All language subtitles for Never.Let.Him.Go.S01E04.720p.WEB.h264-EDITH

- Um, my dad's
taking this footage.

It's really the only surviving
home movie that we have.

There's Scott.

Scott was fairly
fearless all of his life.

Scott just wanders off.

And my dad followed him,

and he clearly doesn't care that
he's nowhere near his parents

or anyone else he recognizes.

He's just havin'
a nice little walk

at the county fair.

And who the heck knows when he
would've finally decided he was lost.

Well, I've been living with the
mystery of what happened to Scott

for over 30 years now.

Uh, he was my best friend.

In many of the most
important ways,

we were inseparable.

Dad never stopped.

And I just can't imagine

going through the uncertainty
that my dad has gone through.

I mean, it's affected
everything about my dad's life,

and me and my siblings'
lives, my mom's life.

I did
spend a lotta time by myself

when he was away, and my
kids didn't have him there,

or they had to see their dad
really sad or really angry.

- I think my dad is just a f... A
fundamentally different person today

than he would've been
without this loss.

Don't know if my dad
would ever stop trying.

And, and I love him for it.

Understanding
what happened to my brother

was as dear to me as possible.

If there was somebody
involved with his death,

I needed to bring the person
to justice, whatever it took.

And I knew Scott would've
done the same for me.

Yeah, it's straight ahead,
and there's a wall coming up

and there's a hole
in the wall...

Twenty-six years is
a long time to hold out hope,

but Steve Johnson
has it in spades.

- So, this wall... really provided sort
of a privacy barrier, um, to the beat.

We think that the police
spent a lot more time

looking for evidence of suicide

than for evidence of violence.

Um, we had submitted more than
50 names of persons of interest.

Uh, the police... talked
to all of those people

and we think...
single-mindedly ruled them out.

- They'll be questioned at this
third and hopefully, final inquest,

as well as several gangs who are known
to have bashed gay men in this area

at around the time
of Scott's death.

Don't forget, the
first inquest was a day, not even.

It was a couple hours.

The second inquest was a day.

And so, it was unfamiliar
to us that we were gonna get

a really thorough
examination of the evidence.

- This was gonna be a big deal.

And we went shopping, uh,
for a lawyer in Australia

and, uh, we kept hearing
the name John Agius,

that he is the best there is.

And we finally got him on the
phone and he interviewed us.

And he said it
was not quite up his alley,

but he said he, he,
he would take the job.

- Steve was thoroughly committed
to Scott in, in every way.

They were like twins.

They lived each other's
lives to a great extent.

I was concerned about him
maybe not understanding

how difficult the
road was going to be,

that the police
would... come together,

and that they would
be very hard to crack.

John had earned
a name for himself.

He's one of the most famous
barristers in Australia.

During the '90s,
there was commission

that was looking at corruption
in the New South Wales police.

And John Agius was one
of the main prosecutors,

so he cut his teeth
on police corruption.

- That was a culture
that... had to change.

And we came to learn a
lot about police culture.

- So, here we were at the cusp of
this extraordinary opportunity,

not only to really get to the
bottom of what happened to Scott,

but also shed enough
light on the scourge

of violence against gay men

that maybe we'd help the
other victims as well.

Essentially, the
police's position was,

"Haven't we done enough?"

And our position
was... "No."

We didn't expect

that we would be able to
identify the perpetrator.

We thought that we would be able to
identify a number of different gangs

who conducted
assaults on gay men.

And our plan was to create
such a wave of information

to convince the coroner

that, uh, this was
more likely than not

to have been the
result of a homicide.

Arriving to Sydney
in December of 2016

for the inquest was monumental.

Medium-sized courtroom,
but that was packed.

It was as packed as
it possibly could be

with observers and lawyers.

- it was suicide.

And by the way, every
single day of the inquest,

pretty much every media outlet
in the country did a story.

All eyes were on the inquest.

- gay men.

- The...

The...

I'm a celebrity for
about five minutes.

Every time I come here, I'm
a celebrity for five minutes.

I got to sit in at
the entire proceedings

and see some of these people I had only
read about in my own investigating,

ya know, being
cross-examined by John Agius.

Aside from the jurisprudential side
of it, it was just astounding theater.

The court heard a
string of former bashers.

You had
some chilling evidence

from other persons of interest,

including... the guy
who gave testimony

about two men boasting of
bashing an "American faggot."

- He said that sometime
in December of 1988,

two of my friends came in

and there was a little
blood on one of their shoes.

They didn't say they killed him,

but it was a naked
"American faggot" who was

sunbaking on this
rock up at North Head.

When he testified, he
actually remembered

that there was a Christmas
party the following Friday,

and that nails approximately
the date that Scott died.

So this was an extraordinarily
important, um, testimony.

The skinheads at Manly
were really quite scary.

They had a strong
culture of being anti-gay

to the point where a good gay
person was a dead gay person.

There was one member of that group
who was called to give evidence

who had put a pet budgie
in a microwave oven.

And just from my own
experience at the bar,

when you come across people
who are cruel to animals,

it's a red flag about their...

What their attitude
would be... to humans.

At one point, we
had gotten some information

that he had this
Grim Reaper tattoo,

and the Grim Reaper became
kind of symbolic of homophobia.

So, at one point, John Agius
asked him if he had a tattoo.

And he said, "Well, yeah."

He was kinda surprised
that we knew.

And he said, "Do you
wanna show it to us?"

And it was like, rips his
shirt off, and he says,

"What do ya think? Thirty
bucks back in the day."

The homestretch of the inquest...
were the... Spadina gang.

We discovered that
a member of that gang

had a brother who was, uh, well-known
to the police as a drug dealer.

And we suspected that there
were illicit relationships

between that brother and
certain members of the police.

It turned out that we
managed to get him to admit

that he had a special relationship
with two detectives at Manly.

We knew about
the endemic corruption

in the New South Wales
Police Department.

And we had linked some
of the offending officers

with some of the gay
bashing and gay bashers.

We had to ask the question,
"Is there a connection?"

I don't wanna spin out and
get on the grassy knoll here,

but at some point... we have
all these pieces of information,

put 'em together, ya know,
there are a lotta dots there.

Ya know, I still
can't connect 'em.

But I am still willin'
to ask that question.

- What role did the police... police's
financial relationship with the teen gangs

have to do with their
ignoring Scott's case?

DUNCAN McNAB: Steve and Dan had
this sort of conspiracy theory

that Manly Police
was full of crooks.

But to try and hook it
into Scott's murder,

I just don't think works.

Steve's a regular bloke,
he's not an investigator,

and that's part of the problem.

He wanted to think that Scott's
death was part of a bigger plan.

He wanted to think that there
was some darker purpose involved.

It's fabulous to have a theory,

but you really need to have
some evidence to support it.

I mean, conspiracy
theories, wonderful.

And they're great stuff to sit around
and pop and have a drink and chat about,

but show me the evidence,
show me the story,

prove every step to
get to that point

because the reality is
that most criminal cases

are the result of
something really simple.

That was about as far
as we were allowed to push it.

And... basically, the
lights went down, um.

That was the, the end of the
formal part of the, of the inquest.

Because the coroner
had been so opaque,

we had no idea what
he was gonna say.

Our team knew that if he kept
it open, it was over for us.

My guess is we would never get
an investigation from the police.

And if he called it a homicide,
we had a pretty good shot,

but that would be
about the best outcome.

As a result of considering
all of the evidence,

I conclude that it is very likely
that gay hate crimes were committed

at the relevant location at
around the time Scott died.

Two or more persons
came upon Scott naked

and engaged in such
violent conduct towards him

that he was either pushed over the
cliff or fell while trying to escape.

I am persuaded that Scott Johnson
died as a result of a gay hate attack.

There is, however, insufficient reliable
evidence to identify the perpetrators.

I'm extremely grateful.

On a personal note,

our parents died not knowing
what happened to their son.

They'd be very pleased with the
justice... that was brought today.

Was a, a feeling
of great relief

because we had all
been so committed,

and this had become
Steve's life.

- Keep encouraging the
police to do the right thing.

- The police have clung to the
idea that this was a suicide

the way, uh, you would cling
to a piece of driftwood.

Now, is their opportunity to
show that they can investigate

a cold case and to investigate
it a... it as a murder.

A few days later,
after the inquest,

uh, we're still in Australia.

Australia legalized same-sex
marriage... nationwide.

- Our Prime Minister
in the mid-'90s said,

you know, "Two men and a cocker
spaniel do not make a family."

So, there's been some
significant changes.

- It's official.

The Same-Sex Marriage Act
has just passed Parliament.

- History has been
made in Parliament

with final approval for
national same-sex...

- It's important to understand
that there was a clear link

between the Johnson
case and the campaign

for marriage equality
in Australia.

You know, it was a case where
the visibility of gay men

and the injustice that we
have historically faced

was really given a
lot of attention.

I'd
always had some faith

that the world can be changed.

Eventually, eventually...
things changed.

The whole country, the
whole world moved on.

And at that point,
there was no going back.

DAN When we got the
results in 2017,

I felt... like that's
the end of the story.

There were
lots of moments

when I wished that he
would put it behind him.

And I think that everyone in my family
has had moments where we've thought,

"When will it be enough?"

I held in my
heart, like, we won.

This might be the end, and
we got an acknowledgment

that Scott was the victim
of a gay hate murder,

and that that
needed to be enough.

'Cause I couldn't see... a
possibility that the police would

do the job that they
should've done in 1988,

in 2007,

in 2013.

At
the end of the day,

I felt glad that, at last,
Steve had got the outcome

that he was looking for.

But I still, deep down inside,

believed that the finding of a third
party being involved in Scott's death,

and subsequent arrest and
charging of that person,

I thought would be very
difficult for the police.

You know,
there's an old saying,

"When you're goin' through
hell, just keep goin'."

Ya know?

And, uh, Steve, you know,
his perseverance was amazing.

I can't recall finishing that inquest
and then saying, "Okay, what's next?"

I mean, I think we all had a sense that
we had reached the end of the trail,

uh, on this, I certainly did.

I didn't, I didn't anticipate
what happened next.

- Well, good morning. Uh, welcome
to the Police Executive Office.

And I-I'm... Pleasure to
say I'm joined this morning,

uh, by Mr. Steve Johnson.

The principal, uh,
announcement today is

that we will be putting
up a million-dollar reward

for information that leads
to an arrest of an individual

or individuals who
are responsible

for the death of Scott Johnson.

And think about that. If you
know who committed this crime,

if you know who was at
the scene at the time,

there is a million
dollars on the table.

New South Wales Police has been
actively reinvestigating Scott's death

under the hands of a very experienced
detective, Inspector Yeomans.

- I've been in the New South
Wales Police now for 43 years.

Commissioner Fuller rang me

and asked me to investigate,
uh, an old homicide.

I said, "Am I the fourth
person you've rung?"

Only for the fact that I thought
other people would, would say no.

I actually was very moved and honored
that I was asked to do this case.

When you look at an
investigation like this,

you're entrusted by that family, so
you've gotta do more than your best.

Commissioner
Mick Fuller said,

"You asked for fresh eyes.
Detective Yeomans is fresh eyes."

And I said, "Don't take
this the wrong way,

but I'd like to hear you say how
you thought my brother died."

And Peter Yeomans said, "Your
brother died... from homicide.

Your brother was killed."

And I said, "That's the
first time I've heard

a working police
officer say that."

And I was warming
up to Peter Yeomans.

This crime has
gone unsolved for 30 years.

It's the 30th anniversary today.

Someone knows about this crime.

Maybe many people
know about this crime.

And we would implore
people to come forward

and tell us what has happened.

I think a lot of police thought
that this case would never be solved.

So, you've gotta be meticulous
in what ya do with everything.

I was lucky enough to be
able to choose my own team,

and I chose a number
of investigators

who I consider are probably

the best investigators
I've ever worked with.

In particular, Detective
Senior Constable Tim Carey,

Detective Sergeant John Breda.

You couldn't get two better men.

I was aware of
the Scott Johnson matter.

It had been in the
media quite a bit.

I knew that would be a very difficult
investigation to recommence.

But, uh, any-anything is
possible, as, as I always say.

And this is no different.

There was tens of thousands of
documents and statements in this brief.

There was three
coronial inquiries.

So, we sat down and
read everything.

And you don't have a
preconceived mindset,

but we also thought that somewhere
within that investigation

could've been the person of
interest in relation to this case.

We threw the net quite wide.

First bit was, it's
always been reported that

Scott Johnson's clothing
was folded neatly,

and where he was killed was
just up from the army barracks.

So, one of the things we did was
looked at all the army personnel

that were in and around the, uh,
area during that period of time.

But that didn't lead anywhere.

There had been a lot
of information that had come in.

You get so much information,
ya have to decipher

what is important
and what is not.

One particular piece
of information was a letter

that was sent directly to me.

And that letter contained information
about an individual that committed

gay hate crimes in Manly
in and around that time.

And it wasn't signed by anyone,
but it had a phone number.

So, we rang this person.

When I
first met Scott Newman,

he was 22 and I was 17.

My impressions of him was that he
was somebody who would look after me.

Looking back now, in hindsight,

it was all manipulation
and it wasn't the real him.

First time it happened, I
was just really shocked.

I was vacuuming and
he was sorta saying,

ya know, "Over here, over there,"
and I think I made a smart comment.

And he just grabbed the vacuum
cleaner pipe and hit me with it.

And then the violence
just continued from there.

When we'd first gotten together,
he had just gotten out of prison.

He just had a history
of bashing everybody.

He would brag about assaults.

He would talk about, you know, if he went
and bashed someone or robbed someone.

Like, he had almost,
like, stories about it

that he seemed quite proud of.

He would just talk about...
going poofter bashing.

And then, in 2008, I
had read an article

about the death
of Scott Johnson.

And I can remember sorta
looking at it and saying to him,

you know, "Did you do this?"

And he basically said,

"The only good poofter
is dead poofter."

And I said, "So, you
pushed him off a cliff?"

And he said, "Oh, it's not my fault
the, the dumb c-word ran off the cliff."

And I'd said, "Well, it is
if you, you pushed him."

I've never seen remorse from him

and I've never seen
a guilty conscience.

And, by this stage,

I knew that I was gonna
have to end my marriage.

The final night, he started
drinking early on in the day

and it just
escalated from there,

ended in police being called,
and the children and I leaving.

I think everything that
he did came to my mind

over the years after I left him.

He really got off on
humiliating people.

I remember one time Scott
met this guy at the pub.

He'd bought a bottle of Jack Daniels and
we went to drink down at Manly Wharf.

He told this guy, you know,
"Come down to the sand.

I wanna show you something."

And he just attacked this guy,

and then he, literally, told
him to remove his clothing.

And when the guy had
dropped them on the ground

and Scott said, "No,
fold them neatly,"

so that incident really stuck
in my mind for a long time.

The American's clothes
were neatly folded at the scene.

The coroner says he was
likely discovered naked

and violently
forced off a ledge.

I did start
to think about it

when I-I saw a program
about gay hate murders,

and it talked about
the folded clothing.

That's when I... I knew
that he was responsible.

I really felt what I knew
weighed on my conscience.

I did speak to a counselor
I was seeing at the time,

and she made a suggestion that if
it's weighing that heavily on my mind,

I might wanna write
an anonymous letter.

I think I wrote that letter
about a hundred times,

a hundred different ways,

then I finally just thought,

ya know what, I'm
just gonna send it,

and if they don't believe me, then
at least I tried, I did something,

and I-I can just stop
thinking about it.

We received Helen
White's letter in 2019.

And she told us that Scott
White lived on the streets.

He changed his name from Newman to
White, obviously, that's Helen's surname,

because he had a criminal past

and he, he didn't wish to be
known by that name anymore.

The letter
detailed there was

a person by the name
of Martin in the 1980s.

Martin provided drugs and money to
the youth that lived on the street,

and Scott White would
attend Martin's home

for either drugs or
money in return for sex,

and it is this belief
that why Scott White

has a hatred towards gays.

And she told
me how her husband

used to brag about assaulting
gay men in and around Manly,

including North Head.

This was different to other leads we had
because it actually mentioned North Head.

The modus operandi
of Scott White

was the fact that he used to
commit these assaults on gay men,

and he didn't just assault them,
but he robbed them of their wallets.

Always a wallet.

He would always bring back
a wallet that I knew wasn't his.

Helen had drawn
wallets that he collected,

which was sort of very left
field, to draw wallets.

And one of these
wallets that she drew

was one that was
very, very similar

to the type of wallet
Scott Johnson had.

Looking at those
serious crimes that he committed

of bashing people in the '80s,

Scott White fitted the profile of
someone who would commit this crime.

So, he was spoken
to at that time,

but he told us he knew
nothing about this matter.

We had no forensic
evidence. We had nothing.

So, we had to elicit
information from him.

He was our one source.

So we developed an operation.

We started to follow him
around. We began surveillance.

Wasn't hard 'cause he didn't
drive, so he used to catch buses,

get off at the same shops, go
to the same places every day.

To see who he was going
with, who he was running with,

who his friends were, and
all of those sort of things.

We thought that there was a
significant amount of material

pointing towards Scott White,

but not... enough to form
substantial evidence to charge him.

Over the next year,

Peter Yeomans would
call me every few months

where he would, basically,
just be checking in.

"We're pursuing various lines of
inquiry. Don't get your hopes up."

And then, in February of 2020,

he called me and
said, "Are you alone?

"We have a suspect,

"and we need your help.

"We would like you to
come back to Australia

and announce your own
million-dollar reward."

And I said, "I'll
pay five million.

"Whatever number you want,

"I'll, I'll post it, um, if
that's gonna get this case solved.

But tell me what you think's gonna
happen once I announce this."

He said, "We need
the publicity."

But that's all he would tell me.

And I hypothesized that

they were working some
undercover operation,

but I could only infer that.

I... They didn't tell
me anything more.

Boy, did that make headlines.

That made more news than anything
else that's happened in this case.

Police are hoping $2 million
will help break a "cone of silence"

surrounding a gay hate murder.

Today, Scott Johnson's
brother chipped in

to offer the largest reward
in the state's history.

This week, Scott's
brother, Steve, offered to match

the New South Wales
Police Force's $1 million,

taking the total
reward to $2 million.

- I didn't know about any
reward when I wrote the letter.

Um, and actually, I didn't
find out about the reward

until my brother sent me a
screenshot of the news report

when the reward was
increasing to $2 million.

He said, "Is this the case
that you're talking about?"

So, no, I-I wasn't even
aware of the reward

when I first wrote the letter.

While I was
actually in Australia,

Peter Yeoman said
something else unusual.

He said, "Ya know, when
you're talkin' to reporters,

tell them we have
just one suspect."

And I said, "Are
you sure you want me

"to tell them that you
just have one suspect?

"That's very unusual,

especially coming from
the victim's family."

He said, "Yeah, tell them that."

Clearly, they wanted to
frighten the suspect.

The walls are closing in.

By 2020, I had
entered a official retirement

from the police force,

and I'm just getting out
of bed in the morning,

and the ABC radio's on,

and I hear that there's been
arrest... An arrest made

in the Scott Johnson matter.

I'm genuinely pleased, as
I would be on any occasion

when I make an arrest for a
murder or anyone else do...

Genuinely pleased that
those police think

they have enough evidence
to have charged someone.

- It's taken 30 years, three
inquests, and a lifetime of patience,

but finally, today,
a major development

for the family of gay
hate victim Scott Johnson.

A 49-year-old
man led away in handcuffs

after living for decades
hiding a dark secret.

Today, detectives arrested
49-year-old Scott Phillip White

at a Lane Cove unit block.

- He just said, "I've got
two detectives on my case

about a murder that
happened in the '80s."

And I said, "Okay."
"But I didn't do it."

I said, "Okay."

We went up to
him. He didn't look shocked.

He didn't say, "What
are you talking about?"

He sorta understood what
we were talking about.

Didn't question us on why
we were arresting him.

It was quite, uh,

quite weird.

- Watch your head.
Put that seat forward.

I had White in the back of a police
car and I was sitting next to him,

and I rang Steve Johnson.

I told him that I've got
the killer of your brother

sitting next to me in a
police car, he's under arrest.

So, it was a, uh, a very,
very, um, watershed moment.

When
the arrest was made,

that was just this sort of
huge outpouring of emotion,

um, and tension from the
last, last couple decades.

It was really amazing
that it happened.

- And I remember drinking champagne
and feeling weird about celebrating.

That's a theme of
this whole thing is

celebrating, but
being kind of sad, um.

'Cause there's nothing straightforward
in this to just be happy about.

We were pretty much certain
we would never find out who did it.

I mean, how do you find out who did
it when you don't have anything?

When nothing was, nothing was
saved, collected, documented.

- I couldn't imagine
wearing my lawyer hat,

like, what evidence they could
have dating back to the '80s.

I hoped that they
had the right person.

Peter rung me to say
that he had made an arrest

in relation to the matter.

I feel as though to this day, and
in the circumstances and the era,

I did my job to the
best of my ability,

and... now knowing 30 years later
that that, that finding was incorrect,

um... I-I have to
live with that.

But I was actually ecstatic
for Steve, and the family,

and everyone else that
had been involved in that

because it was a
fantastic result.

But I have to admit, being
an old police officer,

I said, "How'd you do that?"

And he said, "I can't tell
you. It's before the courts."

And Pete still hasn't
told me to this very day.

So, uh, Peter Yeomans, if
you're listening to this, mate,

uh, please, gimme a
call, I'm on the phone.

- There was a moment
where I thought,

"Are they just trying to
shut up Steve Johnson?"

Are they
just like, you know,

did they just find
somebody and say,

"This is the guy. Let's just say...
Let's shut this man up once and for all."

We both thought that.

- And we all talked about

how phenomenal this was,

how unfathomable this was,

because at that point,
we still didn't know

how they managed
to apprehend him.

But at the same time,
it was n-not totally out

of the realm of possibility that
this suspect was just a fall guy.

Who was Scott White?

First thing I learned was
his born name was Newman,

and his brother, Shane Newman,

was right at the top of our
list of suspects for years.

At the end of 1986, Shane
Newman entered the public toilets

under the Manly Tourist Bureau,

and he bashed a door of the
toilet and assaulted a man.

He also had a Grim
Reaper tattoo on his arm.

That was of interest to us.

So, Strike Force Macnamir went
to interview Shane Newman,

but I wasn't able to make
a giant leap about him.

Uh, not then and not today.

Once we commenced, part
of the investigation was to look at

previous investigations,

and we found that, uh, there was
an assault of a man in a toilet,

and they robbed
him of his wallet,

but... originally, it was
noted as Shane, his brother.

So we went and searched
all that database of that time

for what we believed was going
to be Shane Newman's photograph

for that particular crime,

and when we pulled
the photograph up,

it wasn't... Shane Newman.

It was Scott Newman slash White.

Now, we can all make
mistakes. Um, I make mistakes.

And so, you, you just needed
to double-check everything,

and, and, I mean, that's
what we were there to do.

They were so
close with Shane Newman,

and now, years later, we've
got his brother under arrest.

Scott died 33 years ago.

He would've turned
60 last month,

and here we are with a suspect,

and evidence is gonna be
reviewed for its admissibility.

Yeah, I'm kind of
with Scott this week,

wondering what he
was doing there,

how he met this person...
what he was thinking.

I'm gonna be watching
the accused carefully.

Not met him before, barely
seen pictures of him.

Yeah, I've had a lotta sleepless
nights, lot of nightmares.

Uh, it'll be hard,
it'll be tough... um.

But I think I'm ready for it. I'm
glad we're finally to this point.

It's been a long time.

We're all sitting in our
seats. The judge walks in.

We get up and bow.

The judge reads the charge
against the accused,

asks the accused to stand up, and,
uh, says, "What do you plead?"

Which is pro forma, he's
pleaded not guilty before,

and he says, "Guilty,
guilty, guilty."

- Oh, my goodness.

You could've heard a pin drop
because no one knew it was coming.

But I said to Steve... I
turned to him and I said,

"Told you we got
the right person."

- Steve, this must be an incredible
relief for you and your family.

- Well, I think I was shocked,

as shocked as everybody
in the courtroom.

It was bewildering
to say the least,

and I have to say,

I'm relieved to know... a
little more about what happened,

but, yeah, anger, uh, as well.

And I think he deserves
what he has coming to him.

Are we... We're
gonna go get a drink

or something after this. Okay.
- Yeah, we are.

I'm not gonna leave you.
- Whew, boy.

My, my phone's
vibrating off the hook.

I'm gonna have a complete
emotional breakdown tonight.

Do, do the
gang know?

- I'm just gonna call
my wife real quick.

Feel free to film
me if you want.

So, after the guilty plea,

the police got permission to
take me through the evidence.

My solicitor, Vivian, and I
went back to her law offices,

and Peter Yeomans opened up his laptop
and explained to me exactly what happened.

We worked the case
from different angles.

Um, and we worked it
for, um, two years almost

before we got that,
that breakthrough,

and I made that phone call to you
that we, we had a, a proper suspect.

Even though they had strong
suspicions about Scott White

because of his track record,
his wife's statements,

they didn't have nearly
enough to arrest him.

And so, Peter crafted
this ruse, um,

that was worthy of
Mission Impossible.

Two undercover officers
knocked on his door

and told him about a plan whereby
they could split the $2 million

and place the blame
on somebody else.

The trick that they used required
that he teach them what he did.

And what he told these
two undercover officers,

he had no idea he was
talking to the police.

"So, let me take ya up
there and show you."

- Once we knew we were going
ahead with an operation,

Detective Carey and I
went out to North Head

and we placed cameras
at the crime scene

in the event that they
would go out there,

so we could capture, uh, footage
of them at the crime scene.

The cameras were put in place...
and were just left there.

And on the 19th of March 2020,

the two witnesses and Scott
White went to North Head.

That was in itself a... wow.

They went to North Head with Scott
White directing them where to go.

At the same time, Detective
Yeomans and Carey and I

were in a car listening
and watching the camera,

and being able to monitor
what they were saying.

Scott White indicated that
he had met Scott Johnson

at the Brighton Hotel in Manly,

and they walked up to
North Head together.

We can't believe this
is actually happening.

He's actually walking
to the crime scene

and speaking to them about
what had happened in 1988.

So, first of all,
North Head is a big place.

When you say Scott Johnson died at
North Head, that's not specific.

But what they had
going for them was

only the killer would know the
specific rock where it happened.

Scott White was up
there for a number of hours

on a very, very hot day.

He was trying to find the location
of where he took Scott Johnson.

Takes him to a spot
on the cliff at first.

And he says, "This is
where it happened."

And then he stops himself. He says,
"Ah, no, this isn't the place."

And then he goes
back to the trail,

and then they walk back
up the trail a little bit,

then go back to the cliff edge.

And, suddenly, these three
people appear on the camera

that Yeomans had planted,

meaning he was around 30 feet of
the slab where it really did happen.

When Scott
White walked into view,

we knew, then, we
had the right person.

Ya had to be... pinch yourself to
believe that this was actually happening.

And they got a recording of
Scott White showing what he did.

He said,
"I punched him,

"tried to grab him and he fell.

And then he went over the edge."

This is an electronically
recorded interview

between Detective Chief
Inspector Peter Yeomans

and Scott White.

What can you tell me about
the murder of Scott Johnson?

- Nothing.

- What do you mean "nothing"?

- I've never met the
bloke in my life.

- He gets interviewed at the
station under, under caution.

So he spoke to us and we, um, spoke
to him, and there was denials.

Did you tell anyone that you, uh,
punched Scott Johnson up at North Head?

- He punched me, I pushed him.

And he went over the
edge. I went to grab him.

But that was all, like I said,
that was all full of shit

because I just had to say something
to get these guys off my back.

- He said, you know, people had
forced him into saying things

and he didn't...
didn't really mean it.

But there's, there's very
operational rules around what we do.

It's probably the
easiest way of saying it,

uh, and he wasn't
coerced at all.

Can you explain that?
- Explain what?

- That you don't think
that's... detailed,

talking about punching and grab...
And him trying to grab you.

Can you explain that, that you
don't think that's detailed?

- Well, just arrest me and
get this over and done with.

I'm not answerin'
no more questions.

An
international spotlight

on Steve Johnson and
other family members

speaking at the
sentencing this week.

White
was arrested in 2020,

originally pleading
not guilty to murder,

but that changed when he shouted
his guilt during his arraignment.

The case was
reopened 10 years ago

and now we're back in court
to sentence the killer.

And back then, I said, in
my statement 10 years ago,

"Maybe someday

I'll be in this court
facing the killer."

It's gonna happen. It's gonna
happen day after tomorrow.

- You had asked, um,
where we're going to look

or who we're going to look at.

All I could think about was

that I'm gonna look at the
judge because she's been,

she's been very,
um, compassionate,

and I think, I think I might...
- I'm going to look at the paper.

I might...
Look at the paper

and then I'll look at
the judge and stuff.

I can't imagine look
at the offender.

Gonna try.

- It'll be hard to look
at him, that's for sure.

Yeah, I don't know.

But anyway, the nice
judge, I'll look at her.

And the paper, so.

Do you have any plans,
like where you...

- I-I guess I, kind of like you,
I was like, "I think I wanna try,

but I'm not sure if
I'll be able to."

- I'm gonna try
to think of Scott.

Like, I don't like to speak in
public, but the reason I'm doing it is

for Scott and for
my three children.

And, ya know, that's why
I'm sitting up there.

And for you,
of course, to support you.

- All of us are speaking to
Scott, um. - Yeah, yeah.

Here we go.

I got the day
off work that day.

My sister and I
watched together,

and... we were very proud of my
dad and my mom and our aunts.

I think we had both
prepared to be emotional,

and I think we
were both surprised

by the fact that we did feel, feel
all those emotions we've prepared for.

- Scott White stands
for sentence today

having entered a plea of guilty
to the murder of Dr. Johnson,

a crime that occurred
sometime between

7th of December 1988 and
the 11th of December 1988

at Manly in this state.

The offender told police that he
had lived on the streets of Manly

as a street kid since
he was aged 14 or 15.

In 1988, he was homeless.

He acknowledged having been
involved in a number of assaults,

saying that he had fought
because he was stupid and drunk.

The offender was very likely to have been
intellectually impaired at some level

when he murdered Dr. Johnson

and that impairment has only
worsened in the decades since

due to the offender's
chronic abuse of alcohol.

He was specifically asked whether
he had selected people to fight

because of their
perceived sexuality,

responding, "No,
I'm gay myself."

He claimed to have discovered
when he was aged about 15 years

that he was gay, but had
been concerned, then,

that his homosexuality did
not become known to others.

The offender was
particularly anxious

that his brother did not
become aware of his sexuality.

- I would say that finding
out Scott White was gay was,

for me, one of the most
emotional experiences of

this entire ordeal that's
been going on my whole life.

Because... I guess if the knowledge
that my uncle was killed for being gay

was something I lived with, um,
as, as a queer person myself,

it's just as terrifying to know
that somebody can... be so,

so poisoned by the
world around them

that somebody would, would
do something like that.

And I mean, I do feel that

there has to be some really intense
self-hatred involved to do what he did,

uh, to a fellow gay person,

and that made me sadder than
almost anything else I'd heard.

Knowing him and living
with him for all those years,

I never, ever once
thought that he was gay.

I think he just was trying to avoid
people thinking it was a gay hate killing.

- Miss Johnson, did you
want anyone sitting with you

whilst you make your... Give
your statement to the court?

Okay, thank you.

I felt scared 'cause I didn't
know what it would be like to be

sitting in a room with the
person who killed my brother,

and... I pictured him
as, like, a monster.

I made eye
contact with him,

and I saw that he was a man.

He wasn't a monster.

And I spoke to him.

It seems
like the same dynamics

that grew hatred against Scott

also failed Mr. White.

But at the same time,

Mr. White is responsible
for his actions,

he is responsible
for killing Scott.

Losing my baby
brother was like losing a part of me.

I would never have the opportunity
to see him grow into the man

I know Scott was destined to be.

The hateful person
who killed Scott

has been walking free on this
Earth for the past 33 years.

Thirty-three years that he
took away from my baby brother.

And I believe he
deserves life in prison.

Years ago, I
asked Steve, "When will it be enough?

"If we never find out
what happened to Scott,

when will we feel we
have done our best?"

We now know what happened to
Scott all those years ago.

But it doesn't bring him back,

and our children will never
know their beloved uncle.

And it breaks my heart to
know that this gentle soul

died as a result of
violence and hate.

But the person
who suffered most, of course, was Scott.

Scott was 27, which
means Mr. White

robbed him of 50, or
60, or 70 years of life,

years that Mr. White will
experience, but Scott will not.

I appreciate Mr. White's
pleading guilty

and sparing us another
prolonged... stage of this ordeal.

If he had turned himself in
after his violent action,

I would've had a
little more sympathy.

And if he had
grasped Scott's hand

and pulled
him to safety,

I would owe him

everlasting gratitude.

Scott White, the man found
guilty of killing a gay American man

in Sydney in the late '80s,

has been jailed for 12
years and seven months.

Justice
Helen Wilson said

White must be sentenced as a man in
a significant level of dysfunction.

I'm glad that
the Scott Johnson case

was finally unraveled to
the extent it has been.

But what about the others?

There were a lot of
people... being killed.

There were a lotta
people whose deaths

should never have happened,
could've been prevented,

should've been investigated,

who were not high profile,
who never will be.

We like to remember
John the way he was.

Yeah. DONNA: The
happy, vibrant person that he was.

Oh, yeah, it would be
nice to get some answers.

But it shouldn't take
money to do that.

- But, but, no, it shouldn't.

Ya know, like, that
should be something that

someone...
- If we had money to throw at it,

maybe we'd get answers, too.

Yeah, but you
shouldn't have to do that.

Mm.

But if the justice
system is the justice system,

well, it bloody well should
work, and it doesn't.

But until that day comes,
well... our world doesn't change.

I think it is
profoundly unfair and sad

that someone needs to
have personal wealth

in order to get answers
in a situation like this.

And I would say that having
wealth and having privilege

was not a golden ticket

to an easy
resolution, obviously.

It was just what allowed my
father to... to fight far longer

than some other people with fewer
resources may have been able to fight.

You should not have to have
wealth to find an answer.

But honestly, it shouldn't
have taken decades

for my dad to find an answer.

The sentencing
of my brother's killer,

I can't call that victory.

There are pieces of the puzzle
that we haven't resolved yet.

I really want to be able to
look Scott White in the eye

and have him tell
me what happened,

why Scott Johnson was at the
top of this cliff with him,

and why he did it.

Using my imagination,

I can come up with any one
of a number of scenarios that

put Scott Newman White and
Scott Johnson up there.

It doesn't completely surprise
me that Scott went to a beat,

but that he would've met
somebody at that bar,

and then walked all that
distance up with that guy.

I-I can't make all those
pieces fit together.

My brother was
a person of few words,

especially with an
18-year-old like Scott White.

What would they talk about?

- It does make sense that he
would've met Scott Johnson

somewhere, maybe a pub,

and that he would've suggested,

ya know, "Let's go for
a walk up North Head."

The talking point would've been
they had the same first name,

and he would've developed
a rapport from there.

- When we looked at Scott White,

what we saw was a man that
was... befriending gay men

in pubs, in hotels,

and then taking them to a secluded
spot, assaulting them, and robbing them.

So, the old saying, "A leopard
doesn't change their spots,"

I think, is very apt
in these circumstances.

White has met Johnson up there and
then I think he's assaulted him,

and then I think he's... If
not thrown him off the cliff,

I think, more than likely,
Scott Johnson tried to run away

and fallen off the cliff.

I don't believe he
took him up there to kill him,

but I do believe he took
him up there to rob him,

to bash him,

and then, whether he pushed
him, punched him, or chased him,

he's gone over the cliff.

There isn't closure,
there's never closure.

All I'd know is that this
man killed my brother.

- Yeah.

- I've been up here... 50 times,

but I haven't been up here...
since hearing the perpetrator

say what he did. BECCA: Mm-hm.

Do you think this is the
last time we'll come up here?

- No.