Sydney man admits pushing homosexual American off a cliff in 1988

CANBERRA, Australia (AP) — A person informed 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 docket heard on Monday.

Scott White, 51, appeared in the New South Wales state Supreme Court docket 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 shall 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 sting,” White mentioned in recorded police interview in 2020 that was performed in courtroom.

White said in the interview he lied when he had earlier advised police that he had tried to grab Johnson and forestall his fatal 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 homosexual.”

The coroner also found that gangs of men roamed varied Sydney areas seeking gay men to assault, resulting within the deaths of some victims. Some individuals had been additionally robbed.

A coroner had dominated in 1989 that the overtly 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 supplied his own 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 spouse Helen White advised the court docket that her then-husband “bragged” to their children of beating homosexual males on the clifftop well-known for gay meetups.

Helen White mentioned she learn a newspaper report in 2008 about Johnson’s dying and asked her husband if he was accountable.

“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 instructed the court. She stated 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 murder when she reported her former husband to police in 2019. She mentioned she solely became aware of a reward when the victim’s brother, Steve Johnson, doubled the sum in 2020.

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

“This man (Scott Johnson) who as soon as advised me he could never harm someone even in self-defense died in terror,” the brother added.

Steve Johnson said he appreciated White’s guilty plea.

“If he had turned himself in after his violent action, I might have had a bit extra sympathy. If he had grasped Scott’s hand and pulled him to security, 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 additionally gave sufferer impression statements.

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

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

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

Prosecutor Brett Hatfield stated the precise details of the murder weren't known and that White’s accounts had varied.

White had met Johnson in a nearby bar in suburban Manly and Johnson had stripped bare on the clifftop earlier than he died, Hatfield stated. He said the gravity of the murder was considerably elevated because it was motivated by the sufferer’s sexuality.

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

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

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

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