Sydney man admits pushing homosexual 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 court heard on Monday.

Scott White, 51, appeared within 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 loss of life at 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 jail.

“I pushed a bloke. He went over the sting,” White stated in recorded police interview in 2020 that was performed in court docket.

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

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

The coroner additionally discovered that gangs of males roamed various Sydney locations in quest of gay males to assault, resulting within the deaths of some victims. Some folks were additionally robbed.

A coroner had dominated in 1989 that the brazenly homosexual man had taken his own life, whereas a second coroner in 2012 couldn't clarify how he died.

His Boston-based brother Steve Johnson maintained stress 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 possible be collected.

White’s former spouse Helen White advised the court that her then-husband “bragged” to their kids of beating gay men at the clifftop well-known for gay 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 stated, ‘It is when you chased him,’” Helen White told the court docket. She said her husband did not reply.

Underneath cross-examination, Helen White denied she had been aware 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 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 influence statement that, “With a vicious push, Mr. White took Scott and he vanished.”

“This man (Scott Johnson) who once advised me he may never harm someone 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 would have had a little more sympathy. If he had grasped Scott’s hand and pulled him to safety, 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 preliminary police failure to research Scott Johnson’s demise as “indefensible and inhumane.”

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

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

Prosecutor Brett Hatfield stated the exact particulars 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 naked on the clifftop before he died, Hatfield said. He mentioned the gravity of the homicide was significantly elevated as a result of it was motivated by the victim’s sexuality.

White’s lawyer Belinda Rigg stated her consumer was gay and had been involved that his homophobic brother would discover out.

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

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

Scott Johnson was a doctoral scholar at Australian National University and lived in Canberra. He was staying at Noone’s mother and father’ Sydney house when he died.