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 gay hate crime, a court heard on Monday.

Scott White, 51, appeared in the New South Wales state Supreme Court docket 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 might be sentenced by Justice Helen Wilson on Tuesday. He faces a potential sentence of life in jail.

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

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

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

The coroner additionally discovered that gangs of men roamed numerous Sydney places looking for gay males to assault, ensuing in the deaths of some victims. Some people have been 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 additional investigation and provided his personal reward of 1 million Australian dollars ($704,000) for info. White was charged in 2020 and police say the reward will probably be collected.

White’s former spouse Helen White informed the courtroom that her then-husband “bragged” to their children of beating homosexual males on the clifftop well-known for gay meetups.

Helen White said she learn a newspaper report in 2008 about Johnson’s demise 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 said, ‘It's if you happen to chased him,’” Helen White informed the courtroom. She mentioned her husband did not reply.

Beneath cross-examination, Helen White denied she had been aware of a AU$1 million reward for info on Johnson’s homicide when she reported her former husband to police in 2019. She said she only grew to become 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 informed me he may never damage 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 motion, I'd have had somewhat more sympathy. If he had grasped Scott’s hand and pulled him to security, I'd owe him everlasting gratitude,” the brother said, his voice choked with emotion.

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

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

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

“How could a neighborhood fail so spectacularly that they created boys able to such horror?” she requested, referring to media studies of gay 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 various.

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 said the gravity of the murder was significantly elevated as a result of it was motivated by the sufferer’s sexuality.

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

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

His attorneys will enchantment that plea within the Courtroom of Prison Appeals and hope he will 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 residence when he died.