Sydney man admits pushing homosexual American off a cliff in 1988

CANBERRA, Australia (AP) — A person informed police he killed American mathematician Scott Johnson in 1988 by pushing the 27-year-old off a Sydney cliff in what prosecutors describe as a gay hate crime, a court heard on Monday.

Scott White, 51, appeared within the New South Wales state Supreme Court for a sentencing hearing after he pleaded guilty in January to the homicide of the Los Angeles-born Canberra resident, whose dying on the base of a North Head cliff was initially dismissed by police as suicide.

White will probably be sentenced by Justice Helen Wilson on Tuesday. He faces a potential sentence of life in jail.

“I pushed a bloke. He went over the sting,” White stated in recorded police interview in 2020 that was performed in court.

White stated within the interview he lied when he had earlier advised police that he had tried to seize Johnson and stop his deadly fall.

A coroner ruled in 2017 that Johnson “fell from the clifftop as a result of actual or threatened violence by unidentified persons who attacked him because they perceived him to be homosexual.”

The coroner additionally discovered that gangs of males roamed numerous Sydney areas searching for homosexual males to assault, ensuing in the deaths of some victims. Some individuals have been also robbed.

A coroner had ruled in 1989 that the overtly gay man had taken his own life, whereas a second coroner in 2012 could not explain how he died.

His Boston-based brother Steve Johnson maintained pressure for further investigation and provided his personal reward of 1 million Australian dollars ($704,000) for information. White was charged in 2020 and police say the reward will doubtless be collected.

White’s former wife Helen White informed the court that her then-husband “bragged” to their kids of beating homosexual males on the clifftop well-known for gay meetups.

Helen White said she learn a newspaper report in 2008 about Johnson’s demise and requested her husband if he was accountable.

“It’s not my fault,” Scott White allegedly replied. “The dumb (expletive) ran off the cliff.”

“I stated, ‘It's in case you chased him,’” Helen White told the court. She mentioned her husband didn't reply.

Underneath cross-examination, Helen White denied she had been conscious of a AU$1 million reward for data on Johnson’s homicide when she reported her former husband to police in 2019. She mentioned she solely grew to become conscious of a reward when the sufferer’s brother, Steve Johnson, doubled the sum in 2020.

Steve Johnson said in his sufferer affect assertion that, “With a vicious push, Mr. White took Scott and he vanished.”

“This man (Scott Johnson) who as soon as informed me he could by no means harm somebody even in self-defense died in terror,” the brother added.

Steve Johnson mentioned he appreciated White’s responsible plea.

“If he had turned himself in after his violent motion, I would have had slightly more sympathy. If he had grasped Scott’s hand and pulled him to security, I would owe him eternal gratitude,” the brother mentioned, his voice choked with emotion.

Scott Johnson’s sisters Terry and Rebecca Johnson, his associate Michael Noone and Steve Johnson’s spouse Rosemarie Johnson additionally gave sufferer affect statements.

Rosemarie Johnson described the initial police failure to investigate Scott Johnson’s demise as “indefensible and inhumane.”

Rebecca Johnson, a younger sister, mentioned the police report of suicide “made no sense.”

“How might a community fail so spectacularly that they created boys capable of such horror?” she requested, referring to media reviews of homosexual beatings in Sydney being described as a sport.

Prosecutor Brett Hatfield said the exact particulars of the homicide weren't recognized and that White’s accounts had varied.

White had met Johnson in a nearby bar in suburban Manly and Johnson had stripped naked on the clifftop earlier than he died, Hatfield mentioned. He stated the gravity of the murder was significantly elevated because it was motivated by the victim’s sexuality.

White’s lawyer Belinda Rigg mentioned her shopper was homosexual and had been concerned that his homophobic brother would discover out.

In January, White yelled repeatedly in courtroom throughout a pre-trial hearing that he was responsible, having previously denied the crime.

His lawyers will appeal that plea within the Court docket of Felony Appeals and hope he will likely be acquitted at trial.

Scott Johnson was a doctoral pupil at Australian Nationwide College and lived in Canberra. He was staying at Noone’s mother and father’ Sydney home when he died.