Australian Story to revisit suspicious death of maths genius
A dark part of Sydney’s recent past will be revisited with an episode of ABC TV’s Australian Story to take another look at the case of a visiting American maths genius who it is now believed was the victim of a gay-hate murder at the hands of a marauding gang of homophobes who terrorised gay beats on the city’s beachside cliffs.
Originally thought by police to be suicide, the body of Scott Johnson was found at the bottom of Blue Fish Point in Manly in December 1988, only two days after he had finished the last assignment for his PhD in mathematics.
It was only after a coroner’s hearing in 2004 concerning the suspicious deaths of a number of gay men at beats at cliffs overlooking Bondi Beach during the 1980s and 90s that alarm bells began ringing about similar incidents that took place in Sydney’s north. It is now believed there may have been several groups targeting gay men.
Johnson’s brother – who had in the time since Scott’s death become a wealthy internet pioneer – then hired eminent Newsweek journalist Daniel Glick and a retired NSW Police officer, John McNamara, to determine whether he had met a similar fate.
Glick made several trips from the US to Australia and uncovered compelling new evidence suggesting Johnson met with foul play, including testimony from a Dee Why man who had been attacked two years before in the same spot Johnson’s body was found.
Garry Wotherspoon, one of the city’s leading historians on gay culture and who has closely followed the beachside cliff killings for over two decades, told SX that Johnson’s death was seemingly part of a pattern of targeted attacks on vulnerable gay men using beats at a time when homosexuality had only recently been decriminalised.
“Using beats was not free from danger. While police harassment was one problem, the main danger was, and possibly still is, from groups of marauding youths, ‘poofter-bashers’, who often frequent beats and bash men they suspect of being homosexuals,” he said.
“But in the past, it was only rarely that details of this surfaced in the newspapers. Most often, any homosexual man so bashed would simply not report the matter to the police, since to do so would be to draw both unwanted attention to oneself, and unwanted questioning about what one was doing at such a place at such a time.”
It is believed William Allen, Richard Johnson, Raymond Keam, Gilles Jacques Mattaini, Kritchikorn Rattanajurathaporn, John Allen Russell, Wayne Tonks and newsreader Ross Warren were all victims of similar deadly violence on the cliffs overlooking Manly and Bondi and in several inner-city parks.
In June 2012 the NSW Coroner agreed to hold a new inquest into Johnson’s death, overturning the finding of suicide and bringing an open verdict with the matter now with the NSW Police Cold Case Unit.
If you have any information, contact Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 00.
Australian Story ‘On the Precipice’ airs on ABC1 at 8pm on Monday, February 11.
- Tags: Anti-Gay Violence, Bigotry, Bondi, Crime, Daniel Glick, Death, Garry Wotherspoon, Gay Beat, Homophobia, Killing, Law, LGBTI History, Manly, Murder, NSW Police, Scott Johnson, Suicide, SX, Sydney, Youth
Comments (3)
Been a lot of comments on this through Facebook: "Lost Gay Sydney"
So it is with great sadness, that I am forced to watch the immense spite of Gillard, and the hate of Abbott, define the new Equal Opportunity Act. My first great love’s life was ended with a horrific beating. Years on, I now see the cruelty of it all. When governments promote a culture of hate, then people carry out acts of hate. Wrongly, Gillard and Abbott, are offering billions of our taxes, to those that seek us harm, those who seek to make our birth a punishment, and to often give hate speeches to their congregations.
In the international Court, we put country leaders on trial. It is not that pulled the trigger, or did the torture, but they knew what was going on, and did little to stop it. I believe there is enough of us killed every year, for Gillard and Abbott to be put on trial. Why should our lives be worth less than others? That is what they are both promoting as the new Equal Opportunity Act. Why should government policy, government legislation, endorse hate crimes such as denying us services? In many parts of Australia, religious businesses are the only providers of government services. Why should we be banned, due to our birth, from the same access and inclusion as other people born in Australia? Make no mistake, there is currently a hate crime being committed in our parliament.
Sadly there was no sympathy for missing homosexual men in the era when Mr.Johnson and others were found dead in suspicious circumstances.
As a victim of a gay hate crime of 3 separate occasions I've come to learn this simple lesson.
In the late 80's at South Bondi's Marks Park I was chased by a number of young men who intended to beat me up and throw me over the cliff top to my death but I escaped by hiding under a car in Kenneth Street.
My view is "justice delayed" is "justice denied".
What we need in NSW is a Royal Commission to ascertain as to the reasons why NSW Police failed to investigate the deaths of a number of homosexual men in the mid to late 80's. To this end I'm going to write to the NSW Minister for Police, Mr.Michael Gallacher outlining my reasons for a Royal Commission.
Death should be the trip of a lifetime. But sadly for Mr.Johnson and many others of the 80's era their life was snuffed out of them because of their actual or perceived homosexuality by their perpetrators.No one deserves to become a victim of hate. A lack of judgement or discretion should not invite brutality.