Sydney man admits pushing gay 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 homosexual hate crime, a courtroom 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 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 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 performed in court.

White mentioned in the interview he lied when he had earlier told police that he had tried to seize Johnson and prevent his deadly fall.

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

The coroner additionally discovered that gangs of men roamed various Sydney areas in the hunt for gay men to assault, resulting within the deaths of some victims. Some individuals have been additionally robbed.

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

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

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

Helen White mentioned she read a newspaper report in 2008 about Johnson’s death 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 mentioned, ‘It's if you chased him,’” Helen White advised the court docket. She mentioned 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 mentioned she only became aware of a reward when the sufferer’s brother, Steve Johnson, doubled the sum in 2020.

Steve Johnson said in his sufferer 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 might never damage 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 would have had slightly more sympathy. If he had grasped Scott’s hand and pulled him to security, I would owe him eternal gratitude,” the brother mentioned, his voice choked with emotion.

Scott Johnson’s sisters Terry and Rebecca Johnson, his associate Michael Noone and Steve Johnson’s wife Rosemarie Johnson additionally gave victim affect statements.

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

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

“How might a neighborhood fail so spectacularly that they created boys capable of such horror?” she requested, referring to media stories of homosexual 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 diversified.

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

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

In January, White yelled repeatedly in court docket throughout a pre-trial hearing that he was guilty, having beforehand denied the crime.

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

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