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 gay hate crime, a court heard on Monday.

Scott White, 51, appeared within 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 loss of life 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 sting,” White said in recorded police interview in 2020 that was played in court.

White stated within the interview he lied when he had earlier informed police that he had tried to seize Johnson and prevent his deadly fall.

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

The coroner additionally found that gangs of males roamed numerous Sydney areas searching for gay men to assault, resulting within the deaths of some victims. Some folks have been also robbed.

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

His Boston-based brother Steve Johnson maintained pressure for further investigation and offered his personal 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 wife Helen White instructed the courtroom that her then-husband “bragged” to their youngsters of beating homosexual males at the clifftop well-known for gay meetups.

Helen White stated she learn a newspaper report in 2008 about Johnson’s demise and requested her husband if he was responsible.

“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 instructed the court. She stated her husband did not reply.

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

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

“This man (Scott Johnson) who as soon as informed me he may 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 might have had just a little extra sympathy. If he had grasped Scott’s hand and pulled him to security, I might owe him everlasting gratitude,” the brother mentioned, his voice choked with emotion.

Scott Johnson’s sisters Terry and Rebecca Johnson, his companion Michael Noone and Steve Johnson’s wife Rosemarie Johnson also gave sufferer impression statements.

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

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

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

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

White had met Johnson in a nearby bar in suburban Manly and Johnson had stripped naked at 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 victim’s sexuality.

White’s lawyer Belinda Rigg stated 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 guilty, having beforehand denied the crime.

His legal professionals will attraction that plea in the Court docket of Legal Appeals and hope he will likely be acquitted at trial.

Scott Johnson was a doctoral pupil at Australian Nationwide College and lived in Canberra. He was staying at Noone’s mother and father’ Sydney house when he died.