Sydney man admits pushing homosexual American off a cliff in 1988

CANBERRA, Australia (AP) — A man informed 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 heard on Monday.

Scott White, 51, appeared within 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 dying at the base of a North Head cliff was initially dismissed by police as suicide.

White can 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 mentioned in the interview he lied when he had earlier instructed police that he had tried to grab Johnson and prevent his fatal fall.

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

The coroner also discovered that gangs of men roamed varied Sydney areas in quest of gay men to assault, resulting in the deaths of some victims. Some folks were also 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 explain how he died.

His Boston-based brother Steve Johnson maintained pressure for additional investigation and supplied his own 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 wife Helen White advised the court that her then-husband “bragged” to their children of beating homosexual males on the clifftop well-known for homosexual meetups.

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

Beneath 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 stated she only turned conscious of a reward when the victim’s brother, Steve Johnson, doubled the sum in 2020.

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

“This man (Scott Johnson) who once told me he may by no means hurt someone 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 action, I would 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 partner Michael Noone and Steve Johnson’s spouse Rosemarie Johnson additionally gave sufferer influence statements.

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

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

“How may a group fail so spectacularly that they created boys capable of such horror?” she asked, referring to media studies of homosexual beatings in Sydney being described as a sport.

Prosecutor Brett Hatfield mentioned the precise particulars 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 earlier than he died, Hatfield stated. 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 shopper was gay and had been involved that his homophobic brother would find out.

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

His lawyers will enchantment that plea in the Court of Felony Appeals and hope he will likely be acquitted at trial.

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