Sydney man admits pushing gay 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 court heard on Monday.

Scott White, 51, appeared within the New South Wales state Supreme Court for a sentencing hearing after he pleaded guilty in January to the homicide of the Los Angeles-born Canberra resident, whose death at 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 possible sentence of life in jail.

“I pushed a bloke. He went over the sting,” White stated in recorded police interview in 2020 that was played in courtroom.

White said within the interview he lied when he had earlier instructed 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 persons 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 homosexual men to assault, ensuing within the deaths of some victims. Some folks were also robbed.

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

His Boston-based brother Steve Johnson maintained pressure for further investigation and provided 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 courtroom that her then-husband “bragged” to their youngsters of beating gay men on the clifftop well-known for gay meetups.

Helen White stated she read a newspaper report in 2008 about Johnson’s death and requested 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 for those who chased him,’” Helen White advised the court docket. She stated her husband did not reply.

Below cross-examination, Helen White denied she had been aware of a AU$1 million reward for info on Johnson’s murder when she reported her former husband to police in 2019. She mentioned she solely turned conscious 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 once instructed me he may never hurt 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 motion, I'd have had a bit of extra sympathy. If he had grasped Scott’s hand and pulled him to security, I might owe him everlasting gratitude,” the brother mentioned, his voice choked with emotion.

Scott Johnson’s sisters Terry and Rebecca Johnson, his companion Michael Noone and Steve Johnson’s wife Rosemarie Johnson also gave sufferer impression statements.

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

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

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

Prosecutor Brett Hatfield mentioned the exact particulars of the homicide weren't identified and that White’s accounts had diverse.

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

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

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

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

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