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 courtroom heard on Monday.

Scott White, 51, appeared within the New South Wales state Supreme Courtroom for a sentencing listening to after he pleaded guilty in January to the murder of the Los Angeles-born Canberra resident, whose death on the base of a North Head cliff was initially dismissed by police as suicide.

White will likely 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 mentioned in recorded police interview in 2020 that was played in courtroom.

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

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

The coroner also found that gangs of males roamed various Sydney places seeking homosexual males to assault, ensuing in the deaths of some victims. Some folks had been also robbed.

A coroner had dominated in 1989 that the overtly homosexual man had taken his own life, while a second coroner in 2012 couldn't explain how he died.

His Boston-based brother Steve Johnson maintained stress for further 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 doubtless be collected.

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

Helen White mentioned she learn a newspaper report in 2008 about Johnson’s demise 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 mentioned, ‘It's in case you chased him,’” Helen White informed the courtroom. She mentioned her husband did not reply.

Under 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 said she solely 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 impression assertion that, “With a vicious push, Mr. White took Scott and he vanished.”

“This man (Scott Johnson) who once instructed 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 guilty plea.

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

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

Rosemarie Johnson described the preliminary 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 may a neighborhood fail so spectacularly that they created boys capable of such horror?” she requested, referring to media stories of gay beatings in Sydney being described as a sport.

Prosecutor Brett Hatfield mentioned the exact particulars of the homicide weren't identified and that White’s accounts had assorted.

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

White’s lawyer Belinda Rigg mentioned her shopper was gay and had been concerned 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 beforehand denied the crime.

His attorneys will enchantment that plea in the Court of Criminal Appeals and hope he will probably be acquitted at trial.

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