Scott Johnson

Scott Russell Johnson (27 November 1961 8 December 1988) was an American university student who died in Australia in 1988. The death was initially treated by the police as a suicide, but a coroner's inquest in 2017 resulted in the finding that he died "as a result of a gay-hate attack." In May 2020 Scott White, an Australian man, was arrested and charged for the murder. In January 2022 he was convicted. The conviction was overturned on appeal, and he then pled guilty to manslaughter.

In 2025, The New Yorker magazine reported on previously unseen evidence from the police investigation into Johnson's death, revealing details that call into question the integrity of the ultimate conviction.

Background

Scott Russell Johnson was born on 27 November 1961 in Los Angeles County, California, United States. In 1983 he moved to England to study mathematics at the University of Cambridge. At Cambridge he met Michael Noone, a musicologist from Australia who became his partner. In 1986, Johnson left his doctoral program at the University of California, Berkeley and moved to Canberra on a student visa to complete his PhD at the Australian National University and to be with Noone.

Perpetrator

On 12 May 2020 a 49-year-old man, Scott White, was arrested in Lane Cove, Sydney, and charged with Johnson's murder. The judge said, "That it was a gay hate crime is not a conclusion that the Court can reach to the criminal standard however". White later withdrew his guilty plea, and his murder conviction was overturned on appeal. On 23 February 2023 he pleaded guilty to manslaughter. On 8 June 2023 he was re-sentenced to 9 years in prison, with eligibility for parole after 6 years. He will be eligible for parole in 2026. The justice of the conviction has been questioned, as has Steve Johnson's well-financed campaign in pursuing the case. In May 2026, it was reported that Scott White the perpetrator withdrew an application for parole.