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 gay hate crime, a court heard on Monday.

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

White will likely 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 mentioned within the interview he lied when he had earlier told police that he had tried to grab Johnson and forestall his fatal fall.

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

The coroner also found that gangs of males roamed various Sydney areas in the hunt for gay males to assault, resulting within the deaths of some victims. Some individuals had been also 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 further investigation and supplied his personal reward of 1 million Australian dollars ($704,000) for info. White was charged in 2020 and police say the reward will likely be collected.

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

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

Underneath cross-examination, Helen White denied she had been conscious of a AU$1 million reward for data on Johnson’s murder when she reported her former husband to police in 2019. She mentioned she solely grew to become aware of a reward when the victim’s brother, Steve Johnson, doubled the sum in 2020.

Steve Johnson mentioned in his sufferer impression statement that, “With a vicious push, Mr. White took Scott and he vanished.”

“This man (Scott Johnson) who once informed me he could by no means hurt someone even in self-defense died in terror,” the brother added.

Steve Johnson stated he appreciated White’s guilty plea.

“If he had turned himself in after his violent motion, I would have had a bit more sympathy. If he had grasped Scott’s hand and pulled him to security, I might owe him everlasting 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 wife Rosemarie Johnson also gave victim impression statements.

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

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

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

Prosecutor Brett Hatfield said the exact particulars of the homicide weren't known and that White’s accounts had different.

White had met Johnson in a nearby bar in suburban Manly and Johnson had stripped bare on the clifftop before he died, Hatfield mentioned. He said the gravity of the homicide was significantly elevated as a result of it was motivated by the sufferer’s sexuality.

White’s lawyer Belinda Rigg stated her consumer was gay 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 guilty, having previously denied the crime.

His lawyers will appeal that plea in the Courtroom of Prison Appeals and hope he can be acquitted at trial.

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