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 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 dying 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 sting,” White stated in recorded police interview in 2020 that was performed in court docket.

White stated within the interview he lied when he had earlier informed police that he had tried to seize Johnson and forestall his deadly fall.

A coroner dominated in 2017 that Johnson “fell from the clifftop because of precise or threatened violence by unidentified individuals who attacked him because they perceived him to be gay.”

The coroner additionally found that gangs of men roamed varied Sydney places seeking gay men to assault, resulting in the deaths of some victims. Some folks have been also robbed.

A coroner had dominated in 1989 that the overtly homosexual man had taken his own life, while a second coroner in 2012 couldn't explain how he died.

His Boston-based brother Steve Johnson maintained strain for further investigation and provided his own reward of 1 million Australian dollars ($704,000) for data. White was charged in 2020 and police say the reward will possible be collected.

White’s former wife Helen White informed the courtroom that her then-husband “bragged” to their youngsters of beating gay males on the clifftop well-known for gay meetups.

Helen White mentioned she read 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 said, ‘It's for those who chased him,’” Helen White told the courtroom. She said her husband didn't reply.

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

Steve Johnson stated in his victim influence statement that, “With a vicious push, Mr. White took Scott and he vanished.”

“This man (Scott Johnson) who once instructed me he could by no means hurt someone even in self-defense died in terror,” the brother added.

Steve Johnson stated he appreciated White’s guilty plea.

“If he had turned himself in after his violent motion, I'd have had just a little 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 associate Michael Noone and Steve Johnson’s wife Rosemarie Johnson also gave sufferer influence statements.

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

Rebecca Johnson, a younger 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 experiences of gay beatings in Sydney being described as a sport.

Prosecutor Brett Hatfield mentioned the exact particulars of the homicide were not known and that White’s accounts had assorted.

White had met Johnson in a close-by bar in suburban Manly and Johnson had stripped naked on the clifftop before he died, Hatfield mentioned. He said 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 shopper was gay and had been involved that his homophobic brother would find out.

In January, White yelled repeatedly in court docket throughout a pre-trial hearing that he was responsible, having beforehand denied the crime.

His legal professionals will appeal that plea in the Courtroom of Legal 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.