Sydney man admits pushing homosexual American off a cliff in 1988

CANBERRA, Australia (AP) — A man informed 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 docket for a sentencing listening to 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 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 edge,” White said in recorded police interview in 2020 that was played in court.

White said within the interview he lied when he had earlier told police that he had tried to seize Johnson and stop 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 as a result of they perceived him to be gay.”

The coroner additionally discovered that gangs of men roamed varied Sydney areas in search of homosexual men to assault, ensuing within the deaths of some victims. Some individuals were additionally robbed.

A coroner had dominated in 1989 that the openly gay man had taken his own 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 supplied his personal reward of 1 million Australian dollars ($704,000) for information. White was charged in 2020 and police say the reward will probably be collected.

White’s former spouse Helen White told the courtroom that her then-husband “bragged” to their children of beating gay males at the clifftop well-known for gay 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 said, ‘It's in case you chased him,’” Helen White advised the courtroom. She mentioned her husband did not reply.

Below 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 said she solely grew to become aware of a reward when the sufferer’s brother, Steve Johnson, doubled the sum in 2020.

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

“This man (Scott Johnson) who as soon as instructed me he might never damage someone even in self-defense died in terror,” the brother added.

Steve Johnson mentioned he appreciated White’s guilty plea.

“If he had turned himself in after his violent action, I'd have had a little extra sympathy. If he had grasped Scott’s hand and pulled him to safety, I would owe him everlasting gratitude,” the brother stated, his voice choked with emotion.

Scott Johnson’s sisters Terry and Rebecca Johnson, his partner Michael Noone and Steve Johnson’s wife Rosemarie Johnson additionally gave sufferer influence statements.

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

Rebecca Johnson, a younger sister, stated 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 reports of homosexual beatings in Sydney being described as a sport.

Prosecutor Brett Hatfield said the exact particulars of the murder weren't known and that White’s accounts had assorted.

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

White’s lawyer Belinda Rigg stated her client was homosexual and had been concerned that his homophobic brother would discover 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 enchantment that plea within the Court of Legal Appeals and hope he can be acquitted at trial.

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