Sydney man admits pushing gay American off a cliff in 1988

CANBERRA, Australia (AP) — A man advised 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 court docket heard on Monday.

Scott White, 51, appeared in the New South Wales state Supreme Court docket for a sentencing hearing after he pleaded responsible in January to the homicide of the Los Angeles-born Canberra resident, whose demise on the base of a North Head cliff was initially dismissed by police as suicide.

White can be sentenced by Justice Helen Wilson on Tuesday. He faces a possible 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 courtroom.

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

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

The coroner additionally found that gangs of males roamed numerous Sydney places seeking homosexual men to assault, resulting within the deaths of some victims. Some individuals had been additionally robbed.

A coroner had ruled in 1989 that the openly homosexual man had taken his own life, whereas a second coroner in 2012 could not explain how he died.

His Boston-based brother Steve Johnson maintained stress for additional investigation and supplied his personal reward of 1 million Australian dollars ($704,000) for data. 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 youngsters of beating homosexual males on the clifftop well-known for homosexual meetups.

Helen White stated she read a newspaper report in 2008 about Johnson’s loss of life 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 chased him,’” Helen White advised the court. She stated her husband didn't reply.

Under 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 turned aware of a reward when the sufferer’s brother, Steve Johnson, doubled the sum in 2020.

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

“This man (Scott Johnson) who once informed me he may never hurt someone even in self-defense died in terror,” the brother added.

Steve Johnson mentioned he appreciated White’s responsible plea.

“If he had turned himself in after his violent motion, I would have had a little bit extra sympathy. If he had grasped Scott’s hand and pulled him to safety, I'd owe him eternal gratitude,” the brother mentioned, his voice choked with emotion.

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

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

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

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

Prosecutor Brett Hatfield mentioned the exact particulars of the murder were not identified and that White’s accounts had various.

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

White’s lawyer Belinda Rigg stated her client 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 appeal that plea within the Court of Criminal Appeals and hope he will probably be acquitted at trial.

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