Sydney man admits pushing gay 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 homosexual hate crime, a courtroom heard on Monday.

Scott White, 51, appeared within the New South Wales state Supreme Courtroom for a sentencing hearing after he pleaded responsible 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 can 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.

White stated in the interview he lied when he had earlier instructed police that he had tried to seize Johnson and forestall his fatal fall.

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

The coroner additionally discovered that gangs of males roamed numerous Sydney locations in quest of gay men to assault, ensuing in the deaths of some victims. Some people have been also robbed.

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

His Boston-based brother Steve Johnson maintained stress for further 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 wife Helen White instructed the court 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 dying and asked her husband if he was accountable.

“It’s not my fault,” Scott White allegedly replied. “The dumb (expletive) ran off the cliff.”

“I stated, ‘It's if you happen to chased him,’” Helen White advised 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 info on Johnson’s homicide when she reported her former husband to police in 2019. She mentioned she solely grew to become 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 as soon as told me he could never hurt 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 action, I would have had a little bit extra sympathy. If he had grasped Scott’s hand and pulled him to security, I'd 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 wife Rosemarie Johnson additionally gave sufferer affect statements.

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

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

“How may 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 said the precise particulars of the murder were not known and that White’s accounts had different.

White had met Johnson in a nearby bar in suburban Manly and Johnson had stripped bare at the clifftop before he died, Hatfield mentioned. He mentioned the gravity of the murder was considerably elevated as a result of it was motivated by the victim’s sexuality.

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

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

His lawyers will enchantment that plea in the Court docket of Felony Appeals and hope he will probably be acquitted at trial.

Scott Johnson was a doctoral pupil at Australian Nationwide College and lived in Canberra. He was staying at Noone’s parents’ Sydney dwelling when he died.