Sydney man admits pushing gay American off a cliff in 1988

CANBERRA, Australia (AP) — A person advised 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 homosexual hate crime, a court heard on Monday.

Scott White, 51, appeared in the New South Wales state Supreme Court docket for a sentencing hearing 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 will probably be sentenced by Justice Helen Wilson on Tuesday. He faces a potential sentence of life in prison.

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

White mentioned within the interview he lied when he had earlier told police that he had tried to grab Johnson and forestall 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 because they perceived him to be gay.”

The coroner also discovered that gangs of men roamed numerous Sydney places in the hunt for homosexual males to assault, ensuing within the deaths of some victims. Some people have been also robbed.

A coroner had ruled in 1989 that the overtly homosexual man had taken his personal 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 offered his own reward of 1 million Australian dollars ($704,000) for data. White was charged in 2020 and police say the reward will seemingly be collected.

White’s former spouse Helen White advised the courtroom that her then-husband “bragged” to their children of beating gay men at the clifftop well-known for gay meetups.

Helen White stated she read a newspaper report in 2008 about Johnson’s death 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 when you chased him,’” Helen White instructed the court docket. She stated her husband did not reply.

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

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

“This man (Scott Johnson) who as soon as instructed me he might by no means harm 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 might have had a bit of more sympathy. If he had grasped Scott’s hand and pulled him to security, I might owe him eternal gratitude,” the brother mentioned, his voice choked with emotion.

Scott Johnson’s sisters Terry and Rebecca Johnson, his partner Michael Noone and Steve Johnson’s spouse Rosemarie Johnson also gave victim influence statements.

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

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

“How may a neighborhood fail so spectacularly that they created boys capable of such horror?” she requested, referring to media reports of gay 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 diverse.

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

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

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

His legal professionals will appeal that plea in the Courtroom of Felony Appeals and hope he will be acquitted at trial.

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