New South Wales police are set to pay out a $2million award to multiple informants who helped bring the killer of US mathematician Steve Johnson to justice.
Johnson’s naked body was found on the rocks below on December 10th 1988, his clothes were located at the top of the cliff edge, about 10 metres from the edge. The location was a well-known gay beat where men often met for sex.
Initially his death was ruled a suicide, a finding his family never accepted. His brother Steve Johnson fought to have the case reopened and after three coronial inquests the ruling was overturned.
New South Wales police offered a million-dollar reward for information about the death, and Steve Johnston added an additional million to encourage people with information to come forward. Johnson had made a fortune in the tech industry.
The offer of the reward led police to Scott Phillip White who was sentenced to nine years in prison after he pleaded guilty to manslaughter in the New South Wales Supreme Court.
Sky News have reported that police have now made recommendations on which key witnesses and informants should receive a share of the reward, and its just waiting on sign off from the New South Wales government.
“NSW Police can confirm determinations have been made in respect to the reward, however no payments have been made at this time,” a NSW Police spokesperson said.
Steve Johnson has documented his decades long fight to get justice for his brother in his new book A Thousand Miles from Care.
The book takes its name from a historic advertising slogan that promoted the Manly region where Johnson’s death occurred. The advertising blurb read “Seven miles from Sydney and a thousand miles from care.”
