Sydney man admits pushing homosexual American off a cliff in 1988

CANBERRA, Australia (AP) — A person advised 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 listening to after he pleaded guilty in January to the homicide of the Los Angeles-born Canberra resident, whose demise 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 said in recorded police interview in 2020 that was played in court docket.

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

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

The coroner additionally found that gangs of men roamed various Sydney places looking for homosexual men to assault, resulting in the deaths of some victims. Some individuals were additionally robbed.

A coroner had dominated in 1989 that the openly 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 stress for additional investigation and supplied his personal reward of 1 million Australian dollars ($704,000) for information. White was charged in 2020 and police say the reward will seemingly be collected.

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

Helen White stated she read a newspaper report in 2008 about Johnson’s loss of life 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 mentioned, ‘It is should you chased him,’” Helen White instructed the court. She stated her husband didn't reply.

Underneath cross-examination, Helen White denied she had been conscious 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 only turned aware of a reward when the sufferer’s brother, Steve Johnson, doubled the sum in 2020.

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

“This man (Scott Johnson) who once told me he could by no means hurt someone 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 action, I'd have had a bit of more sympathy. If he had grasped Scott’s hand and pulled him to security, I'd owe him eternal gratitude,” the brother stated, his voice choked with emotion.

Scott Johnson’s sisters Terry and Rebecca Johnson, his accomplice Michael Noone and Steve Johnson’s spouse Rosemarie Johnson additionally gave victim impact statements.

Rosemarie Johnson described the preliminary 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 asked, referring to media experiences of homosexual beatings in Sydney being described as a sport.

Prosecutor Brett Hatfield stated the exact details of the murder were not recognized 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 before he died, Hatfield stated. He said the gravity of the murder was significantly elevated because it was motivated by the victim’s sexuality.

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

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

His legal professionals will appeal that plea in the Courtroom of Felony Appeals and hope he will probably be acquitted at trial.

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