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 docket heard on Monday.

Scott White, 51, appeared in the New South Wales state Supreme Court for a sentencing hearing after he pleaded responsible in January to the murder 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 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.

White said in 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 as a result of they perceived him to be gay.”

The coroner also found that gangs of males roamed various Sydney areas in search of gay males to assault, ensuing in the deaths of some victims. Some individuals had been additionally robbed.

A coroner had ruled in 1989 that the overtly 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 own reward of 1 million Australian dollars ($704,000) for data. White was charged in 2020 and police say the reward will possible be collected.

White’s former spouse Helen White instructed the court docket that her then-husband “bragged” to their kids of beating gay males at the clifftop well-known for homosexual 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 mentioned, ‘It is if you chased him,’” Helen White informed 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 homicide when she reported her former husband to police in 2019. She mentioned she solely became aware 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 advised me he may by no means damage somebody even in self-defense died in terror,” the brother added.

Steve Johnson mentioned he appreciated White’s responsible plea.

“If he had turned himself in after his violent action, I'd have had a little extra sympathy. If he had grasped Scott’s hand and pulled him to safety, I would 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 additionally gave victim impression statements.

Rosemarie Johnson described the preliminary police failure to research Scott Johnson’s loss of life as “indefensible and inhumane.”

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

“How could a neighborhood fail so spectacularly that they created boys capable of such horror?” she asked, referring to media reviews of gay beatings in Sydney being described as a sport.

Prosecutor Brett Hatfield mentioned the precise details of the murder were not known and that White’s accounts had varied.

White had met Johnson in a close-by 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 considerably elevated because it was motivated by the sufferer’s sexuality.

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

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

His attorneys will enchantment 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 parents’ Sydney residence when he died.