Sydney man admits pushing homosexual American off a cliff in 1988

CANBERRA, Australia (AP) — A person 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 gay hate crime, a courtroom 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 death 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 potential sentence of life in prison.

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

White stated in the interview he lied when he had earlier informed police that he had tried to grab Johnson and prevent his fatal fall.

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

The coroner also discovered that gangs of men roamed various Sydney areas searching for gay men to assault, ensuing in 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 couldn't explain 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 data. White was charged in 2020 and police say the reward will possible be collected.

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

Helen White said she read a newspaper report in 2008 about Johnson’s demise and asked 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 is for those who chased him,’” Helen White advised the courtroom. She mentioned her husband did not reply.

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

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

“This man (Scott Johnson) who as soon as told me he might by no means hurt someone even in self-defense died in terror,” the brother added.

Steve Johnson said he appreciated White’s responsible plea.

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

Scott Johnson’s sisters Terry and Rebecca Johnson, his partner Michael Noone and Steve Johnson’s wife Rosemarie Johnson additionally gave sufferer influence statements.

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

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

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

Prosecutor Brett Hatfield said the exact details 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 at the clifftop before he died, Hatfield stated. He stated the gravity of the murder was significantly elevated because it was motivated by the sufferer’s sexuality.

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

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

His lawyers will attraction that plea in the Courtroom of Prison Appeals and hope he will 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 house when he died.