in Sydney and surrounding areas looking for men who they presumed were gay just to assault.
Oh my God.
Yeah, so after he collects this information,
Dan goes to the Unsolved Homicide Unit
and he basically says,
hey, I have all of this information
that at least suggests that Scott's death
might have involved foul play.
Can you, I don't know, look into this?
But the Homicide Unit refuses,
saying that Dan's a civilian
and that they only get new info like that from the police.
But I thought they were looking into this case
or at least wanting to, they just couldn't find their files.
Like, this is a tip.
I know.
What would they do with a tip?
I know, like, oh, and how are you supposed to find it
if you're not doing anything
because you're waiting for the files that you can't find
and he went out there to get information
because you didn't have your file.
Like, it's the weirdest catch-22. Yeah, who are they supposed to get information from if not civilians?
Yeah, so Dan asked the unsolved homicide folks like okay
How can I get the police to actually investigate and he's told well you can't because of the inquest ruling
They don't investigate suicides. So they're just going around and around in circles.
In circles.
Yeah, it's like a giant figure eight.
So once Dan gets back to the States,
he and Steve review what they have.
They put everything into this 12 page report
summarizing what they know,
but the report doesn't do anything.
Like nothing happens from it.
And so everything is quiet on Scott's case for years
until the internet brings the case
back to life with one single Facebook post in January of 2011.
That's when Dan gets word about someone who posted an article on a Facebook page called
Gay Marriage Rights in Australia.
And you know how you can write something above where you link to the article?
Yeah.
I love how I'm explaining Facebook like I'm 100 years old.
Anyways, the post said, quote,
as this is a fake profile and I have an IP address blocker,
I will publicly admit to killing Mr. Johnson.
When Dan sees this post, he doesn't even bother with the police.
He sends the post straight to the coroner and she responds and tells him they're on
it.
Oh, I wasn't expecting that response after all the run around they've gotten.
But is he like friends with the coroner?
Is this a connection?
They've never been helpful before.
So I guess how is this different than like working with the police versus the inquest?
I don't know. It seems confusing. So I guess how is this different than like working with the police versus the inquest?
I don't know.
This seems confusing.
I think by going to the corner, he's like skipping some of the bureaucracy, all the
round and round with police.
He's like sliding it under like a door and like, hey, look at this.
Basically, he's trying to slide it under the door of the person who might be able to actually
do something.
But I don't know that that matters, slide it under whatever door you want, because to
me it seems like it's more of the same, because it's just silence that he gets for months.
But Dan and Steve at this point are tired of the silence, they're tired of waiting.
So Dan actually gets on a plane and goes back to Australia to see if he can dig anything
up or make something happen.
Once he arrives, he meets with an inspector at
the police department who tells him that they're trying to track down the person
who made the post, but it's been difficult and they don't have the name
of someone. Although in the end they're like, you know, we're gonna run all this
down, but it might just be a hoax. But like that's not the only point of Dan
coming out, right? Because he's like, okay fine, even if this is a hoax, look at all
this other information I have, everything that we put together when I was here in
Australia the last time. But the inspector says like, yeah you know, we
reviewed the case in 2007, there's nothing there, end of story.
Just when I thought we were finally getting somewhere.
I know, it's frustrating, but stick with me. Eventually police do find the person
who made that post, and as expected, it actually wasn't real.
It's someone playing a cruel joke.
But the post does actually do some good because it gets people talking about Scott's case again.
And in April of 2012, Steve gets a phone call from the police saying that there's gonna be a second inquest.
And at that second inquest, the coroner makes makes an open finding saying that Scott's case needs to be
Investigated more because there's not enough information or evidence to make a ruling one way or another
so at that point the case is finally referred to the unsolved homicide unit and
finally officially reopened the route that it had to take I know get here
I know it's felt fast for listeners, but we're talking
1988 to
2012 yeah, and in all that time Steve and his family never have felt like they've had a victory this feels like a real
victory in what has been a series of defeats and it's now that he feels like he can finally take a little bit of a break
From the constant fight to find out what happened to Scott to take a little trip.
He and Scott had climbed the Matterhorn in the Alps before he died, and it was always
somewhere that Steve wanted to scatter Scott's ashes.
But between not knowing what happened and the fight to find answers, he didn't feel
like there had been a right time until now, of course.
So he climbs the mountain with Scott for the last time and takes
that moment to scatter his ashes at the top. But once he climbs back down, he finds that his fight
isn't quite over yet. The Unsolved Homicide team has had a boatload of other cases to work too,
and they tell Steve that they'll get to Scott's
when they get to it, but honestly,
it'll probably be three to five years before they do.
What?
Oh, and by the way,
they say it's a zero on the solvability index.
Which I'm sure just makes them super excited
to jump in and work it.
Yeah, Steve gets the feeling that they aren't really
gonna take Scott's death seriously,
not without some public pressure to keep them accountable. Yeah, Steve gets the feeling that they aren't really going to take Scott's death seriously,
not without some public pressure to keep them accountable.
So he and his family go to work.
They put together these binders with a timeline of Scott's death and their notes, and they
mail them out to basically every high profile member of government they can.
We're talking members of the Australian Parliament, the mayor of Sydney, basically anyone who
holds public office.
And it does not go unnoticed. They actually get to meet with a few of the people that they sent
these binders to, and all of this makes the police mad. Especially when they drum up enough
press to get the attention of a popular TV show called Australian Story. They contact Dan and
the Johnson family because they want to do an episode on Scott's death. Well when this episode airs in February of 2013,
it does two things. One, it gets people even more invested in Scott's story and
two, it makes the police look terrible. For instance, Michael's sister is
interviewed, the one who saw Scott in bed that morning. And she says that during an interview with police,
the officer who collected her statement asked her
if she knew that her brother was gay.
And she's like, yeah, obviously I did.
And then the follow-up question was, do you still love him?
Excuse me?
Yeah, her reaction too, and mine when I heard it.
And this is a great example of the overall attitude the New South Wales police brought
to their investigation and their potential bias towards the LGBTQ plus community.
So after this happens, the Johnson family organizes a press conference, but the police
are like, you know what, like, how about we do a press conference instead?
Trying to get ahead of some bad press?
Maybe, because at this press conference, they decide to announce a reward for information,
and they say a task force is being formed to look into Scott's death.
What do we always say about Squeaky Wheels?
They get the grease.
They get the grease.
I know, like as a family member, you can be pissed off at me if you're going to do your job.
Like, because you weren't doing it before when I was like, you know, just waiting.
So things are finally going in the right direction.
An investigator named Pam Young is selected to head up this new investigation or task
force, whatever, and possibly even help smooth things over.
So both Steve and Pam are invited to meet with the Minister of Police in the Parliament
House, which is like a big freaking deal.
And when they go, he seems invested in getting answers too.
But Pam just kind of repeats the same line the Unsolved Homicides team told Steve, like,
yep, we're going to do our best, but you have to remember there's other cases too.
There will always be other cases.
Cases don't stop.
It's something you said when you talked about Darlene Hulse's case.
Of course, there are new ones.
But Scott's been waiting how long?
When do we get to look into his case?
When does he get?
Yeah, and don't get me wrong, he's not the only one who deserves justice and to jump
the line.
I mean, the number of cases to resources is a huge problem everywhere that needs serious
help.
It's not like there's just one grand solution. And like you have to start somewhere. Like start with a case.
Like nothing is going to happen unless someone starts doing something or honestly until we
start talking about it more. Everyone's like, oh, don't bash police. Like when you do wrong
stuff, I'm gonna tell you you're doing wrong stuff. But like if we're not talking about
the problem,
it's never going to get fixed.
Yeah. Now, one of our primary sources for this episode
is a docu-series on Hulu called Never Let Him Go.
And in it, Pam explains that they have over 600 murders
or suspicious deaths to investigate,
and she doesn't want to just push Scott
to the top of the list when over 600 families
and loved ones want answers too.
And she points out that unlike the Johnsons,
not all of these families can afford to put
money towards a private investigator or have connections with the quote unquote right people
like Steve does.
Because Steve runs a very successful company.
He can afford to fly back and forth from America to Australia.
He's put so much money into the search for answers for his brother as is.
So she's coming from the perspective of all victims are equal,
and she can't just drop everything for a family
who can afford to drum up this attention.
She says that she's also looking at all the media coverage
and seeing that all of it was almost all centered on Steve
and her focus wasn't Steve and the media campaign,
she's focused on Scott.
But then she also says she didn't want to do something immediately because of the public pressure.
Wait, she didn't want to do anything because of the public pressure?
Yeah, she basically said that she wanted to wait for it to like die down, which fine.
Like if it's too hot, again, first of all the public pressure is what got you here.
So like, I don't know, I could go in circles.
Does she want people to think that public pressure doesn't work?
Because it, it does.
I think there's just like a spotlight on them. And so like everything is going to be examined
backwards and forwards.
More closely, yeah.
But like, again, okay, if not now, then when? Because I think Steve is a reasonable guy.
He knows there are other cases that need attention. He even gets the media thing,
even if it doesn't totally make sense to me.
Because again, I think you would want public attention after this long.
Like, don't you want people to come forward?
Because what else are you working with?
You lost the freaking case file, whatever.
I don't know. All Steve is looking for is an assurance that his brother's
case will be properly investigated in a timely manner.
So after this meeting, he tells Pam that he's going to be Australia for a few more days and if she wants, he can swing by
her office, give her all of his notes, the stuff that he's taken, Dan's taken,
everything they've compiled, but she's like, nah, you know what, I don't think
I'm gonna be ready for your notes by the time you leave the country.
Just take the damn notes, Pam. Stick them in a folder. What in the world?
Steve leaves Australia yet again, hoping that there will be an actual investigation this time.
And according to Pam's statements in the documentary,
there is.
They re-interview people, including Steve and Michael.
They look into violent offenders in the area
where Scott died.
And eventually they do accept Steve's notes.
All the while though,
the media and public interest in Scott's case just grows.
So much for wanting it to die down.
And it's not just Scott's death either.
As people start to look into other possible hate crimes, they find that there were at
least five to six murders of gay men in Sydney per year for over 10 years. That's at least 50 to 60 murders.
Some are solved, some are unsolved. But a few of these families actually get in touch with Steve,
who sees similarities in their loved ones' murders. Another thing that comes from the media
attention is that there's this Facebook page that's established called Justice for Scott Johnson to
keep people updated. But it's also a place where people can send in tips to Steve and Dan if they don't feel like they
can go to the police. And loads of people come forward through this Facebook page with their own
stories of survival. Some of them can even name the person who attacked them. And so slowly,
Steve and his family start creating this database of victims, of perpetrators,
arresting officers, locations, descriptions of the attacks, who's connected to who.
Honestly, it is pretty impressive.
And eventually, they have a list of about 50 people who were confirmed to have been
part of these groups that would go out and assault gay men in and around some of the
northern beaches in Sydney.
Are they sending all of this to Pam?
Well, they want to give it to her in person.
So actually in March of 2013, Dan and Steve head to Australia yet again to meet with her.
And Dan goes as far as to make a PowerPoint to show her everything that they've put together.
But of course, it doesn't go exactly the way that they planned.
They do their whole presentation and present their whole database,
then diagram showing who's connected to who and all,
like who committed assaults together.
But Pam is not pleased.
Her reaction is basically like, we're the police.
We investigate, not you.
OK.
But Pam, have you investigated?
Did you know all this already?
Is this all old news or?
Well, I know that at least some of what they present is new,
but either way, I mean, this whole presentation
just like rubs her the wrong way
and it ends up creating even more friction
between Steve and Pam.
In the documentary, one of the big issues she takes
with all of this research that they've done
is that it seems like there's a difference
between what she considers a source
versus what they consider a source.
And this part I kind of understand.
So like for instance, if Dan thought one person
heard that someone they knew had assaulted a gay man,
he considered that a source.
And if that person
then went out and told four other people, those people were considered sources too.
So Dan was like, that's five sources. To Pam, that's only one source.
Which is like kind of fair. I get it. But it doesn't change the information itself.
It just means you have leads to vet, right? Yes, yeah.
I think the icing on the cake though, so like what she's saying, the words are like they
make sense, but the problem is like during this time in the documentary when she's talking
about this whole PowerPoint thing and this meeting, she's laughing.
What?
And she says she can't help but laugh because to her it's so funny and it just comes off
really disrespectful.
Sorry, Pam. He doesn't know how to be an investigator. He's having to figure it out because the department
who was supposed to have helped him for years just hasn't shown up for him.
Agreed. But she takes the info, takes the names, says that they start running those names through a search.
So at least she's doing something with it. And they basically said the way they're like filtering this is that like they're going
to run these names and if a person has been charged with a crime that was violent, she
and her team would look at where the offenses were located, what the MO was, and then they
would go out and actually interview these people if they felt that there could be something
there.
So on paper, the logic makes sense of how they're like going through this list. Problem is, what Dan has been hearing directly from some of the people interviewed by Pam
is that Pam and her team did do this and they would go talk to them,
but it didn't feel like a very impactful interview.
It felt more like she and her team were just there to check a box
so that they could say they talked to them and then just move on.
Now all of this growing tension finally comes to a head when Steve gets an email from Pam
saying that she and her team find it offensive that Dan is following up with people she'd
already interviewed.
She says that the police are trustworthy and that her team is fed up with the oversight
that they're getting from the Minister of Police.
She even says that the homicide commander told her
that they felt like, quote, pawns in a political game.
When Steve gets this email, he and his family are so pissed
that they file a complaint against Pam with the ombudsman,
which for those of us who aren't Australian
is basically a person or group that looks into complaints
against government agencies.
And then he also publishes the email, which results in, oh yeah, major backlash against the police.
Yikes. This is such a mess.
It really is. By early 2014, Pam and her team are wrapping up their investigation.
Steve and Dan wait with bated breath for the report, and when it's released, they are
flabbergasted.
It's 450 pages, which is just wild, but Steve reads all 450 of them.
And basically, the report not only says that they ruled everyone out and that suicide was
a strong possibility, but it also mentions that Steve had been critical of Scott's sexuality,
which could have contributed to his decision to take his own life.
Is that at all true?
Well, Steve rejects the idea that he wasn't supportive of his brother wholeheartedly,
especially the implication that that had something to do with Scott's death.
The only thing I could find that even came close to this,
there was an instance where
Michael told police that whenever they went to visit Steve and Rosemary, that they weren't
allowed to share a room.
And in that reporting, it says Rosemary had said she wasn't going to have any of that
in her house.
But in an article by Nicole Chettle for Australian Broadcasting Corporation, Steve rejects this
and says,
It's not that they were against the two of them being there together,
it was simply the fact that he and Rosemary only had a couch for the two of them to sleep on and it could only fit one person.
But I think it's hard to assume Scott's perspective or interpretation of anyone's choice words.
Now the report also mentions that Steve had paid a witness, something that he also entirely rejects.
He explains that as part of Dan's investigation, Dan had spoken to an
expert on graffiti. I don't know why because I haven't seen graffiti
mentioned literally anywhere else, but after speaking to this expert, Dan
offered him 200 bucks to do some additional research for them. So I don't
know like where all that fits in. In the Hulu documentary, Dan says it feels like Pam and her team
just took everything they said, everything they did, and twisted it to make them look as bad as possible.
Like it wasn't about finding out what happened to Scott anymore. It was about making Steve and Dan look bad.
But that doesn't mean the worst part.
It seems like the police want to get ahead of the media storm once the report is out in the world because
police want to get ahead of the media storm once the report is out in the world because Pam goes on to a popular talk show and basically just rips into Steve and everything he's done.
She discusses their broken down relationship, how Steve used his money and influence in
the government to push Scott's case above other cases that needed attention too.
This all feels sucky, but the interview and the report end up actually being a bit of
a blessing in disguise because it causes a lot of backlash and the coroner removes Pam
from the investigation.
Not only that, but the coroner also orders a third inquest.
And this is the first time a third inquest is being ordered in all of New South Wales
history.
Oh. Yeah, it's a big deal.
And by then, the Johnsons have hired a lawyer there in Australia,
this guy named John Agius.
He has a history of prosecuting this big police corruption case from the 90s,
and he's not here to mess around.
He comes out swinging at this inquest, which begins in December of 2016,
and the coroner hears everything. Now, I said it begins in December of 2016, and the coroner hears everything.
Now, I said it begins in December of 2016,
it ends in November of 2017, almost a year,
and the coroner in that time finds that Scott was, in fact,
most likely murdered in a hate crime.
They believe that two or more people happened upon him
and that he was either pushed or fell
trying to defend himself or get away.
Specifically, the coroner points to the fact that Scott's wallet was never found and he always had it with him.
So if it wasn't with his things at the cliff and it wasn't at Michael's parents' house, then where was it?
This ruling is huge and it actually coincides with another major movement in Australia's history.
Because a few days later, same-sex marriage is legalized across the country.
In that documentary I've been referencing, it states that there's a link between the amount of press that Scott's case generated and the visibility of the marriage equality cause.
Scott's case and increased interest in getting justice for the hate crimes in the 80s and 90s
contributed to the Australian people's push for marriage rights for every couple,
not to mention the push for justice for the victims.
So after the inquest, the New South Wales police reopened the case,
and an investigator named Peter Yeomans is assigned as lead investigator.
He puts together a team he can trust, and over the next year, he stays in touch with
Steve and his family, which that alone massively appreciated.
I was gonna say, which has never happened for Steve and his family before.
The bar is low.
But this guy does more than just, like, meet the low bar.
He seems like he's really serious about solving the case, because in December of 2018, it
is announced that the police are offering a million
dollar reward for information. That's huge. I know and I'm not sure if they get anything from that,
but in February of 2020, Peter reaches out to Steve with some news. They have a suspect
and they're gonna need Steve's help. Steve is asked to drum up some more press.
They ask him to put up his own reward and he agrees.
He offers up another million dollars, doubling the reward to 2 million.
And then to up things even more,
Peter tells Steve to announce that they only have one suspect.
Basically to build pressure on that
person.
So Steve does.
And whatever play Peter is making here, it paid off.
May 12th, 2020, Steve gets the call that he has been waiting literal decades for.
They've made an arrest.
A 49-year-old man named Scott White is arrested and charged with Scott Johnson's murder.
And what's interesting is that Scott White's brother had actually been on Steve and Dan's
list of potential persons of interest because he had been convicted of assaulting a gay
man in the 80s.
So they had been so close before.
They had.
But even if they would have talked to him back then,
I don't know if they would have actually gotten him.
Because what cracked the case wasn't some big clue in the file that was overlooked.
It was actually a letter that Peter got in 2019 from Helen White, Scott White's ex-wife,
saying that she knew someone who committed a bunch of hate crimes in the manly area around
the time of Scott's murder. And that someone, of course, was her now ex-husband Scott White.
They learned that Scott White had a history of substance use, alcohol use disorder, domestic
violence issues, and he'd been put in prison for assault in the past, specifically against gay men
in the manly area. But that wasn't even why Helen wrote to investigators.
She remembered a specific instance in 2008
when she read an article about Scott Johnson's death.
And she went and asked her husband
who she was still with at the time,
if he had been the one to kill him.
And Scott White didn't deny it.
In fact, his response was that Scott Johnson
ran off the cliff.
Basically admitting he was at least there.
Yeah, but his wife didn't believe
Scott Johnson's death was an accident.
I mean, even back then, she was convinced
that if Scott White was there,
then he definitely would have pushed him.
But she didn't come forward
because he apparently had threatened to kill her.
She also told investigators about another instance
where she, Scott, and another man
had gone to drink down by the wharf in Manly.
And Scott asked this other man
to go down to the sand with him
because he wanted to show him something.
But then when they got down there,
Scott turned on this guy and attacked him.
He forced this other man to take off all of his clothes,
but he didn't let the guy just drop his clothes on the ground.
Do you know where this is going? Do you know what he did?
Oh, my God. He made him fold the clothes.
He made him fold the clothes neatly.
I was just trying to figure out, like, okay, we're getting closer,
but why were Scott's clothes, like, folded so neatly?
Holy shit.
Exactly.
And they learned that Scott wouldn't just assault these men, he would also steal their wallets.
Now, as they're getting information from Helen, one of the things she did is she drew some
of the wallets she remembered seeing, and one of them looked eerily like the one Scott
always carried.
Now all of these connecting dots were great,
but without any forensic evidence or a confession from Scott White himself,
police didn't have enough to arrest him back in 2019 just with this letter, right?
So they needed to get him to admit to the murder.
And to do this, two officers went undercover and approached Scott,
saying that they had a plan to get the $2 million reward
for information about Scott Johnson's death.
They said their plan was to pin the blame on someone else,
but first they needed Scott to tell them exactly what he did.
Oh, so this is kind of like a Mr. Big Sting.
I had the same thought.
It's not exactly the same, but it actually is super close.
So Scott agrees to this plan. He takes them both up exactly the same, but it actually is super close. So Scott agrees to this plan.
He takes them both up to the cliffs, points out exactly
where Scott Johnson went over the edge.
And this in itself was huge because North Head
is a pretty big place.
So only the killer theoretically would know exactly
where the crime happened.
But he went into detail about how he punched Scott,
how he went over the edge.
He said he tried to grab him, but he couldn't.
And the best part of all of this is they got all of it on tape.
Now, when they brought him in for questioning, at first he denied it altogether.
Then he said that Scott Johnson hit him.
Then he claimed he'd been forced to say what he said to the two undercover officers.
But again, you have it on tape and the recording doesn't support that.
Right.
Did they ever find out why Scott Johnson was up in the cliffs in the first place?
I don't think anyone knows for sure.
All Scott White says is that they had met at a nearby pub and then they walked up the
cliffs together.
And then once they were up there, Scott Johnson took off his clothes and they got into a fight,
which led to Scott White pushing Scott Johnson over the edge.
But he never says why he killed Scott Johnson in particular, but he does explain why he
attacked gay men in general.
It took a long time for Scott White to come to terms with his own sexuality, but he told
investigators he is gay too, but he did not grow up in an accepting, loving environment
in the least.
I mean, he came from an abusive home where being gay was basically a death sentence,
and he had been sexually abused as a teen by a man who would trade him drugs or money
for sex.
And so this fueled his internalized hatred for himself.
And with the steep rise in assaults on gay men, he joined in. So, I mean, that
combined with all of his drug use.
It was just a recipe for disaster.
Yeah. And honestly, Scott Johnson's family even recognized that. In her statement at
sentencing, Scott Johnson's half-sister says that the same system that failed her brother
also failed his killer, just in different ways.
Had Scott White grown up in an environment that accepted and loved him for who he was, who he is,
he may not have gone down the path that led to that day on the cliffs.
But she also explained that he is still very much responsible for his actions.
Even though he was failed, he still chose to go up there.
He still chose violence against a man
simply for being who he was.
Now in the end, Scott White does this flip-flop
with his plea, claiming he's not guilty after all.
He only admitted to it because he'd been confused
and stressed, and he was worried that his ex-wife
would quote unquote come after him.
But then the guilty plea ends up staying intact,
and Scott White was given a
reduced sentence of 12 years due to admitting his guilt, cognitive
impairment and his upbringing.
But just six months after that, his conviction is overturned.
What?
Yeah.
His lawyer had filed an appeal basically saying that he didn't understand what he
was admitting to and a judge agrees with that.
So after some back and forth, in February of 2023,
he pled guilty to manslaughter
and then was sentenced to nine years.
And while Steve says he does feel
like he got justice for his brother,
he also is not done fighting.
He actually wrote an article that appeared in The Guardian
once the inquiry was done.
And Britt, I'm gonna have you read this excerpt.
Yeah, it says, quote, appeared in The Guardian once the inquiry was done. And Britt, I'm gonna have you read this excerpt.
Yeah, it says, quote,
the pain our families have endured
from decades of anguish and personal denigration
cannot be quantified,
nor can the damage to the trust
between the NSW police force and the gay community.
The other victims' families,
still trapped behind the NSW police force stonewall,
must receive action now.
There are still dozens of families in New South Wales waiting for justice.
And as you can imagine, many families within the United States.
Scott's story might have happened in the 80s, but
what happened to him is not a thing of the past.
In October 2023, the FBI released a report on hate crimes within the US.
And I think some of the stats within it are important to share with you all. 2022 was the highest total record of hate crimes against the LGBTQ plus
community in the last five years. There was a 10% increase just from 2021 to 2022. There was also
a substantial increase of targeted crimes against the transgender community in 2022. The report notes a nearly 40% increase from the year before.
It shouldn't be dangerous to be yourself.
And to all my crime junkies out there who feel this, we are here to support you.
We're putting a bunch of resources in the show notes that you can check out.
But just so you know, these aren't resources just for people who are part of this community.
Knowledge is power, and all of us should be open
to education around issues,
even if we don't face them personally.
We are all neighbors, and we should know how to love
and look out for one another.
And on that note, AudioChuck is supporting
and highlighting NLGJA,
the Association of LGBTQ Plus Journalists,
which is an organization of journalists, media professionals, educators, and students
working from within the news industry to foster fair and accurate coverage of LGBTQ plus issues.
We cannot stress enough how incredibly important their work is, so we'll have a link to their
website in the show notes for those who want to join us in supporting them.
Their website also lists some amazing resources that we highly recommend any journalists covering
LGBTQ plus subjects check out.
And if you or a loved one is struggling with suicidal thoughts, help is available.
If you're in the US, you can call or text the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline at 988.
And if you're in Australia, you can call Lifeline at 131114.
Or text or chat with a trained crisis supporter on their website, crimejunkiepodcast.com.
And you can follow us on Instagram at crimejunkiepodcast.
We'll be back next week with a brand new episode. Crime Junkie is an AudioChuck production.
So what do you think, Chuck?
Do you approve?