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 within the New South Wales state Supreme Court for a sentencing listening to after he pleaded responsible in January to the homicide of the Los Angeles-born Canberra resident, whose loss of life on the base of a North Head cliff was initially dismissed by police as suicide.

White will probably be sentenced by Justice Helen Wilson on Tuesday. He faces a potential sentence of life in jail.

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

White stated in the interview he lied when he had earlier told 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 precise or threatened violence by unidentified persons who attacked him as a result of they perceived him to be homosexual.”

The coroner also discovered that gangs of males roamed varied Sydney areas seeking homosexual males to assault, ensuing within the deaths of some victims. Some folks have been additionally robbed.

A coroner had dominated in 1989 that the openly gay 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 stress for additional investigation and offered his personal reward of 1 million Australian dollars ($704,000) for data. White was charged in 2020 and police say the reward will seemingly be collected.

White’s former wife Helen White instructed the courtroom that her then-husband “bragged” to their kids of beating homosexual men on the clifftop well-known for homosexual meetups.

Helen White said she learn a newspaper report in 2008 about Johnson’s death 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 happen to chased him,’” Helen White instructed the courtroom. She mentioned her husband did not reply.

Beneath 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 said she solely grew to become aware of a reward when the victim’s brother, Steve Johnson, doubled the sum in 2020.

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

“This man (Scott Johnson) who as soon as informed me he could 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'd have had slightly extra 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 partner Michael Noone and Steve Johnson’s wife Rosemarie Johnson also gave victim impression statements.

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

Rebecca Johnson, a younger 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 gay beatings in Sydney being described as a sport.

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

White had met Johnson in a close-by bar in suburban Manly and Johnson had stripped naked at the clifftop before he died, Hatfield stated. He stated the gravity of the murder was considerably elevated because it was motivated by the sufferer’s sexuality.

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

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

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

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