Sydney man admits pushing gay 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 courtroom heard on Monday.

Scott White, 51, appeared within 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 demise 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 edge,” White mentioned in recorded police interview in 2020 that was played in court.

White stated in the interview he lied when he had earlier instructed police that he had tried to grab Johnson and stop his deadly fall.

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

The coroner additionally discovered that gangs of males roamed various Sydney places in the hunt for homosexual men to assault, ensuing in the deaths of some victims. Some people were also robbed.

A coroner had dominated in 1989 that the brazenly 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 offered his own reward of 1 million Australian dollars ($704,000) for info. White was charged in 2020 and police say the reward will seemingly be collected.

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

Helen White said she learn a newspaper report in 2008 about Johnson’s loss of life 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 should you chased him,’” Helen White instructed the court docket. She stated her husband didn't reply.

Below 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 grew to become aware of a reward when the sufferer’s brother, Steve Johnson, doubled the sum in 2020.

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

“This man (Scott Johnson) who once advised me he could by no means damage somebody 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 a bit of more sympathy. If he had grasped Scott’s hand and pulled him to safety, I might owe him eternal gratitude,” the brother said, 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 affect statements.

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

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

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

Prosecutor Brett Hatfield stated the exact details of the murder were not recognized and that White’s accounts had assorted.

White had met Johnson in a nearby bar in suburban Manly and Johnson had stripped bare at the clifftop before he died, Hatfield said. He stated the gravity of the murder was considerably elevated as a result of it was motivated by the victim’s sexuality.

White’s lawyer Belinda Rigg mentioned her shopper was homosexual and had been concerned that his homophobic brother would find out.

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

His attorneys will attraction that plea within the Courtroom of Criminal 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 home when he died.