Scott Johnson was found dead at the bottom of cliffs in December 1988. UPDATED: A Sydney coroner has ordered a fresh inquest into the unresolved 1988 death of gay man Scott Johnson, whose body was found at the bottom of cliffs in Sydney - near a spot gay men were known to frequent. Police initially ruled the death of the American 27-year-old was suicide. The mathematician was found naked on rocks below Blue Fish Point, in Manly, on December 9, 1988. Police said they found his clothes in a "neatly folded bundle" on the cliff-top. Since then it’s emerged gangs of youths had been mugging gay men and throwing them to their deaths off cliffs around the same time as Johnson’s death. A man who witnessed, but says he was not involved in, such “poofter bashing rampages” has come forward to help Johnson’s family, who have never believed he took his own life. In 2005 the deputy state coroner slammed the “disgraceful” work of police in their investigations into the death of three other gay men around Sydney clifftops in the late 1980s, ruling two were murdered and the third was also likely to have been killed. Scott Johnson’s brother Steve Johnson has spent a great sum of money trying to find out the truth about what happened to his sibling. In 2012 a coroner threw out the original suicide finding, and the results of a new 18-month police investigation have since been passed on to the Glebe Coroner’s Court, which has today ordered a new inquest. Lgbti advocacy group ACON had urged a strong community turnout at this morning's hearing, saying a key issue for the Coroner might be the extent of public interest. There is a Facebook page, Justice for Scott Johnson, here
Credit: GayNZ.com Daily News staff
First published: Monday, 13th April 2015 - 10:34am