Sydney man admits pushing gay American off a cliff in 1988

CANBERRA, Australia (AP) — A man told 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 in the New South Wales state Supreme Courtroom for a sentencing listening to after he pleaded responsible in January to the murder of the Los Angeles-born Canberra resident, whose dying on the base of a North Head cliff was initially dismissed by police as suicide.

White shall 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 sting,” White stated in recorded police interview in 2020 that was performed in court.

White said in the interview he lied when he had earlier advised police that he had tried to seize Johnson and stop his fatal fall.

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

The coroner also found that gangs of males roamed numerous Sydney locations seeking gay men to assault, resulting within the deaths of some victims. Some people had been also robbed.

A coroner had ruled in 1989 that the brazenly 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 additional investigation and provided his personal reward of 1 million Australian dollars ($704,000) for data. White was charged in 2020 and police say the reward will likely be collected.

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

Helen White said she learn a newspaper report in 2008 about Johnson’s dying 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's should you chased him,’” Helen White advised the court. She mentioned her husband didn't reply.

Under cross-examination, Helen White denied she had been aware of a AU$1 million reward for information 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 sufferer’s brother, Steve Johnson, doubled the sum in 2020.

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

“This man (Scott Johnson) who once instructed me he might by no means harm somebody even in self-defense died in terror,” the brother added.

Steve Johnson mentioned he appreciated White’s guilty plea.

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

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

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

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

Prosecutor Brett Hatfield mentioned the precise particulars of the murder weren't identified and that White’s accounts had diverse.

White had met Johnson in a close-by bar in suburban Manly and Johnson had stripped bare on the clifftop earlier than 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 stated her client was homosexual and had been concerned that his homophobic brother would find out.

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

His legal professionals will attraction that plea within the Courtroom of Criminal 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 mother and father’ Sydney residence when he died.