Sydney man admits pushing homosexual American off a cliff in 1988

CANBERRA, Australia (AP) — A person instructed 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 in 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 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 possible sentence of life in jail.

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

White said within the interview he lied when he had earlier instructed police that he had tried to seize Johnson and prevent his deadly fall.

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

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

A coroner had ruled in 1989 that the openly gay man had taken his personal life, while a second coroner in 2012 could not clarify how he died.

His Boston-based brother Steve Johnson maintained pressure for additional 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 wife Helen White advised the court that her then-husband “bragged” to their children of beating gay males at the clifftop well-known for gay meetups.

Helen White mentioned she read a newspaper report in 2008 about Johnson’s dying and requested her husband if he was responsible.

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

“I said, ‘It is if you chased him,’” Helen White informed the courtroom. She mentioned her husband did not reply.

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

Steve Johnson said 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 may by no means harm someone even in self-defense died in terror,” the brother added.

Steve Johnson mentioned he appreciated White’s guilty 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 would owe him everlasting gratitude,” the brother mentioned, 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 preliminary police failure to investigate Scott Johnson’s demise 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 asked, referring to media reviews of homosexual beatings in Sydney being described as a sport.

Prosecutor Brett Hatfield said the exact particulars of the murder were not identified and that White’s accounts had assorted.

White had met Johnson in a nearby bar in suburban Manly and Johnson had stripped naked at the clifftop earlier than he died, Hatfield stated. He mentioned 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 court docket during a pre-trial listening to that he was guilty, having beforehand denied the crime.

His attorneys will appeal that plea in the Court docket of Prison Appeals and hope he shall be acquitted at trial.

Scott Johnson was a doctoral student at Australian Nationwide University and lived in Canberra. He was staying at Noone’s parents’ Sydney house when he died.