Sydney man admits pushing homosexual 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 within the New South Wales state Supreme Court docket for a sentencing hearing 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 will likely 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 said in recorded police interview in 2020 that was played in court.

White mentioned within the interview he lied when he had earlier instructed police that he had tried to grab Johnson and forestall his fatal 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 homosexual.”

The coroner additionally discovered that gangs of males roamed various Sydney locations in search of homosexual males to assault, ensuing within the deaths of some victims. Some individuals were additionally robbed.

A coroner had dominated in 1989 that the overtly homosexual man had taken his own life, while a second coroner in 2012 could not clarify how he died.

His Boston-based brother Steve Johnson maintained strain 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 doubtless be collected.

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

Helen White stated she read a newspaper report in 2008 about Johnson’s death 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 mentioned, ‘It is in the event you chased him,’” Helen White told the court docket. 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 mentioned she only grew to become conscious of a reward when the victim’s brother, Steve Johnson, doubled the sum in 2020.

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

“This man (Scott Johnson) who as soon as informed me he might never damage somebody even in self-defense died in terror,” the brother added.

Steve Johnson stated he appreciated White’s responsible plea.

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

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

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

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

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

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

White had met Johnson in a close-by bar in suburban Manly and Johnson had stripped naked 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 mentioned her client was gay and had been involved that his homophobic brother would find out.

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

His lawyers will appeal that plea within the Courtroom of Prison Appeals and hope he shall be acquitted at trial.

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