Three miraculous words transformed everything for Steve and his family

Fifty days into home quarantine, on May 1, 2020, my wife Rosemarie and I received an email from NSW Police Commissioner Mick Fuller saying, “I want to Zoom with you in the morning”.

On Saturday morning, Sydney time, Fuller was uncharacteristically grinning from ear to ear. Seeing Rosemarie, he called his wife Andrea to his computer to introduce her. We exchanged hellos, and Andrea said, “I’ll leave you all to it”, bowing out so her husband could share the news he was bursting to tell.

Fuller proceeded, “We’re going to make an arrest a week from Tuesday”, words Rosemarie and I will never forget. They were about to catch the killer. Hearing it from the commissioner gave it even more gravity. “Now,” he continued, “when we announce the arrest, I want you to control the press, Steve. Since you cannot be here, I’d like you to make a video. We’ll put out a press release and your video when we’ve made the arrest.” Then he added: “I’ll wait 24 hours before making any other public statement. This is your pinch, Steve.”

Steve and Rosemarie Johnson on the Zoom call with Commissioner Fuller.

With the utmost grace, the NSW Police Commissioner was yielding credit for the long-awaited arrest. He was giving me the spotlight. After so long battling the police, the top cop was putting me out front. Rosemarie and I, teary and trembling, thanked him profusely, and double-checked every detail to be sure we’d heard it all accurately. It was all true.

I hired a videographer and recorded a three-minute video for the commissioner. My long silvery COVID hair made clear I was no longer the 29-year-old I was when Scott had died. I was now 61, passionately thanking a long list of people who had brought us Scott’s killer. I said a few words about my beloved brother, and then I became unexpectedly tearful. The video ended with my holding my hand to my head and emotionally walking off camera. Commissioner Fuller said it was perfect and added it to the media file for release upon the suspect’s arrest.

Rosemarie and I spent the next anxious week keeping the imminent arrest secret from everyone but our three children, who were locked down in their own homes nearby. On Mother’s Day, May 12, 2020, we waited together on Zoom and watched the hours tick toward 6 p.m. Monday evening, which was 8 a.m. Tuesday morning in Sydney.

Then my iPhone lit up with: offender in custody. Those miraculous words transformed everything. My family went from searching to successful. From pleading to knowing. To the one lucky family who had an answer. I’m sure Zoom had transmitted few tears of joy that year, but tears were pouring out of the Johnsons that evening. Our family virtually held each other, kissed, laughed, jumped and cried. We tipped champagne glasses against our computer screens. Our family had rarely rejoiced so hard. My 25-year-old Tessa posted a long Facebook message I’ll never forget, that started with: “I couldn’t be prouder of my father.”

True to his word, Commissioner Fuller waited a full day before holding a press conference. In the 24 hours after the arrest, my interviews and short video were the face of the story around the world. I had no trouble showing emotion in every conversation. It was a wholly unexpected, thoroughly welcome ending to our 32-year journey. At his press conference, Commissioner Fuller opened with “I want to apologise to the Johnson family and the gay community for the three-decade wait.” It was the first time any NSW police commissioner had officially apologised to the gay community or to me.

Fuller kept his promises while downplaying credit for the amazing capture of my brother’s killer during a worldwide pandemic.

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Detective Chief Inspector Peter Yeomans had arrested a man they named as Scott Philip White, an alcoholic, indigent 50-year-old residing in public housing a few suburbs away from Manly. He was born Scott Newman and had taken his wife’s surname when he was in his twenties. We were stunned to learn we’d had knowledge of the killer all along: the suspect and his brother Shane were, in fact, Da Manly Boys, the teenaged gay bashers who had been on our short list of gangs since 2007.

Scott Newman was just eighteen years old when he killed my brother. We’d focused on his younger brother Shane, who was regarded as a basher by age 14. Yeomans remained circumspect about the arrest and the crime, careful to protect every detail to avoid risking that a conviction would fail. But he sketched the contours of what had happened for me.

He told me White had met Scott at the Brighton Hotel near the Manly ferry, and they had, according to White, walked to the cliffs at North Head together. Yeomans said White had been married with six kids and then divorced. He was “a very bad man . . . this wasn’t his only incident”. White told police he was gay, but Yeomans doubted it, thinking he was attempting to make the encounter seem consensual rather than a premeditated act of robbery or violence.

Police arrest Scott Philip White.

It was unusual to strike alone, so I was fixated on why White had attacked Scott solo if it was true he had no accomplice. I asked Yeomans if White had killed Scott to prove something to his brother or the other teens. Yeomans said, “I don’t know. We might never know what drove this man to kill your brother.“ For more than a year, that was all he could tell me as he prepared for trial.

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I left my house to clear my head with a run, piloting toward the Longfellow Bridge to talk to Scott. When I arrived, I looked out across the Charles River that runs between Boston and Cambridge where we’d enjoyed many runs and city walks. I smiled remembering our make-believe missions fighting villains when we were young. Now, we’d conquered the dark forces of Oz, of prejudice, politics, blood oaths and brotherly bonds. We’d done so with no training or special weapons but by gathering allies who were as steadfast as we were, just as many of the valiant heroes of our storybooks had done.

Our band was Sue and Steve, Saul and Chris, John and Vivian, Dan and Martha, my family, and now the incomparable Yeomans, Breda, Carey and Fuller. We’d survived all the trials. Good had prevailed. Trust had won.

“Scott, I love you,” I said to my beautiful brother. I looked out again at the shimmering water passing below and suddenly felt a deep sadness. “Damn you, Scott,” I cried. “Why did you ever leave?”

This is an edited extract of A Thousand Miles from Care (HarperCollins) by Steve Johnson.

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