A Thousand Miles From Care: In Search of My Brother Scott

(Paperback)

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A gripping and heartbreaking story, A Thousand Miles From Care tells the 30 year quest Steve Johnson undertook to uncover the truth about his brilliant brother's brutal murder in Manly.

At the entrance of Sydney Harbor, the cliffs rise fourteen stories above the Pacific, like a gigantic skirt made of sandstone. North Head, one of the most memorable cliffs, is a beautiful place to watch the sunrise. But it's an unforgiving place to lose your footing. When Steve Johnson's younger brother Scott went over the edge in 1988, he hit an outcrop on the way down and his body exploded on the rocks below.

A Thousand Miles From Care is a profoundly impactful book which traces the steps Steve Johnson and his family and friends took to solve Scott's murder. They had to navigate an openly hostile police force who deemed his death to be a suicide, as well as a maze of dead ends, unreliable informants, skinhead gangs, a faked confession, and setbacks at every turn. All of it ended with an extraordinary turnaround by police who, with an operation worthy of Mission Impossible, apprehended a suspect, 32 years after Scott's death.

Drawing on the mountain of exclusive materials Steve amassed over his decades-long quest, including sealed court transcripts, police records, interviews with suspects, inquest reports, correspondence with gang members, private investigations, and Johnson's close relationship with authorities and high-ranking New South Wales officials developed over more than three decades, A Thousand Miles From Care is a powerful, compelling and unforgettable story of a brother's steadfast love, a slow-burn investigation, and a quest for justice, 32 years in the making.

Author Bio

Steve Johnson has been a technologist, entrepreneur, private investor, and philanthropist for thirty years, professionally specializing in building innovative technologies into successful enterprises, with a personal and philanthropic focus on education, climate change awareness, the arts, and gay rights equality. Since 2005, Steve has been spearheading efforts in New South Wales, Australia to honor and seek justice for hundreds of victims of gay hate crimes that ravaged the Australian gay community in the 1980s and 1990s, and took the lives of dozens of men, including Steve's younger brother, Scott, in Sydney in 1988. This effort helped presage a national plebiscite for gay marriage legalization, which was finally passed in December 2017.