Sydney man admits pushing gay 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 homosexual hate crime, a courtroom heard on Monday.

Scott White, 51, appeared within the New South Wales state Supreme Court docket for a sentencing listening to after he pleaded responsible in January to the murder of the Los Angeles-born Canberra resident, whose death 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 possible sentence of life in prison.

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

White mentioned within the interview he lied when he had earlier advised police that he had tried to grab Johnson and prevent his fatal fall.

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

The coroner also found that gangs of men roamed various Sydney locations in quest of gay males to assault, ensuing within the deaths of some victims. Some people had been additionally robbed.

A coroner had dominated in 1989 that the openly gay 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 stress for further investigation and provided his own reward of 1 million Australian dollars ($704,000) for data. White was charged in 2020 and police say the reward will doubtless be collected.

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

Helen White mentioned 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 is in case you chased him,’” Helen White informed the court docket. She said her husband didn't reply.

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

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

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

Steve Johnson said he appreciated White’s guilty plea.

“If he had turned himself in after his violent action, I would have had slightly 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 partner Michael Noone and Steve Johnson’s spouse Rosemarie Johnson additionally gave sufferer impression statements.

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

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

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

Prosecutor Brett Hatfield mentioned the exact details of the murder weren't identified and that White’s accounts had assorted.

White had met Johnson in a close-by bar in suburban Manly and Johnson had stripped bare on the clifftop earlier than 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 mentioned her consumer was gay and had been involved that his homophobic brother would find out.

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

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

Scott Johnson was a doctoral student at Australian National College and lived in Canberra. He was staying at Noone’s dad and mom’ Sydney house when he died.