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 homosexual hate crime, a court 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 shall 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 edge,” White mentioned in recorded police interview in 2020 that was performed in courtroom.

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

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

The coroner also found that gangs of males roamed various Sydney areas in the hunt for gay males to assault, ensuing in the deaths of some victims. Some folks have been additionally robbed.

A coroner had ruled in 1989 that the openly 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 further investigation and offered his own reward of 1 million Australian dollars ($704,000) for information. White was charged in 2020 and police say the reward will probably be collected.

White’s former spouse Helen White advised the courtroom that her then-husband “bragged” to their youngsters of beating homosexual males at the clifftop well-known for homosexual meetups.

Helen White stated she learn a newspaper report in 2008 about Johnson’s demise 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 said, ‘It's in case you chased him,’” Helen White told the court. She mentioned her husband did not reply.

Underneath cross-examination, Helen White denied she had been aware of a AU$1 million reward for info on Johnson’s murder when she reported her former husband to police in 2019. She stated she solely turned aware of a reward when the victim’s brother, Steve Johnson, doubled the sum in 2020.

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

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

Steve Johnson stated he appreciated White’s guilty plea.

“If he had turned himself in after his violent action, I would have had a bit of more sympathy. If he had grasped Scott’s hand and pulled him to security, I'd owe him eternal 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 spouse Rosemarie Johnson also gave sufferer impression statements.

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

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

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

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

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 said. He said the gravity of the murder was considerably elevated as a result of it was motivated by the victim’s sexuality.

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

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

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

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