All language subtitles for Never.Let.Him.Go.S01E03.720p.WEB.h264-EDITH

- Twenty-five years
ago, my brother, Scott,

was found at the bottom of
a cliff in Manly, Australia.

My brother was gay and
he's...

Okay.

I always trip on the assailants.

- Yeah.
- Okay.

Twenty-five years ago,
my brother Scott...

It has been a part-time
job for decades.

We now believe he was thrown
from those majestic cliffs

by hate-filled assailants.

For the last 10 years,
it became very intensive.

Twenty-five years ago...

After the second inquest...

Investigation.

The police clearly wanted
to close the case again.

So, we wanted to double up
on, on, uh, public pressure,

um, pl... public
interest in the case.

Public attention's gonna
provide the ballast,

the momentum, the imperative,

so that the police would
finally do something.

My sister and I
worked on it together.

- Around the second inquest,
it felt important to me

to come and be a part,
and lend what I could.

I got married and cut
my honeymoon short

to come to Australia.

Becca,
who's a lawyer,

she had been working as a
lobbyist in Washington state,

and I remember leaving
one of the meetings,

I said, "How do
we break through?"

She just looked at me,
she said, "Pressure."

- I was like, well, my superpower,
my superpower is, um, figuring out

who can leverage pressure

on the people who needed to take
action, which were the police.

We made all of
these notebooks full of timelines

and all sorts of information
about my brother's death,

and we mailed 15 of these out to, uh,
the mayor and members of parliament

to see if we can get someone
to pay attention to the case.

- They reached out to
people like myself,

like the Lord Mayor of Sydney,
like the Police Minister,

uh, like the former
Premier, Mike Baird,

and met with us,

were able to explain the details
and the situations of the case,

their concerns about
the police handling.

It was quite
remarkable that we had

this American guy's brother come
to Australia and seek justice,

and, you know, Steve was
someone who did not give up.

Steve had fought
through frustration, I suspect,

and... believing he was
up against a stone wall.

Clearly, he wasn't gonna
break through the stone wall.

But what he worked out is,
how do I get around it?

How do I control,
uh, the narrative?

Steve had an American
accent and he had lots of money

to throw at the case,
and he didn't give up.

The New South Wales police
force had a real problem.

The American with the big, swinging dick
is influencing the way we do our business.

- All right.

- In early 2013, I was a detective
chief inspector at the homicide squad.

I did hear talk in the office
about Professor Scott Johnson,

who was an American citizen

whose body was found on
the 10th of December, 1988,

at the base of a
60-meters-high cliff

in a seaside suburb of
Sydney called Manly.

I joined the New South
Wales police force

after I finished
high school in 1984.

At the start of my career
in the homicide squad,

I was one of two women
of about 100 men,

and when I moved to the
unsolved homicide team,

I was the only female commander
of a staff of about 120.

So, at the homicide squad, I've
investigated and convicted murderers

of all sorts of crimes
relating to children,

relating to gangs,
organized crime,

bias crimes, serial murderers,

and also, covert investigations
against police officers.

I have no loyalty to
police, generally.

I have loyalty to the
issue and to the truth.

Early 2013, the
police force had heard

that Steve Johnson and
investigative journalist Dan Glick

were appearing in
Australian Story.

- For years and years and years, I
couldn't get anyone to answer the phone.

It's really good 'cause this,
this is gonna be historic.

But now, Australia's popular
television program Australian Story

got in touch with us.

They wanted to
cover Scott's story.

I had been
copied into an email thread

between the commander of the
homicide squad and his boss

raising their concerns
about how Steve Johnson had

run a very impressive
campaign to keep Scott's

death in, in the limelight.

Some of my bosses were concerned

that there would be criticism
in Australian Story.

And there was a lot of agitation
to get some action on it.

Ultimately, I was
given that case.

- Australian Story was this
beautifully done episode.

- Scott Johnson was a young man
with everything going for him,

a maths genius with
a bright future.

But on a trip to...
It told Scott's story

and said, "The police
have done nothing."

And this little slab over
there is right over there.

I'm extremely fortunate to be
able to fund my own investigation.

It's too bad that I need to.

I've never really
thought about the money.

It's not about the money, it's about
finding justice for my brother.

- Yeah, how 'bout that?
- We organized the family

press conference
for the next day,

so that we could address the
public after this episode aired.

- The story I heard was
that the police called

the ABC, the Australian
Broadcasting Corporation,

the day before the
show and he said,

"Just how much of a
shellacking are we gonna get?"

And, uh, the ABC person said,

"You know, I don't think you guys
come off lookin' all that good."

And so, the police
called us and said,

"Well, how 'bout if we
host the press conference?"

You had the
political class in New South Wales

putting a torch light on
the police and saying,

"Please explain, this
doesn't look right."

I felt as a gay man who represents
Sydney in the New South Wales parliament,

surely we must do better,

surely you must seek justice.

And so, I went and worked
with Steve Johnson.

I worked very closely with
Police Minister Mike Gallacher.

We were able to get a
reward put in place.

I was the Minister for
Police and Emergency Services

in New South Wales.

Therefore, I was accountable
to the parliament,

uh, and accountable to the
people of New South Wales.

When police have exhausted
all other lines of inquiry,

the police make
the recommendation

to the Minister that
the reward be provided

to restart the investigation.

I felt it was
appropriate in this case.

- The purpose of this
briefing is to announce

a $100,000 reward

leading from information into
the death of Scott Johnson.

New South Wales police
have announced a special task force

to investigate the
death of a Sydney man

who was found dead at the base of
a North Head cliff back in 1988.

Police have announced
a $100,000 reward for information.

- This is a significant milestone
in our quest for justice for Scott.

I think it's just the
beginning in many ways.

I feel we're finally back
to where we should've been

on December 10, 1988.

Australian
Story changed everything.

Like, everyone in the
country watched it.

You know, people
knew what happened,

people were asking what
the police were doing,

and that made such
a huge difference.

We'll go over there.

We'll, we'll be back here many
times, I think, this week.

Hang on,
guys... comin' through.

Keep going,
just close the gate.

I'll get you to go
through again, Steve.

- For the very first time in
the history of Scott's case,

there was suddenly a
lot of media coverage.

Steve Johnson
is a brother on a mission.

That's it.

- Oh, those are good.
- That's good.

Suddenly, Scott's
name became a household word

and I became a known figure.

Scott's story really captured
the public imagination.

People who have this
kind of information, um,

we're urging them
to come forward,

so the police can do a
thorough investigation.

- Rebecca, all
these revelations,

now a new police investigation,
and a reward being offered,

how does that make
you feel 25 years on?

- We're realizing that this is
so much bigger than our family

and so much bigger than Scott,

so it, it feels amazing
to be at this point.

Right after
the press conference,

I was invited to meet
the Minister of Police.

It seemed that somebody
in the police force had

given him a heads up there was
about to be some bad publicity.

Let's do something about
it, let's get ahead of it,

so he invited us to his office
in the Parliament House.

This one had actually
come from the police media unit.

They made contact with my office
to see if we had time in the diary

for me to meet
with the Johnsons.

And I thought this initial
meeting was a formality.

"The Minister signed
off on the reward,

it would be good for you to come
down and meet the Minister."

- We sat down with the person who's
just been appointed the officer

in charge of investigating
my brother's case, Pam Young.

- I'd never been invited to a
minister's office ever before.

I was... quite keen to go

because I was going to be the one
with the primary responsibility.

- When I first met Steve, he
didn't know me from a bar of soap.

He didn't know me from,
from anyone, right?

You can form opinions
very quickly with people.

Steve was, obviously,
well-educated.

He had thought
through this process.

He wasn't aggressive, he wasn't
demanding, he was, in fact, quite calm,

but it was clear from the very
outset that there were tensions

between, uh, the representatives of
the police force and the Johnsons.

- To say that, uh,
Pam Young was frosty

would be a little bit
of an understatement.

She was pushing back and saying, "Hey,
listen, we're not gonna just jump

because there was a television
program." You know? Understood.

The meeting
was quite surreal.

The Police Minister
and his staffers

were praising the efforts of Steve
to keep Scott's death in the media.

- This is a, I think,
a great opportunity

for the police to get on
the right side of history.

And encouraging
them to do more media

in Australia and also America.

The need might've been around the death
and the circumstances of the death,

but all the attention was
built around Steve Johnson,

the brother of the deceased.

But I just knew it wouldn't
change my behavior.

He was a next of kin

like hundreds of others.

It was clear from
the moment we sat down,

she had no interest in
working on this case.

The meeting went
for one and a half hours,

and when I realized that the
Minister wasn't going to invite

any commentary from anyone else,

um, I did make an effort to say
I would do everything I could

to find out what
happened to Scott,

but it would have to be
done at the same time,

as we were investigating

for other families because
they had lost loved ones, too.

That was my entire contribution
to that, to that meeting.

- And Minister Gallacher
basically turned to her and said,

"This man," pointing to Steve,

"is not gonna get on a plane
until he gets assurances from you

that you're gonna investigate
his brother's death."

- It was embarrassing to be invited...
To, to invite a victim and the family

into my office, the
Minister's office,

and then to... to see
a dismissive approach

in relation to
the investigation.

- I was a little bit concerned
at that level of pressure to

take s-specific action in
a... You know, immediately.

There was over 600 unsolved murders
or suspicious deaths on the books,

600-plus families who
would like an answer.

So, I felt we can at least be fair
and equitable to ev... to everyone.

Should we attend to those
people who can aff-afford,

uh, to raise a profile... uh,

so... relentlessly
as Steve Johnson did?

I just come back to the basic premise
that... all victims are equal.

Mike Gallacher was
very, very warm and reassuring.

The end of the meeting,
we stood up, shook hands,

and I said to Pam Young, "We're
in town for another few days.

We can come by and give you all
the materials that we have."

Because, at that point, we had been
working on this for almost 10 years.

And she said, "No, I don't
think we'll be ready for that."

Which I was a little surprised
about because it's very hard

to come back to Australia, but
that's, that's where we left it.

- I left that meeting

feeling very much that

Steve Johnson had impressed
so many... important people.

By important, I mean
the top decision-makers.

It's, actually... Yeah,
quite, quite impressive.

- We just left it
thinking, "Okay,

"they've been publicly humiliated
and, you know, on the ABC,

"they've publicly announced a reward,
they've publicly announced a strike force.

Let's see what's
gonna happen next."

It's a new game.

- Right from day one, it
was all hands on deck,

what we called "Strike
Force Macnamir"

because determining what happened
to Scott Johnson is not easy,

anything's possible.

When someone's died, it can
only be by one of four options.

So, a natural death,
perhaps a heart attack.

If it's not something natural,

then it's suicide,
homicide, or misadventure.

There is no other way to die.

Gaining a clear insight into the
victim's mind before they die

is very relevant.

So, that is why we did
extensive interviews

with Steve Johnson
and Michael Noone.

What may have operated
on Scott's mind?

What might have put him
in not such a happy mood?

How much he felt
accepted by his brother.

Hard questions are part
of any investigation.

And then, in Scott's
case, at the beginning,

we generated 13,000
information reports

for crimes in Manly
and surrounding areas.

Of course, we had all
the charge records,

and which violent offenders hang out
with who, and were they still friends?

In other words,

we had a full investigation
ourselves as Strike Force Macnamir.

Concurrent with that, of course, is
all, all the information that Steve

wanted to provide that we, we
accepted, of course, every time.

- Once Macnamir got
started, we realized

that there were people who
didn't wanna talk to the cops

that would talk to us

just like there are people that
will talk, talk to the cops

that won't talk to journalists,
for example, or investigators.

So, we were still
fielding different calls.

My son, Ruben, made
the trip with me that time

and was helping
document everything.

One of the remarkable
things that happened was

at least seven families
got in touch with me

because they saw something
familiar in Scott's story.

For instance, we talked to
the family of John Russell.

John Russell's body
was found over at Bondi

at the bottom of a cliff... a
few months after Scott died.

You
probably got 6,000 people

jog up and down
this path every day,

but there's a spot in
this path I can't go past.

- We grew up here, we hoped we
were gonna buy a house here,

and our kids would
grow up here, but

it just... it's tainted.

- Once the, the John
incident happened,

uh, you just saw the whole place
with a whole different set of eyes.

Well, I was about to pick
you up that afternoon.

We're gonna go out and

everything was
normal... and, uh,

I got called into the
office of the school,

and they said, "Oh... there's
two police officers here."

"Mate, you know, we need
you to come with us.

We think we found your brother."

They said he jumped off a cliff.

It never goes away.
It's always fresh.

At first, the police told John
Russell's family he probably jumped.

This had striking resonance with
what I thought Scott's situation was.

- I knew straight away he
hadn't committed suicide.

He had too much to look forward
to, he had too many plans,

he was about to inherit
all of the money.

Why do you think he would
throw himself off a cliff

if he's about to get the money
to change his whole life?

The police were that
homophobic at the time.

They just didn't like the gays.

You know, that wasn't something
that needed to be investigated.

I did, I did my suffering
and my grieving,

and I got to a point in my life where
I said, "Well... ya can't let it."

Very, very rough one.

So, that summer, we started
peeling back some of the layers of

these other cases
that had happened

and that's, that's the
story that I think really,

really started to get momentum.

- There was starting to
be a lot more interest

in gay hate crimes at the time,

and Steve's matter
was used as a catalyst

for that discussion
through the media.

It
became a big story,

not just about Scott Johnson.

It was about any number of men
whose deaths were unexplained

and who may well
have died violently.

- Thanks, Mary. Tonight...

There were
people like Ross Warren,

the newsreader,

who were well known, as well
as people who weren't known,

like the young Thai man,
Kritchikorn Rattanajurathaporn,

who was thrown off
the cliffs at Bondi.

But they were

the ones... I can
remember the names of.

I never knew the
names of most of them.

We're talking about maybe
five or six murders a year

for 10 years or more.

So, we're talking about,
at least, 50 or 60

men around Sydney thought to
be killed because they're gay.

That was the scale of it.

We reached out to
leaders of the LGBTQ community

because we saw them as allies and
also, that we could be allies to them.

And I remember...

I'm embarrassed that I said it
this way, but I remember saying,

"People will know
about the violence now,

and, you know, that was a secret,
the secret violence in the '80s."

And they were like, "Stop, no.

"We suffered that violence,
we knew about that violence.

We knew there were gay hate crimes
being perpetrated every day."

It just wasn't something
that was acknowledged.

- The work I did, I was not have been
able to do it without assistance,

um, and insight, and
doggedness, and tips

from a bunch of other people.

We started writing
everything on Facebook.

That led us this network of bashers that
were operating in the northern beaches

around where Scott died.

So, we had some of
the victims' names,

we had some of the
arresting officers' names.

We just kept adding
to our database,

what I called the dramatis
personae, you know?

And some of 'em were
peripheral characters,

some of 'em were walk-ons,
and some of 'em turned out

to be absolutely central.

- We've got, like, 97
persons of interest.

Forty-seven of whom we
could talk to today.

Like, what are the
police waiting for?

There were so
many of these bashings

that I think, at one point, we
must've had a list of 50 people

perpetrating violence at around 10
different northern beaches beats.

- Yeah, I think we've only
scratched the surface.

This weird picture is being
formed about sort of loose affiliation

of disaffected,
homophobic offenders.

These were really
violent attacks.

Some of the reports were using
metal rods, using claw hammers,

and then they would just go off on
their merry way and go get drunk.

- Australia should
be for white people.

- Skinheads were among
the ones involved

in northern beaches bashings,

and among those
were three brothers.

Erich Kuhn had two brothers,
Rolph and Hans Christian,

and the brothers would travel
throughout Sydney to bash,

and there's court documents
that back this all up.

Everybody knew Erich Kuhn
was a badass motherfucker,

and he ended up being murdered
and buried in his front yard.

That was kinda one group who were
bashers around the northern beaches area.

And another group was
the Vojka Spadina group.

Dan kept sifting
through court records

and he found dozens
of accounts of

one gang called
the Spadina Gang.

They had been convicted of
dozens of counts of gay bashing

at five different
beats all around Manly.

These were all incidents
that happened in '86,

they were convicted in 1989.

The first court date
was December 7, 1988,

which is the day
Scott disappeared.

The same week Scott died, they
were involved with this trial.

I don't know exactly what
happened in Scott's last hours,

but on the bounds
of probabilities,

Scott Johnson had been murdered at
a gay beat because he was a gay man

by people who...
routinely bashed gay men.

In March, Steve and I arranged to meet
Detective Chief Inspector Pam Young.

I remember staying up
really late the night before

and building a PowerPoint.

I don't think I'd ever
done a PowerPoint before,

but I created this kind of Venn
diagram of all these bashers.

You know, like circles in where one
guy would be in two circles, you know,

'cause we knew that they knew each
other or they bashed together,

and I open up my laptop,

you know, this
fabulous PowerPoint,

and she said, "That is not
what we're here to discuss.

We investigate.
We're the police."

- Dan Glick had done a
very nice PowerPoint.

Sorry, I can't. I just gotta
smile while I come to this.

Sorry, it's making me laugh.

It's making me laugh and I
haven't even told you yet.

It fills me with such...

It's just so funny,
though.

Dan thought that if,

let's say one person
heard at a party

that one of the schoolmates had
gone out and bashed a gay man,

Dan identified that as a source.

If that source told that same
information to four other people,

Dan counted that as
having five sources.

I remember having to explain
that really is only one source.

- She just was dismissive.

She was dismissive of
anything and everything

that we wanted to
bring to the table.

I really think Dan
Glick is very excitable around

finding intrigues and, uh...

Which r... did result
in some information,

but I... I even find attaching
the word "investigator" to him

a bit troubling
from my perspective

as far as law enforcement
investigators go.

- We had given them 60
persons of interest:

beat users, bashers, suspects.

She didn't want one scrap
of information from us.

Any name we got,
we would do a cops search.

If that person had been
charged with violence

or certainly, gay hate violence,

we would then look at where
were the offenses located,

how did they commit them?

Then, it was a matter of
going out to find them.

I was really surprised how
many of them said to the team,

"Yes, come in."

'Cause they're not required to,

but they all did.

They all gave statements,
yeah.

But none of the information
that they provided

could be tied back
to Scott Johnson

either by their involvement
or anyone that they knew.

We were getting calls
from some of our sources

and frankly, some of the impressions
weren't all that, you know...

positive.

You know, they felt
like they were being

boxes that were checked off,

talk to them.

Not, "Could they give
some more information?"

Not, "Was this true?"

Not, "Do you know anybody else?"

I mean, they're just
really perfunctory.

Certainly, there were
multiple gay hate offenders,

mostly teenagers, mostly
boys, but some girls,

who had a terrible attitude
towards... homosexuality.

If I couldn't directly tie them
into something about Scott and Manly

and North Head in that period
of time, I just let them be.

- Our approach was to
play nice and share.

Whenever we got more leads,

we would just keep turning
'em over to the police.

And honestly, our feeling was they
were just tired of us doing this.

They were just tired of us, you
know, raising more questions.

"What about this guy?
Did you talk to this guy?

Hey, we heard that
this guy was a basher."

What we
found repeatedly was

those statements didn't
produce anything solid

that built towards, um, proof

that there'd been
involvement in Scott's death.

And none of
them linked to Scott Johnson.

- None.

The police were
not forthcoming with us

about these conversations
they were having.

They seemed to be hell-bent on
getting this nailed back shut,

and we never really
could understand why.

Did seem very personal.

It was Pam Young
versus Steve Johnson.

Steve was very keen to be
told, specifically, what we were doing

quite regularly in detail,

and I just do not tell
any civilian those things,

even if they are next of kin.

Uh, and it was,
uh... It, it really,

um, got to him that I-I
wasn't releasing details.

Steve Johnson started
CCing my bosses as well.

It really affected my morale.

After this went
on for a few months,

I wrote to Pam Young and I copied
her boss, the head of homicides,

about her hostile
treatment of us.

Why are the police treating...
our family this way?

- Why are we having
to do all of this?

Why can't you just do
what you should've done?

And it was hard for Steve
and me, as a couple,

because it's like a Band-Aid being
ripped off over and over again.

It was right
here in this spot.

We... sometimes come here to
see if Scott will talk to us,

tell us what happened.

I wanted him
to be able to get to the other side,

whatever that looked like.

I just wished it
could be over for him.

At one point, I learned
that potential witnesses

were contacting my team to say,

"After you were here, Dan
Glick came and talked to me,

"and he asked me to tell
him what you had asked me.

Should I tell him
what I told you?"

Uh, so, that happened
on multiple occasions.

After a while, I
was really annoyed,

and so, I wrote
an email to Steve

saying that it was actually
offensive to professionals like us

that that was being done.

And that resulted in a
complaint to the ombudsman.

And it also resulted in
conference calls with my bosses.

And he, Steve,
published my email

in the media.

And so, I was writing about the
fact that there was open hostility

between Steve Johnson and
the police force at the time.

The police felt rightly or
wrongly that they had been,

sort of, improperly
pushed into a position

where they were giving undue
attention to this one case.

In quite indiscreet language, I
understand, he was, Steve Johnson,

was the sort of guy who
might drop this to the media,

and he did, he dropped it to me.

The email exchanges
were pretty hot,

and it was, clearly, a
hostile relationship.

- With Steve, there was
an absolute disconnect,

something I've never had
happen with next of kin.

I do remember a switch from

Steve being the focus back
to Scott being the focus.

I developed a sense
of Scott having been

such a gentle, warm,
interesting person.

He was my focus for,
for continuing really.

We kept presenting new
information and just being shut down,

and I was back home,
and I got this email,

another email out of the blue,

"Are you the guy to talk
about the Scott Johnson case?"

I said, "What's up?"

And so, "Freddy," which was
our nickname for this guy,

all of a sudden, he's telling
me about Vojka Spadina,

and a bunch of other people
who all bashed together

in twos, and threes, and fours.

This was stunning
for a number of reasons.

One of them was that we had
never mentioned Spadina,

the newspapers had
never mentioned Spadina.

It was a completely
out-of-the-blue confession

that this guy was a member of a
gang that we prominently suspected.

- He didn't claim that Scott Johnson had
been murdered by Vojka Spadina or him,

he didn't have any firsthand knowledge,
but he had firsthand knowledge of the M.O.

And that they had bashed up at
that beat where Scott had died.

Dan wrote up his notes and
we sent pages of notes to Pam Young,

and said, "Maybe you
better check this guy out."

And they wrote us
back a note that said,

"None of this does us any good
unless he tells it to us."

Fair enough.

Freddy chased his own tail a
few times and finally said,

"Okay, I'll go to the police."

And he did.

- We thought, this
is it, you know?

This is g... This is going
to, um, pan out after all,

and, uh, fancy Dan Glick
being the, the source,

so it was all positive.

I ended up talking
to him several times,

and Rebecca and I
interviewed him together.

- I don't even have words to
describe what that was like.

I mean...

we were at a restaurant.

I was sitting across the table

like... this far
from this person who

might've been there
to k... who, who

might've been a part
of killing my brother.

"Oh, my God, what
am I doing here?"

Ugh.

I remember him saying, "You're really,
like kind of kicking the hornet's nest

of a lot of really powerful people
and they can find you anywhere."

It felt like a threat.

And then, I was leaving
and he was like,

"You should come out for beers
with me and my mates this weekend."

I was like, "No."

- We, of course, interviewed Freddy and
they did a walkthrough of North Head.

Freddy was very
animated in helping us.

He showed us where

he and his gang would
look for gay men.

They made their
way up to the wall.

There's a gay beat up there,

but he did not show us
anywhere near the cliff edge.

He did not show us anywhere

near where Scott's
body was found,

but we really... felt
we'd made progress.

You know, we've got someone on
North, North Head who's, who's

confessing to... doing something
that might, might have included

assaulting Scott.

We were asking for detail like,

"When did the gang
commit the crimes?"

The offenses, he said,
were all at nighttime.

North Head at nighttime
is pitch black.

Another question was, "Can you
describe any of the victims

any of you ever bashed?"

And if I remember correctly, he
didn't understand the question.

So, I-I said, "Well,
do you remember...

"Was there... Were
any of them bald?

"Or did any of them
have a mustache?

Can you provide any physical
description of them at all?"

And his answer to that was no.

We weren't going to just
write it off there either.

We did do covert operations

regarding the whole
group's telephones.

The hope is... that they panic,

they get on their phone to their
mate, and they... might have said,

"Remember that
guy at North Head?

Well, the cops have just
been here. We've gotta talk."

You know, the... a-anything,
anything, anything at all.

There was just nothing.

December 2013, her
boss wrote to me and said,

"Now we're winding
down to the end.

"Pam Young and her team
are just about done.

You'll be getting a final
report in a couple of months."

The coroner sent
us a copy of the report,

and Team Scott U.S. convened
at my house for three days

to pore through the
450-page doorstop.

It was one of the longest police
reports anyone can remember seeing,

and it was... not
only a smokescreen,

but a sabotage of this
case from beginning to end.

My body was in this, like,
heightened emotional state

while I'm reading all this,
and every page meant something

because I-I am so
ensconced in every detail,

all these persons of interest.

They had ruled out
everyone, including Freddy.

And the suicide theory
is still very prominent.

I was
required to address

the three heads of
possible cause of death.

So, suicide,
misadventure, or homicide.

I let the coroner know
that I was inconclusive,

in my view, as to
how Scott had died.

I have thought that
Scott may have suicided.

I, certainly, hadn't got to a point
of eliminating it as a possibility,

but, uh, not a sole possibility,

so he could've tripped
and fallen over,

or... perhaps, been
murdered at North Head.

But I could never say that I know,
absolutely, Scott did not suicide.

It is not possible.

And then I see that,
apparently, I'm paying witnesses.

She recites this situation where
Dan was talking to this guy.

He knew what graffiti meant

and there were some things
we could learn from him.

And Dan offered him $200
to do some research for us.

That was featured
in Pam's report

to indicate that we were
tampering with witnesses.

- That was the kind of thing
that she took and twisted,

and, and tried to make into
a, sort of this nefarious,

you know, almost like a cartoon
caricature of an American millionaire

with, like, Daddy Warbucks' money
falling out of his, his pockets.

I mean, it's just,
uh, ludicrous.

Yeah, Steve spent a lot
of personal money on this,

he paid me money for it,

but he never paid a source,
he never paid a politician.

And on the other
side of the ledger,

we saw the kinds of
lengths that they went to

to try to prove the
suicide theory, still.

That Scott's family and notably, Steve,
was critical of his homosexuality.

So, that's why Scott
would've killed himself.

It was just, like,
a leap of logic

that's this, you know,
beyond, uh, my comprehension.

- If I was a relative, I
could feel very strongly

that Scott was not the
type of person to do it,

that it was impossible
for Scott to do it.

But as an investigator,

the, the fact that someone
believes something very strongly

isn't a fact, it's not evidence.

My office was concerned about
getting on the front foot

of a media release.

So, the plan that was authorized

on the ABC, which is our
national broadcaster,

turned out to be Emma Alberici
and the Lateline program.

- American PhD student
Scott Johnson...

Heading
into the interview,

I'm feeling very
confident and relaxed,

and feeling that, really
for the first time,

we, Strike Force
Macnamir, me personally,

is allowed an opportunity
to show the public that

we weren't as bad as
perhaps had been made out.

That night,
I was in Sydney.

The team and Dan Glick and
I huddled in my hotel room

to watch this Lateline program.

Pamela
Young, welcome to Lateline.

- Thank you.

- Steve Johnson has told us
that you, personally... have

displayed open
hostility toward him.

- The fact that our relationship
has broken down is, is a point

of sorrow for me.

It has never happened with
any other, um, next of kin,

as we call them, never, ever.

In fact, Mr. Johnson always
struck me as someone who

was quite determined
to have one outcome,

um, that he used influence,
including, I consider,

influence on the government,
to make the death of Scott

a priority in my office
over other jobs that we had.

I felt he had that thought
if I wasn't with him,

then I-I was against him
and that was never the case.

- You talked about the
influence Steve Johnson has had

over the government and others.

Where do you think
that comes from?

- Well, I first saw it in the
office of the Police Minister,

at the time, Mr. Gallacher.

He, um, called me in for a
meeting after he'd arranged it

with the Johnson family.

And, um, I... my input
wasn't invited or welcome,

but, um, I saw a lot of what
I would describe as kowtowing

by the Minister and his staffers
to Steve Johnson in particular.

- She accused the Minister of Police,
Michael Gallacher, of kowtowing to me.

- I found it, um,
very unsettling,

and I have nev... I
haven't seen that before.

I was being honest, in my view, my
interpretation, of what I'd seen.

I thought the Minister would
just see it as my view.

Not, um, protocol
and not, not routine.

I thought it would be water
off a duck's back for him.

I-I actually thought
that, clearly very naive.

- And you think
that was improper?

- Im... Absolutely improper,
absolutely improper,

wrong on every level in relation
to homicide investigations.

Victims are equal.
It was very wrong.

- Pamela Young, thank you
very much for coming in.

- Thank you, Emma.

I thought
it was disgraceful

saying, somehow...
we did the bidding

of the rich and the famous,

which was absolutely...
factually and totally incorrect.

I know the difference between
courtesy and kowtowing.

What the Johnsons
got was courtesy.

What I got was embarrassment.

- The day after Lateline,
the boss rings me

about 9, 9:00 in
the morning and,

and says that, um, he'd watched the
Lateline, that he thought it was good.

At about 1:00 on the same
day, I got another call,

and he said everyone
was panicked,

that the media unit of the police force
follows what is trending in the media,

and, apparently, Lateline
was not going down well.

You've gotta
go into investigations

with an objective view.

But at the end of the day, um,

confidence of the coroner was no
longer there for her to be there.

- Um, I was told in
front of all my staff.

I found out later

the police had
provided statements

to lawyers saying that they...
took no part in the approval

of my Lateline interview.

I think I entered a
period of, um, days.

I was completely ostracized.

But I was determined
not to let my team down

with another important
investigation, which was happening,

but I really did need a rest.

So, eventually, I did put in a
request to take some time off.

I went home fully expecting to have
a rest and come back, but that...

God, I'm...

God.

I can't even say that
that was my last day.

- She basically lit
herself on fire.

She proved everything that I'd
been saying about her hostility.

It was such a gift.

And the coroner said, "We're
gonna have a third inquest

and we're gonna f... Get
to the bottom of this."

The coroner ordered that
an unprecedented third inquest

into Scott Johnson's
death should be held.

This is the first
time in New South Wales history

that a third inquest will be held
into the death of one person.

- And... we were back at it.