New South Wales Police handout
A 52-year-old Australian man who admitted, and then denied, pushing an American off a cliff because he was gay in 1988 has pleaded guilty—again—to the crime.
Scott Phillip White shocked his lawyers in early 2022 by pleading guilty in the death of then 27-year-old Scott Johnson after a reward by one of Johnson’s relatives led to his arrest. He retracted the plea, but the judge went on to sentence him before an appellate court intervened.
White was allegedly part of a gang of homophobic men who hunted gay haunts to taunt gay men during the 1980s. The body of Johnson, who was a PhD student at Australian National University at the time of his death, was found at the base of Blue Fish Point, near Manly’s North Head, which was a well-known meeting area for gay men, according to court documents.