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 homosexual hate crime, a court heard on Monday.

Scott White, 51, appeared within the New South Wales state Supreme Courtroom for a sentencing hearing after he pleaded responsible in January to the murder of the Los Angeles-born Canberra resident, whose dying on the base of a North Head cliff was initially dismissed by police as suicide.

White might 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 docket.

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

The coroner also found that gangs of men roamed various Sydney locations searching for gay males to assault, ensuing within the deaths of some victims. Some individuals were also robbed.

A coroner had ruled in 1989 that the brazenly gay man had taken his personal life, whereas a second coroner in 2012 couldn't clarify how he died.

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

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

Helen White mentioned 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 said, ‘It's in case you chased him,’” Helen White told the court docket. She mentioned her husband didn't reply.

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

Steve Johnson stated in his sufferer affect assertion that, “With a vicious push, Mr. White took Scott and he vanished.”

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

Steve Johnson stated he appreciated White’s guilty plea.

“If he had turned himself in after his violent motion, I would have had a little more sympathy. If he had grasped Scott’s hand and pulled him to security, I might 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 also gave victim impression statements.

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

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

“How could a community fail so spectacularly that they created boys capable of such horror?” she asked, referring to media experiences of gay beatings in Sydney being described as a sport.

Prosecutor Brett Hatfield mentioned the precise particulars of the homicide 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 at the clifftop before he died, Hatfield said. He stated the gravity of the murder was significantly elevated because it was motivated by the sufferer’s sexuality.

White’s lawyer Belinda Rigg stated her shopper was gay 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 responsible, having beforehand denied the crime.

His attorneys will attraction that plea within the Courtroom of Legal Appeals and hope he will be acquitted at trial.

Scott Johnson was a doctoral student at Australian National University and lived in Canberra. He was staying at Noone’s mother and father’ Sydney residence when he died.