Sydney man admits pushing gay American off a cliff in 1988

CANBERRA, Australia (AP) — A person instructed 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 listening to after he pleaded guilty in January to the homicide of the Los Angeles-born Canberra resident, whose demise at the base of a North Head cliff was initially dismissed by police as suicide.

White might be sentenced by Justice Helen Wilson on Tuesday. He faces a possible sentence of life in jail.

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

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

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

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

A coroner had ruled in 1989 that the openly homosexual man had taken his own life, while a second coroner in 2012 couldn't explain how he died.

His Boston-based brother Steve Johnson maintained strain for further investigation and provided 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 instructed the court docket that her then-husband “bragged” to their kids of beating gay males at the clifftop well-known for gay meetups.

Helen White said she learn a newspaper report in 2008 about Johnson’s loss of life 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 stated, ‘It is if you chased him,’” Helen White told the courtroom. She mentioned 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 mentioned she only turned 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 someone even in self-defense died in terror,” the brother added.

Steve Johnson said he appreciated White’s responsible plea.

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

Scott Johnson’s sisters Terry and Rebecca Johnson, his accomplice Michael Noone and Steve Johnson’s wife Rosemarie Johnson also gave sufferer influence statements.

Rosemarie Johnson described the initial police failure to analyze Scott Johnson’s demise 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 capable of such horror?” she asked, referring to media reviews of homosexual beatings in Sydney being described as a sport.

Prosecutor Brett Hatfield mentioned the precise particulars of the homicide weren't recognized and that White’s accounts had various.

White had met Johnson in a close-by bar in suburban Manly and Johnson had stripped naked at the clifftop before he died, Hatfield said. He said the gravity of the homicide was considerably elevated as a result of 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 find out.

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

His attorneys will attraction that plea within the Courtroom of Felony Appeals and hope he will be acquitted at trial.

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