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 courtroom heard on Monday.

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

White shall be sentenced by Justice Helen Wilson on Tuesday. He faces a possible sentence of life in prison.

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

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

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

The coroner additionally found that gangs of men roamed varied Sydney locations in the hunt for gay men to assault, ensuing within the deaths of some victims. Some folks were additionally robbed.

A coroner had ruled in 1989 that the openly homosexual man had taken his own life, while a second coroner in 2012 couldn't explain how he died.

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

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

Helen White mentioned she read a newspaper report in 2008 about Johnson’s loss of life and asked her husband if he was accountable.

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

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

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

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

“This man (Scott Johnson) who once informed me he may by no means hurt someone even in self-defense died in terror,” the brother added.

Steve Johnson said he appreciated White’s responsible plea.

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

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

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

Rebecca Johnson, a youthful sister, said 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 reports of homosexual beatings in Sydney being described as a sport.

Prosecutor Brett Hatfield stated the exact details of the murder were not recognized and that White’s accounts had diversified.

White had met Johnson in a close-by bar in suburban Manly and Johnson had stripped bare at the clifftop earlier than he died, Hatfield mentioned. He stated the gravity of the homicide was significantly elevated as a result of it was motivated by the sufferer’s sexuality.

White’s lawyer Belinda Rigg said her consumer was gay and had been involved that his homophobic brother would find out.

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

His lawyers will attraction that plea within the Courtroom of Prison Appeals and hope he will likely be acquitted at trial.

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