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 in the New South Wales state Supreme Courtroom for a sentencing hearing after he pleaded responsible in January to the homicide 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 might 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 mentioned in recorded police interview in 2020 that was performed in court.

White said within the interview he lied when he had earlier advised police that he had tried to seize Johnson and forestall his deadly fall.

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

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

A coroner had ruled 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 supplied his own reward of 1 million Australian dollars ($704,000) for data. White was charged in 2020 and police say the reward will doubtless be collected.

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

Helen White stated she learn a newspaper report in 2008 about Johnson’s dying 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's in case you chased him,’” Helen White told the court docket. She said her husband didn't reply.

Beneath cross-examination, Helen White denied she had been conscious of a AU$1 million reward for information on Johnson’s homicide when she reported her former husband to police in 2019. She stated she solely grew to become conscious of a reward when the victim’s brother, Steve Johnson, doubled the sum in 2020.

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

“This man (Scott Johnson) who once informed me he might never hurt somebody 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 bit extra sympathy. If he had grasped Scott’s hand and pulled him to security, I would 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 spouse Rosemarie Johnson also gave victim impression statements.

Rosemarie Johnson described the preliminary police failure to analyze Scott Johnson’s dying 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 able to such horror?” she asked, referring to media studies of homosexual beatings in Sydney being described as a sport.

Prosecutor Brett Hatfield said the exact details of the murder weren't identified and that White’s accounts had diverse.

White had met Johnson in a close-by bar in suburban Manly and Johnson had stripped bare on the clifftop before he died, Hatfield stated. He said the gravity of the homicide was significantly elevated as a result of it was motivated by the sufferer’s sexuality.

White’s lawyer Belinda Rigg mentioned her shopper was homosexual and had been involved that his homophobic brother would find out.

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

His legal professionals will appeal that plea within the Court of Felony Appeals and hope he might 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 house when he died.