Sydney man admits pushing gay American off a cliff in 1988

CANBERRA, Australia (AP) — A man instructed 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 listening to after he pleaded guilty 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 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 sting,” White stated in recorded police interview in 2020 that was played in courtroom.

White said in the interview he lied when he had earlier informed police that he had tried to grab Johnson and stop his fatal fall.

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

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

A coroner had ruled in 1989 that the openly gay man had taken his own 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 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 told the court docket that her then-husband “bragged” to their youngsters of beating homosexual men on the clifftop well-known for homosexual meetups.

Helen White mentioned she read a newspaper report in 2008 about Johnson’s death 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 mentioned, ‘It is in the event you chased him,’” Helen White informed the court. She mentioned her husband didn't reply.

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

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

“This man (Scott Johnson) who once told me he may by no means hurt 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 slightly extra sympathy. If he had grasped Scott’s hand and pulled him to security, I might owe him eternal gratitude,” the brother stated, his voice choked with emotion.

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

Rosemarie Johnson described the preliminary police failure to analyze Scott Johnson’s loss of life 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 capable of such horror?” she asked, referring to media experiences of gay beatings in Sydney being described as a sport.

Prosecutor Brett Hatfield mentioned the exact 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 bare at the clifftop before he died, Hatfield stated. He stated the gravity of the murder was significantly elevated as a result of it was motivated by the victim’s sexuality.

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

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

His legal professionals will appeal that plea within the Courtroom of Criminal Appeals and hope he will probably be acquitted at trial.

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