CANBERRA, Australia (AP) – A man told police he killed American mathematician Scott Johnson in 1988 by pushing a 27-year-old man off a cliff in Sydney into what prosecutors describe as a hate crime against homosexuals, court said on Monday.
Scott White, 51, appeared in the New South Wales Supreme Court to hear the verdict after pleading guilty in January to the murder of a Los Angeles-born Canberra resident whose death at the base of North Head Rock was initially rejected. by the police as a suicide.
White will be convicted by Judge Helen Wilson on Tuesday. He faces a potential life sentence.
“I was pushing a man. He went over the edge, “White said in a recorded police interview in 2020, which was played in court.
White said in an interview that he lied when he told police earlier that he had tried to grab Johnson and prevent his fatal fall.
The medical examiner ruled in 2017 that Johnson “fell from the top of the rock as a result of actual or threatened violence by unidentified individuals who attacked him because he was considered a homosexual.”
The medical examiner also found that gangs of men were roaming various places in Sydney in search of gay men for assault, which led to the deaths of some victims. Some people were also robbed.
The medical examiner ruled in 1989 that the outspoken gay had taken his own life, while a second investigator in 2012 could not explain how he died.
Boston-based brother Steve Johnson is pushing for further investigation and is offering his own reward of A $ 1 million ($ 704,000) for information. White was indicted in 2020 and police say the reward is likely to be collected.
White’s ex-wife Helen White told the court that her then-husband “bragged” to their children that he had beaten gay men on the rock known for gay dating.
Helen White said she read a newspaper report in 2008 about Johnson’s death and asked her husband if he was guilty.
“It’s not my fault,” said Scott White. “The dumb (curser) escaped the rock.”
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“I said, ‘That’s if you’re after him,'” Helen White told the court. She said her husband did not respond.
In cross-examination, Helen White denied knowing about the $ 1 million reward for information about Johnson’s murder when she reported her ex-husband to police in 2019. She said she only learned about the reward when the victim’s brother , Steve Johnson, doubled the amount in 2020
Steve Johnson said in a statement about the impact on the victim that “With a violent push, Mr. White took Scott and he disappeared.”
“This man (Scott Johnson), who once told me he could never hurt anyone, even in self-defense, died in terror,” the brother added.
Steve Johnson said he appreciated White’s guilty plea.
“If he had surrendered after his violence, I would have felt a little more sympathetic. If he had taken Scott’s hand and pulled him to safety, I would owe him eternal gratitude, “said the brother, his voice choking with emotion.
Scott Johnson’s sisters Terry and Rebecca Johnson, his partner Michael Noon and Steve Johnson’s wife Rosemary Johnson also made statements about the impact of the victims.
Rosemary Johnson described the initial failure of police to investigate Scott Johnson’s death as “indefensible and inhumane.”
Rebecca Johnson, a younger sister, said the police suicide report “doesn’t make sense.”
“How can a community fail so spectacularly to create boys capable of such horror?” She asked, citing media reports of gay beatings in Sydney being described as a sport.
Attorney Brett Hatfield said the exact details of the murder were not known and that White’s accounts varied.
White met Johnson at a nearby bar in the suburbs of Manley, and Johnson stripped naked on top of a cliff before he died, Hatfield said. He said the gravity of the murder was significantly increased because it was motivated by the victim’s sexuality.
White’s lawyer, Belinda Rigg, said her client was gay and worried that his homophobic brother would find out.
In January, White repeatedly shouted in court during the pre-trial hearing that he was guilty after denying the crime.
His lawyers will appeal this request to the Criminal Court of Appeals and hope that he will be acquitted in the process.
Scott Johnson was a PhD student at the Australian National University and lived in Canberra. He was staying at Noone’s parents’ home in Sydney when he died.
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