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 docket heard on Monday.

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

White can 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 edge,” White mentioned in recorded police interview in 2020 that was played in courtroom.

White mentioned in the interview he lied when he had earlier informed police that he had tried to seize Johnson and prevent his deadly fall.

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

The coroner also discovered that gangs of males roamed varied Sydney locations searching for gay males to assault, ensuing within the deaths of some victims. Some folks were also robbed.

A coroner had ruled in 1989 that the openly 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 strain for additional investigation and provided his own reward of 1 million Australian dollars ($704,000) for information. White was charged in 2020 and police say the reward will possible be collected.

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

Helen White said she read a newspaper report in 2008 about Johnson’s demise and asked her husband if he was responsible.

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

“I stated, ‘It's should you chased him,’” Helen White advised the courtroom. She said her husband did not reply.

Under cross-examination, Helen White denied she had been aware of a AU$1 million reward for data on Johnson’s homicide when she reported her former husband to police in 2019. She said she only turned aware of a reward when the victim’s brother, Steve Johnson, doubled the sum in 2020.

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

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

Steve Johnson stated he appreciated White’s guilty plea.

“If he had turned himself in after his violent motion, I would have had just a little more sympathy. If he had grasped Scott’s hand and pulled him to safety, I'd owe him eternal gratitude,” the brother stated, his voice choked with emotion.

Scott Johnson’s sisters Terry and Rebecca Johnson, his companion Michael Noone and Steve Johnson’s wife Rosemarie Johnson additionally gave victim influence statements.

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

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

“How may a group fail so spectacularly that they created boys able to such horror?” she requested, referring to media studies of homosexual beatings in Sydney being described as a sport.

Prosecutor Brett Hatfield mentioned the precise particulars of the murder were not identified and that White’s accounts had different.

White had met Johnson in a close-by bar in suburban Manly and Johnson had stripped naked at the clifftop before he died, Hatfield said. He said the gravity of the homicide was significantly elevated because it was motivated by the victim’s sexuality.

White’s lawyer Belinda Rigg stated her shopper was gay and had been involved that his homophobic brother would discover out.

In January, White yelled repeatedly in court throughout a pre-trial listening to that he was guilty, having beforehand denied the crime.

His lawyers will appeal that plea within the Courtroom of Legal Appeals and hope he shall be acquitted at trial.

Scott Johnson was a doctoral pupil at Australian Nationwide University and lived in Canberra. He was staying at Noone’s dad and mom’ Sydney dwelling when he died.