Sydney man admits pushing gay American off a cliff in 1988

CANBERRA, Australia (AP) — A man told 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 within the New South Wales state Supreme Court for a sentencing hearing after he pleaded guilty in January to the murder of the Los Angeles-born Canberra resident, whose death on the base of a North Head cliff was initially dismissed by police as suicide.

White will 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 court.

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

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

The coroner additionally found that gangs of men roamed varied Sydney locations in quest of gay males to assault, ensuing within the deaths of some victims. Some folks have been also robbed.

A coroner had ruled in 1989 that the openly gay man had taken his personal life, whereas a second coroner in 2012 could not clarify how he died.

His Boston-based brother Steve Johnson maintained strain for further investigation and offered his personal reward of 1 million Australian dollars ($704,000) for information. White was charged in 2020 and police say the reward will probably be collected.

White’s former spouse Helen White informed 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 said she learn a newspaper report in 2008 about Johnson’s dying 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 mentioned, ‘It's when you chased him,’” Helen White advised the court. She mentioned her husband did not reply.

Below 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 stated she solely turned conscious of a reward when the sufferer’s brother, Steve Johnson, doubled the sum in 2020.

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

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

Steve Johnson stated he appreciated White’s responsible plea.

“If he had turned himself in after his violent motion, I might have had just a little more sympathy. If he had grasped Scott’s hand and pulled him to safety, I'd owe him everlasting gratitude,” the brother said, his voice choked with emotion.

Scott Johnson’s sisters Terry and Rebecca Johnson, his associate Michael Noone and Steve Johnson’s spouse Rosemarie Johnson also gave sufferer impact statements.

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

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

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

Prosecutor Brett Hatfield mentioned the precise particulars of the homicide were not identified and that White’s accounts had varied.

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

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

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

His attorneys will attraction that plea within the Court docket of Prison Appeals and hope he shall be acquitted at trial.

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