To celebrate a breakthrough in his academic work, my brother Scott went to the dramatic headlands of Sydney, no doubt beaming about his bright future as he neared the conclusion of his mathematics PhD. Little did Scott realise he’d wandered into a place where law and order would not protect him.
Trusting and idealistic, Scott would never have fathomed being forced over the cliff edge only to have the police retrieve his lifeless body from the rocks below, inform the world there were “no suspicious circumstances,” tell his family that he fell in “a popular place for jumpers, especially homosexuals,” and then defend that story for decades no matter the evidence or our pleas for help.
Scott’s confessed killer was sentenced to prison last week. The sentencing marks a significant milestone in the pursuit of justice for Scott and serves as a testament to the determination of those who fought for the truth. And it provides a measure of closure for Scott’s friends and our family who have endured decades of pain and uncertainty.
Yet for the first 30 years after Scott died, police called Scott’s death a suicide. Fortunately in 2018 a small renaissance in the New South Wales police force enlisted fresh eyes outside the homicide unit who captured the killer with inspired police work 18 months after they began. The offender would have been on the shortlist of suspects in 1988.
Scott died at a popular gay beat only two kilometres from the police station. Police cleared the crime scene of Scott’s clothes without taking photographs or searching for evidence. When I arrived two days later, they’d closed the case. Careful not to mention the ongoing rampant anti-gay violence, the Manly constable stonewalled me until I returned home. In an inquest three months later, a senior detective testified it was “not a place homosexuals do frequent” insisting Scott had disrobed and jumped.
This is not a story of past indifference or bigotry. For decades, each time I returned, the police slammed the door. After a second inquest in 2012, the public started seeing the plight of this gay American as part of a scourge of violence the police preferred to ignore. Additional families came forward, and the list of possible victims grew. As public sentiment swelled, the police grew more determined.
The landmark Special commission of inquiry into LGBTIQ hate crimes reveals the police went to extraordinary lengths to close these cases. In 2015, anticipating the announcement of a third inquest, senior police prepped a reporter with their as yet unpublished internal investigation report to secure a television platform for defending their work on Scott’s case, diminishing the extent of anti-gay violence, and accusing our family of undue influence over police administration and politicians. The former officer in charge of Scott’s case said in 2015, “the original investigation was of the standard of the day” and accused the former police minister of having kowtowed to us. The special commission published texts by this officer and the chief of homicide that insisted they would “never let [the Johnsons] win.”
This same former officer told reporters on Friday she only cared that Scott’s case was inappropriately prioritised over the other victims. This would be more credible if her unsolved homicide unit had been investigating any of the other gay victims’ cases. But according to the special commission, they were not. Instead, it found that police had initiated a strike force to overturn the two Bondi cases that a coroner had deemed homicides. That secret effort closed the cases of John Russell and Ross Warren without informing their families.
These neglected cases deserve attention, and they can be solved. Raymond Keam’s 1987 killer was convicted of murder last week.
We hope Keam’s and Scott’s convictions signal a new era of the NSW police. However, the police will need more than two cases solved to prove they’ve changed.
As thespecial commission continues exposing the police culture that resisted providing justice to these LGBTQ+ victims, we can pray their recommendations in August will lead to action for these families and genuine reform of how the NSW police force serves and protects LGBTQ+ people and their families.
While our family is grateful for its own resolution, if dozens of deaths of gay men remain on the books unsolved without attention, the public can assume the NSW police force has not changed. These cases can and should be investigated. The police must redeem their past indifference with dedication today to solve them. There are killers still at large. Many may still be violent. They’ve had enough freedom. It’s time to find and punish them for what they’ve done.
• Steve Johnson is Scott Johnson’s brother. He lives in Cambridge, MA
