Sydney man admits pushing homosexual 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 homosexual hate crime, a court docket heard on Monday.

Scott White, 51, appeared in the New South Wales state Supreme Court for a sentencing listening to after he pleaded responsible in January to the homicide of the Los Angeles-born Canberra resident, whose death on 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 jail.

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

White mentioned in the interview he lied when he had earlier informed police that he had tried to seize Johnson and stop his deadly 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 homosexual.”

The coroner additionally discovered that gangs of men roamed various Sydney places seeking homosexual men to assault, resulting in the deaths of some victims. Some folks have 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 couldn't explain 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 doubtless be collected.

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

Helen White mentioned she learn a newspaper report in 2008 about Johnson’s death 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 should you chased him,’” Helen White advised the courtroom. She stated her husband did not 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 said she only grew to become conscious of a reward when the sufferer’s brother, Steve Johnson, doubled the sum in 2020.

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

“This man (Scott Johnson) who once advised me he could by no means hurt 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'd have had just a little more sympathy. If he had grasped Scott’s hand and pulled him to security, I might owe him everlasting gratitude,” the brother mentioned, 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 victim affect statements.

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

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

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

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

White had met Johnson in a nearby bar in suburban Manly and Johnson had stripped bare on the clifftop before he died, Hatfield mentioned. He stated the gravity of the homicide was significantly 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 concerned that his homophobic brother would discover out.

In January, White yelled repeatedly in court 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 Felony Appeals and hope he will likely 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 home when he died.