A man has admitted to killing an American mathematician in 1988 by pushing him off a cliff in what was described as a gay hate crime by prosecutors.
Scott White, 51, appeared in the New South Wales state Supreme Court for sentencing on 2 May after he pleaded guilty to the crime back in January.
Dr Scott Johnson’s murder went unsolved for more than 30 years, with the court hearing that White frequently bragged about attacking gay men.
The victim’s body was discovered by fisherman at the bottom of a cliff in North Head, Sydney, a place that was reportedly known for gay cruising.
Johnson was found naked with his clothes neatly folded on the cliff above.
His death was determined suicide by police for several years, something the 27-year-old’s family never accepted.
Homosexuality was decriminalised in New South Wales just two years before Johnson’s death, with a coroner on the case previously stating that gangs used to look for gay men to assault Sydney at the time.
White was charged with the murder back in 2020 and confessed to intentionally pushing Johnson to his death more than three decades ago.
“I pushed a bloke,” the court heard him saying in audio from his police interview. “He went over the edge.”
Despite this, he has now made a U-turn on his guilty plea and is appealing against the conviction – with his legal team arguing that he is gay and was scared of his homophobic brother finding out.
White’s accounts of what happened have been so inconsistent that the exact details of Johnson’s death continue to remain unclear, prosecutor Brett Hatfield said.
Although the judge ruled that there was not enough evidence to call the killing a hate crime, White was was sentenced to a maximum of 12 years and seven months in jail on 3 May and will be eligible for parole in 2030.
Justice Helen Wilson told the court that he had acted with “reckless indifference to human life”.
“With Johnson’s death the world lost a mind ready to contribute substantially to its advancement,” she added.
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