Sydney man admits pushing homosexual American off a cliff in 1988

CANBERRA, Australia (AP) — A man 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 homosexual hate crime, a court docket 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 dying 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 possible sentence of life in prison.

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

White mentioned within the interview he lied when he had earlier informed police that he had tried to grab Johnson and stop his deadly fall.

A coroner dominated in 2017 that Johnson “fell from the clifftop as a result of actual 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 males roamed numerous Sydney locations searching for homosexual men to assault, ensuing within the deaths of some victims. Some people were additionally robbed.

A coroner had ruled in 1989 that the openly homosexual man had taken his own life, whereas a second coroner in 2012 could not explain how he died.

His Boston-based brother Steve Johnson maintained strain for additional investigation and offered his personal reward of 1 million Australian dollars ($704,000) for data. White was charged in 2020 and police say the reward will probably be collected.

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

Helen White mentioned she read 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 stated, ‘It is should you chased him,’” Helen White instructed the courtroom. She said her husband did not reply.

Under 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 stated she only grew to become aware of a reward when the sufferer’s brother, Steve Johnson, doubled the sum in 2020.

Steve Johnson said in his victim impression assertion that, “With a vicious push, Mr. White took Scott and he vanished.”

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

Steve Johnson mentioned he appreciated White’s guilty plea.

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

Scott Johnson’s sisters Terry and Rebecca Johnson, his associate Michael Noone and Steve Johnson’s spouse Rosemarie Johnson additionally gave victim affect statements.

Rosemarie Johnson described the initial police failure to research Scott Johnson’s demise 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 able to such horror?” she requested, referring to media reports of homosexual beatings in Sydney being described as a sport.

Prosecutor Brett Hatfield mentioned the precise particulars of the homicide were not identified and that White’s accounts had various.

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

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

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

His attorneys will attraction that plea within the Courtroom of Criminal Appeals and hope he will likely 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 dwelling when he died.