Sydney man admits pushing homosexual American off a cliff in 1988

CANBERRA, Australia (AP) — A man 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 heard on Monday.

Scott White, 51, appeared within the New South Wales state Supreme Court docket for a sentencing listening to after he pleaded responsible in January to the homicide of the Los Angeles-born Canberra resident, whose demise 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 edge,” White stated in recorded police interview in 2020 that was performed in court docket.

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 as a result of they perceived him to be homosexual.”

The coroner additionally found that gangs of males roamed varied Sydney locations looking for homosexual men to assault, resulting within the deaths of some victims. Some people had been also robbed.

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

His Boston-based brother Steve Johnson maintained stress for further investigation and offered his own 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 informed the court docket that her then-husband “bragged” to their youngsters of beating homosexual males on the clifftop well-known for homosexual meetups.

Helen White stated she read a newspaper report in 2008 about Johnson’s demise and requested 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 court. She stated 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 homicide when she reported her former husband to police in 2019. She said she solely became aware of a reward when the sufferer’s brother, Steve Johnson, doubled the sum in 2020.

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

“This man (Scott Johnson) who once instructed me he could never damage somebody 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'd have had a bit of more sympathy. If he had grasped Scott’s hand and pulled him to security, I might 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 dying as “indefensible and inhumane.”

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

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

Prosecutor Brett Hatfield said the exact particulars of the homicide weren't known and that White’s accounts had diverse.

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 said the gravity of the murder was significantly elevated because it was motivated by the victim’s sexuality.

White’s lawyer Belinda Rigg said her client was homosexual and had been involved that his homophobic brother would find out.

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

His attorneys will attraction that plea in the Court of Legal Appeals and hope he can be acquitted at trial.

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