Sydney man admits pushing gay American off a cliff in 1988

CANBERRA, Australia (AP) — A man advised 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 in the New South Wales state Supreme Court for a sentencing hearing after he pleaded responsible in January to the homicide of the Los Angeles-born Canberra resident, whose dying on the base of a North Head cliff was initially dismissed by police as suicide.

White shall 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 said within the interview he lied when he had earlier instructed police that he had tried to seize Johnson and prevent his deadly fall.

A coroner dominated in 2017 that Johnson “fell from the clifftop as a result of actual or threatened violence by unidentified persons who attacked him as a result of they perceived him to be gay.”

The coroner additionally discovered that gangs of males roamed numerous Sydney areas in search of homosexual males to assault, resulting within the deaths of some victims. Some people have been additionally robbed.

A coroner had dominated in 1989 that the brazenly 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 additional investigation and provided his own reward of 1 million Australian dollars ($704,000) for info. White was charged in 2020 and police say the reward will seemingly be collected.

White’s former spouse Helen White advised the courtroom that her then-husband “bragged” to their kids of beating homosexual men on the clifftop well-known for gay meetups.

Helen White mentioned she read 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 mentioned, ‘It's in case you chased him,’” Helen White advised the court. She said her husband did not reply.

Under cross-examination, Helen White denied she had been conscious of a AU$1 million reward for data on Johnson’s homicide when she reported her former husband to police in 2019. She said she solely turned conscious of a reward when the victim’s brother, Steve Johnson, doubled the sum in 2020.

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

“This man (Scott Johnson) who once told me he may never damage 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 would have had a bit extra sympathy. If he had grasped Scott’s hand and pulled him to safety, I might owe him eternal 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 also gave sufferer affect statements.

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

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

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

Prosecutor Brett Hatfield stated the precise particulars of the murder weren't known and that White’s accounts had diversified.

White had met Johnson in a close-by bar in suburban Manly and Johnson had stripped bare on the clifftop before he died, Hatfield stated. He said the gravity of the homicide was considerably elevated as a result of it was motivated by the sufferer’s sexuality.

White’s lawyer Belinda Rigg stated her shopper was homosexual and had been involved that his homophobic brother would discover out.

In January, White yelled repeatedly in court during 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 will be acquitted at trial.

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