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 gay hate crime, a courtroom heard on Monday.

Scott White, 51, appeared within the New South Wales state Supreme Courtroom for a sentencing hearing after he pleaded guilty 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 will probably 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 said in recorded police interview in 2020 that was performed in courtroom.

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

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

The coroner also discovered that gangs of males roamed numerous Sydney places seeking homosexual males to assault, ensuing in the deaths of some victims. Some individuals have been also robbed.

A coroner had dominated in 1989 that the openly homosexual man had taken his personal 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 provided his own reward of 1 million Australian dollars ($704,000) for information. White was charged in 2020 and police say the reward will seemingly be collected.

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

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

Below 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 said she only grew to become conscious of a reward when the sufferer’s brother, Steve Johnson, doubled the sum in 2020.

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

“This man (Scott Johnson) who once told me he could never hurt somebody even in self-defense died in terror,” the brother added.

Steve Johnson stated he appreciated White’s responsible plea.

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

Scott Johnson’s sisters Terry and Rebecca Johnson, his associate 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 dying as “indefensible and inhumane.”

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

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

Prosecutor Brett Hatfield said the precise particulars of the murder weren't identified and that White’s accounts had different.

White had met Johnson in a close-by bar in suburban Manly and Johnson had stripped naked at the clifftop before he died, Hatfield said. He mentioned the gravity of the murder was significantly elevated because it was motivated by the victim’s sexuality.

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

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

His legal professionals will attraction that plea within the Courtroom of Criminal Appeals and hope he shall be acquitted at trial.

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