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 heard on Monday.

Scott White, 51, appeared in the New South Wales state Supreme Court for a sentencing hearing after he pleaded guilty in January to the murder of the Los Angeles-born Canberra resident, whose dying at 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 potential sentence of life in prison.

“I pushed a bloke. He went over the edge,” White said in recorded police interview in 2020 that was played in court docket.

White mentioned within the interview he lied when he had earlier told police that he had tried to grab 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 individuals who attacked him as a result of they perceived him to be gay.”

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

A coroner had ruled in 1989 that the openly gay man had taken his personal life, while a second coroner in 2012 couldn't explain how he died.

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

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

Helen White stated she learn a newspaper report in 2008 about Johnson’s loss of life 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 said, ‘It is in case you chased him,’” Helen White told the court. She mentioned her husband didn't reply.

Below 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 mentioned she only grew to become conscious of a reward when the sufferer’s brother, Steve Johnson, doubled the sum in 2020.

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

“This man (Scott Johnson) who once informed me he could by no means hurt somebody even in self-defense died in terror,” the brother added.

Steve Johnson stated he appreciated White’s responsible plea.

“If he had turned himself in after his violent motion, I'd have had somewhat more sympathy. If he had grasped Scott’s hand and pulled him to safety, 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 wife Rosemarie Johnson additionally gave sufferer influence statements.

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

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

“How could a neighborhood fail so spectacularly that they created boys able to such horror?” she asked, referring to media stories of gay beatings in Sydney being described as a sport.

Prosecutor Brett Hatfield mentioned the precise details of the murder were not known and that White’s accounts had different.

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

White’s lawyer Belinda Rigg stated her client 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 attraction that plea within the Court docket of Felony Appeals and hope he will 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.