Sydney man admits pushing homosexual American off a cliff in 1988

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

Scott White, 51, appeared within the New South Wales state Supreme Court for a sentencing hearing after he pleaded guilty in January to the homicide of the Los Angeles-born Canberra resident, whose death 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 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 performed in court.

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 as a result of precise or threatened violence by unidentified persons who attacked him as a result of they perceived him to be gay.”

The coroner also found that gangs of males roamed numerous Sydney areas in the hunt for homosexual men to assault, ensuing within the deaths of some victims. Some folks were additionally robbed.

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

White’s former wife Helen White instructed the courtroom that her then-husband “bragged” to their youngsters 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 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's if you chased him,’” Helen White told the court docket. She said her husband did not reply.

Beneath cross-examination, Helen White denied she had been aware of a AU$1 million reward for data on Johnson’s murder when she reported her former husband to police in 2019. She mentioned she solely became aware of a reward when the sufferer’s brother, Steve Johnson, doubled the sum in 2020.

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

“This man (Scott Johnson) who once informed me he might never harm somebody 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 motion, I might have had a little extra sympathy. If he had grasped Scott’s hand and pulled him to safety, I might owe him everlasting gratitude,” the brother mentioned, his voice choked with emotion.

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

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

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

“How may a community 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 stated the precise details of the murder were not identified and that White’s accounts had diversified.

White had met Johnson in a nearby bar in suburban Manly and Johnson had stripped naked at the clifftop before he died, Hatfield stated. He stated the gravity of the homicide was considerably elevated because it was motivated by the victim’s sexuality.

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

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

His attorneys will appeal that plea in the Courtroom of Felony Appeals and hope he will probably be acquitted at trial.

Scott Johnson was a doctoral scholar at Australian National University and lived in Canberra. He was staying at Noone’s parents’ Sydney residence when he died.