Sydney man admits pushing homosexual American off a cliff in 1988

CANBERRA, Australia (AP) — A person informed 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 within the New South Wales state Supreme Courtroom for a sentencing listening to after he pleaded guilty in January to the homicide of the Los Angeles-born Canberra resident, whose loss of life on 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 potential sentence of life in jail.

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

White stated within the interview he lied when he had earlier told police that he had tried to seize Johnson and forestall 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 gay.”

The coroner additionally discovered that gangs of males roamed varied Sydney places looking for homosexual males to assault, ensuing within the deaths of some victims. Some folks have been also robbed.

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

His Boston-based brother Steve Johnson maintained pressure for further investigation and supplied his personal reward of 1 million Australian dollars ($704,000) for info. White was charged in 2020 and police say the reward will doubtless be collected.

White’s former spouse Helen White told the courtroom that her then-husband “bragged” to their kids of beating gay men on the clifftop well-known for homosexual 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 mentioned, ‘It is if you happen to chased him,’” Helen White informed the courtroom. She said her husband didn't reply.

Beneath cross-examination, Helen White denied she had been aware 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 turned aware of a reward when the victim’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 advised me he might by no means damage someone even in self-defense died in terror,” the brother added.

Steve Johnson mentioned he appreciated White’s responsible plea.

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

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

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

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

“How may a community fail so spectacularly that they created boys capable of such horror?” she asked, referring to media reviews of homosexual beatings in Sydney being described as a sport.

Prosecutor Brett Hatfield mentioned the precise 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 naked at the clifftop before he died, Hatfield stated. He mentioned the gravity of the murder was considerably elevated because it was motivated by the sufferer’s sexuality.

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

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

His legal professionals will attraction that plea in the Court 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 mother and father’ Sydney house when he died.