Sydney man admits pushing homosexual American off a cliff in 1988

CANBERRA, Australia (AP) — A man 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 listening to after he pleaded responsible in January to the murder 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 will likely 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 sting,” White mentioned in recorded police interview in 2020 that was performed in court docket.

White stated within the interview he lied when he had earlier advised police that he had tried to seize Johnson and forestall his fatal fall.

A coroner dominated 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 additionally discovered that gangs of men roamed numerous Sydney locations looking for homosexual males to assault, resulting in the deaths of some victims. Some individuals were additionally robbed.

A coroner had ruled in 1989 that the overtly homosexual man had taken his own life, while a second coroner in 2012 could not clarify 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 information. White was charged in 2020 and police say the reward will doubtless be collected.

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

Helen White said she learn 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 mentioned, ‘It's when you chased him,’” Helen White instructed the courtroom. She stated her husband did not reply.

Underneath cross-examination, Helen White denied she had been conscious of a AU$1 million reward for info on Johnson’s murder when she reported her former husband to police in 2019. She stated 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 impact assertion that, “With a vicious push, Mr. White took Scott and he vanished.”

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

Steve Johnson mentioned he appreciated White’s responsible plea.

“If he had turned himself in after his violent motion, I might have had a little more sympathy. If he had grasped Scott’s hand and pulled him to safety, I would 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 also gave sufferer affect 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 could a group 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 stated the precise particulars of the murder weren't known and that White’s accounts had assorted.

White had met Johnson in a nearby bar in suburban Manly and Johnson had stripped naked on 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 mentioned her shopper was gay and had been involved that his homophobic brother would find out.

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

His legal professionals will appeal that plea in the Court of Criminal Appeals and hope he will likely be acquitted at trial.

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