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 courtroom heard on Monday.

Scott White, 51, appeared in the New South Wales state Supreme Court for a sentencing listening to after he pleaded guilty in January to the homicide of the Los Angeles-born Canberra resident, whose loss of life at the base of a North Head cliff was initially dismissed by police as suicide.

White shall 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 stated in recorded police interview in 2020 that was performed in court.

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

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

The coroner also found that gangs of males roamed numerous Sydney areas in search of gay men to assault, resulting within the deaths of some victims. Some people were additionally robbed.

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

His Boston-based brother Steve Johnson maintained strain for further 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 doubtless be collected.

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

Helen White said she read a newspaper report in 2008 about Johnson’s dying 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 stated, ‘It is in the event you chased him,’” Helen White informed the court docket. She said her husband did not reply.

Under cross-examination, Helen White denied she had been aware of a AU$1 million reward for data on Johnson’s homicide when she reported her former husband to police in 2019. She said she only turned conscious of a reward when the sufferer’s brother, Steve Johnson, doubled the sum in 2020.

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

“This man (Scott Johnson) who once advised me he may by no means damage 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 action, I might have had a bit more sympathy. If he had grasped Scott’s hand and pulled him to security, 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 also gave victim influence statements.

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

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

“How could a neighborhood fail so spectacularly that they created boys capable of such horror?” she requested, referring to media reports of homosexual beatings in Sydney being described as a sport.

Prosecutor Brett Hatfield said the precise particulars of the homicide were not known and that White’s accounts had diversified.

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 stated the gravity of the murder was considerably elevated as a result of it was motivated by the victim’s sexuality.

White’s lawyer Belinda Rigg stated her shopper was gay and had been involved that his homophobic brother would discover out.

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

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

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