Sydney man admits pushing homosexual American off a cliff in 1988

CANBERRA, Australia (AP) — A person 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 Courtroom for a sentencing hearing 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 possible sentence of life in prison.

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

White mentioned in the interview he lied when he had earlier informed police that he had tried to seize Johnson and stop his fatal 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 as a result of they perceived him to be gay.”

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

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

His Boston-based brother Steve Johnson maintained pressure 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 seemingly be collected.

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

Helen White said she read a newspaper report in 2008 about Johnson’s dying 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 stated, ‘It's in the event you chased him,’” Helen White advised the court docket. She said her husband didn't reply.

Below cross-examination, Helen White denied she had been conscious 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 became conscious of a reward when the victim’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 as soon as informed me he might 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 motion, I'd have had somewhat more sympathy. If he had grasped Scott’s hand and pulled him to security, I'd owe him eternal gratitude,” the brother mentioned, his voice choked with emotion.

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

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

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

“How might a community fail so spectacularly that they created boys able to such horror?” she requested, referring to media reviews of homosexual beatings in Sydney being described as a sport.

Prosecutor Brett Hatfield mentioned the precise details of the murder weren't recognized and that White’s accounts had diverse.

White had met Johnson in a close-by bar in suburban Manly and Johnson had stripped bare on the clifftop before he died, Hatfield said. He mentioned 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 consumer was homosexual and had been involved that his homophobic brother would discover out.

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

His attorneys will appeal that plea in the Courtroom of Legal Appeals and hope he will likely be acquitted at trial.

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