SYDNEY – An Australian who admitted punching a gay American off a Sydney cliff in 1988, was sentenced to nine years’ imprisonment on Thursday. This ended the 35-year fight for justice by the victim’s relatives.
Scott Phillip White, 52 years old, pleaded guilty to the manslaughter of Scott Johnson, a Los Angeles native, in New South Wales’ state Supreme Court.
White had admitted to the murder of a 27-year-old man last year — a more serious crime — and was sentenced to over 12 years in prison. He changed his mind, and the murder conviction was overturned by an appeal.
After police intercepted an October 2013 prison phone call in which White confessed that he had struck his victim on the cliff, he was forced into a plea bargain.
The maximum penalty for manslaughter is 25 years.
White, who has already served a part of his sentence will be eligible to receive parole in 2026.
Justice Robert Beech Jones said at the sentencing hearing on Thursday that “not much is known about the death other than a punch to the face, a fall off a cliff or the decades of grief and pain that followed.”
Steve Johnson, center, the brother of Scott Johnson, walks with his wife, Rosemarie, left, and daughter Tessa outside the New South Wales Supreme Court in Sydney on June 8, 2023.
Rick Rycroft / AP
Steve Johnson, Johnson’s older brother who lives in Boston, fought for police to open a criminal case after a coroner found that Scott Johnson committed suicide in 1989.
In 2012, a second coroner’s investigation could not explain Scott Johnson’s death. A third inquiry, in 2017, ruled that Scott Johnson was attacked by unknown attackers because they perceived him to be gay.
Steve Johnson, his wife Rosemarie, and daughter Tessa told reporters after the sentencing that they felt a sense of peace.
“The killer is behind bars, and he has admitted doing it.” “I feel that I have done right by Scott,” said he.
Steve Johnson, an entrepreneur wealthy enough to offer a reward of 1 million Australian dollars ($667,000) in 2020, for information on the death of his brother, matching that offered by the police.
Steve Johnson praised White White’s former wife Helen, who he called “courageous”, for having come forward to testify in her husband’s case. This led to his arrest by 2020. The reward is still unclear.
Steve Johnson stated, “That was an opening in the case.”
Steve Johnson’s campaign on behalf of his brother sparked a government investigation into the historical indifference by police to gay hate crimes, and the more than 100 unsolved murders from the middle 1980s until the beginning 1990s.
Peter Yeomans, the chief inspector of police in London, congratulated Steve Johnson on his election campaign.
“Steve has been fighting for almost 35 years.” God, only to have a brother who is like that”, Yeomans said.
White and Johnson met in a pub on Dec. 10, 1988. They then went out for a stroll around North Head. This area was popular with gay men at the time. White, who was 18 at the time, punched Johnson during an argument. Johnson fell to his death after he staggered backwards naked.
The American was on his way to receiving a doctorate from Australian National University. He has now been awarded a posthumous degree.
“Dr. Johnson was an American. … Beech-Jones stated, “He had everything he needed to live.” “The offender left him to die.”
White, now suffering from early-onset dementia as a result of alcohol abuse, had been described at the time of his murder as a “street child”.
Beech-Jones stated that the offender “was clearly a damaged young man, despite his physical strength.” “However, his condition was not as bad as it is now.”
In 2012, the police opened an investigation after initially believing that it was a suicide. They later suspected a hate crime against gays. Justice Helen Wilson, in her now-reversed judgment on the murder conviction of Johnson, found that there wasn’t enough evidence to prove the attack was motivated because of Johnson’s homosexuality.
Beech-Jones stated that he was not satisfied beyond a reasonable doubt that this death was the result of a “gay hatred crime.”
Beech-Jones stated that “some of these answers will never come out.”
