Australian man pleads guilty to murdering American Scott Johnson in 1988 gay hate crime

An Australian man has pleaded guilty to murdering a US mathematician who fell from a Sydney cliff in 1988 in a homophobic hate crime that was dismissed by police at the time as suicide.

Scott White was charged in 2020 with murdering 27-year-old Los Angeles-born Scott Johnson, whose naked body was found at the base of North Head cliff on 8 December 1988.

White yelled repeatedly in court during a pre-trial hearing in Sydney on Monday that he was guilty, having previously denied the crime.

He faces a possible sentence of life in prison.

The plea was not confirmed until Thursday when the court was satisfied White had made it intentionally and in his right mind.

Police had initially concluded that Johnson, who was a doctoral student at Australian National University and lived in Canberra, had taken his own life. This was despite the discovery that his wallet was missing from his clothes, which were neatly folded near the cliff top.

Barnes found that gangs of men roamed various Sydney locations in search of gay men to assault, resulting in the deaths of some victims. Some people were also robbed.

A new police investigation offered a A$1m ($731,000) reward for information in 2018 and Steve Johnson, a Boston IT entrepreneur, matched that reward offer in 2020.

He told the ABC on Friday the outcome could give families of other gay men whose deaths were unresolved hope they too could get answers.

Steve Johnson said he felt he had no choice but to keep pushing for more investigations.

White was arrested at his Sydney home two months after the reward was doubled. Police said at the time that the reward helped in their breakthrough and an unnamed informant would be eligible for the reward once White was convicted.

Additional reporting Calla Wahlquist