Scott Johnson hate killing arrest ‘remarkable’

Finally, after 32 years, there was hope of finding some answers to a confounding mystery over the gay-hate killing of Scott Johnson.

Police at Manly’s North Head on Tuesday. Picture: AAP

Finally, after 32 years, there was hope of finding some answers to a confounding mystery over the gay-hate killing of Scott Johnson.

NSW police charged 49-year-old Sydney man Scott Phillip White on Tuesday with the murder of Johnson, whose naked body was found at the bottom of a cliff at Manly’s North Head in 1988.

Police took Mr White from a home at Lane Cove in the city’s northern suburbs to nearby Chatswood police station for questioning, where he was later charged.

His arrest follows a clumsy initial police investigation and coronial inquest three decades ago which both concluded that the 27-year-old American, a mathematician who had migrated to Australia to be with his gay partner, died by suicide.

The change of mind – that Johnson was the victim of a “terrible gay-hate crime” – was the direct result of a dogged campaign for justice by his US-based brother Steve, two more inquests and the perseverance of NSW detectives from a small police cold case unit.

A reward for information leading to a conviction was boosted to $2 million in March this year when Steve Johnson, a wealthy technology entrepreneur, matched $1 million posted by police in 2018 with his own funds.

It remains unclear at this stage whether the reward – which will be paid only in the event of a conviction – played a part in police making an arrest. The lead NSW police investigator, Detective Chief Inspector Peter Yeomans, confirmed in March that police interest had narrowed to a “particular individual”.

Mr Johnson, who never believed his brother Scott killed himself, described the arrest from the US on Tuesday as “a very emotional day” for him, his family and others who had helped pursue his fight for decades.

He said Scott, who was a PhD student and staying with the family of his partner in Lane Cove at the time of his death, was admired not only because of his brilliance as a mathematician “but because he courageously lived his life as he wanted to.”

Police lead Scott Phillip White from his Sydney home on Tuesday. Picture: NSW Police

By conducting a thorough investigation culminating in an arrest 32 years later, NSW Police Commissioner Mick Fuller and the NSW Police Force were now “speaking to the gay community to say that times had changed – a recognition that all of us deserve equal protection and justice under the law and equal standing with each other without prejudice.”

Mr Johnson thanked Detective Chief Inspector Yeomans, who had “worked his heart out” for two years on the case: “Somehow with his small team during this pandemic crisis (he) managed to build this case and apprehend the alleged killer. It’s remarkable.”

At the first inquest in 1989, police wrongly said the cliff area where Johnson lost his life was not a “gay beat” area that could attract individuals or gangs intent on anti-homosexual violence. The coroner accepted the advice and recorded a finding of suicide.

A second inquest in June 2012 returned an open finding. Johnson’s death was not formally accepted as a murder until the third inquest in 2017 concluded he was thrown off the Manly cliff or hounded off it by people motivated by gay hatred.

The third inquest was told a gang known as the “Narrabeen Skinheads” had boasted about bashing an “American faggot” at the time of Johnson’s death. A witness, not identified, told the inquest that gang members had bragged about bashing a man they found lying naked and masturbating “at Manly or North Head near a beach” on a Friday night in mid-December 1988.

A redacted summary of the witness’s evidence said he came forward to police with the information in 2013. He allegedly told police that “every Friday night, the group would hang out” at the Narrabeen bus terminus on Pittwater Road, Narrabeen.

Scott Johnson climbing Mount Monadnock in New Hampshire just before his death in 1988.

“The group called themselves the ‘Narrabeen Skinheads’ and had shaved heads and wore either cherry red or black-coloured Doc Marten lace-up boots with bleached blue jeans and plain-coloured Penguin polo-style shirts with white or black-coloured braces.”

The summary said the group would buy a case of beer and travel to Surry Hills where they would find men at a toilet block that they thought were gay, and bash them. A group member said they “sometimes went to a gay beach in Manly looking for guys to bash”.

Strikeforce Welsford, investigating the case, arrested Mr White at 8.30am. It also executed a warrant to search another property nearby and conducted a forensic search of the North Head area.

Mr White will appear in Parramatta Local Court on Wednesday.