Australian man pleads guilty to anti-gay hate crime in murder of American who plunged from cliff in 1988

An Australian man has pleaded guilty to murdering an American mathematician who plunged from a Sydney cliff in 1988 in an anti-gay 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 December 8, 1988. White yelled repeatedly in court during a pre-trial hearing in Sydney on Monday that he was guilty, having previously denied the crime.

A New South Wales state Supreme Court judge on Thursday accepted the guilty plea, dismissing the objections of White's lawyers. White is to be sentenced on May 2.