Sydney man admits pushing homosexual American off a cliff in 1988

CANBERRA, Australia (AP) — A person 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 Court for a sentencing hearing after he pleaded responsible in January to the homicide of the Los Angeles-born Canberra resident, whose demise 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 played in court.

White said within the interview he lied when he had earlier instructed police that he had tried to grab Johnson and forestall his fatal 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 numerous Sydney areas in search of homosexual men to assault, resulting in the deaths of some victims. Some folks have been also robbed.

A coroner had ruled in 1989 that the overtly gay 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 strain for additional investigation and supplied his own reward of 1 million Australian dollars ($704,000) for info. White was charged in 2020 and police say the reward will likely be collected.

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

Helen White said she read a newspaper report in 2008 about Johnson’s dying 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 stated, ‘It's in the event you chased him,’” Helen White informed the court. She stated her husband did not reply.

Underneath cross-examination, Helen White denied she had been aware 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 became aware of a reward when the victim’s brother, Steve Johnson, doubled the sum in 2020.

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

“This man (Scott Johnson) who as soon as informed me he might never 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 action, I might have had a little more sympathy. If he had grasped Scott’s hand and pulled him to safety, I'd owe him eternal gratitude,” the brother stated, his voice choked with emotion.

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

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

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

“How might a neighborhood 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 said the exact particulars of the murder weren't known and that White’s accounts had varied.

White had met Johnson in a close-by bar in suburban Manly and Johnson had stripped bare at the clifftop earlier than he died, Hatfield said. He stated the gravity of the murder was considerably elevated because it was motivated by the sufferer’s sexuality.

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

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

His attorneys will attraction that plea in the Court of Prison Appeals and hope he will probably 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 residence when he died.