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 court docket heard on Monday.

Scott White, 51, appeared in the New South Wales state Supreme Courtroom for a sentencing hearing after he pleaded guilty in January to the murder of the Los Angeles-born Canberra resident, whose demise 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 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 docket.

White mentioned within the interview he lied when he had earlier instructed police that he had tried to grab Johnson and stop his deadly fall.

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

The coroner also discovered that gangs of men roamed numerous Sydney areas in the hunt for gay males to assault, ensuing within the deaths of some victims. Some individuals were also robbed.

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

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

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

Helen White stated she read a newspaper report in 2008 about Johnson’s demise and asked her husband if he was responsible.

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

“I mentioned, ‘It is when you chased him,’” Helen White instructed the court docket. She stated 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 mentioned she only grew to become aware of a reward when the sufferer’s brother, Steve Johnson, doubled the sum in 2020.

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

“This man (Scott Johnson) who as soon as instructed me he may by no means damage 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 motion, I might have had somewhat extra sympathy. If he had grasped Scott’s hand and pulled him to security, I'd owe him everlasting gratitude,” the brother said, his voice choked with emotion.

Scott Johnson’s sisters Terry and Rebecca Johnson, his accomplice Michael Noone and Steve Johnson’s spouse Rosemarie Johnson additionally gave sufferer affect statements.

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

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

“How might a neighborhood fail so spectacularly that they created boys capable of such horror?” she asked, referring to media reports of homosexual beatings in Sydney being described as a sport.

Prosecutor Brett Hatfield stated the exact particulars of the murder were not identified and that White’s accounts had varied.

White had met Johnson in a nearby bar in suburban Manly and Johnson had stripped bare at the clifftop earlier than he died, Hatfield stated. He mentioned the gravity of the murder was considerably elevated because it was motivated by the sufferer’s sexuality.

White’s lawyer Belinda Rigg said her consumer was gay and had been concerned 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 attorneys will attraction that plea within the Courtroom of Prison Appeals and hope he shall be acquitted at trial.

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