Gay American Mathematician’s Killer Sentenced To Nine Years In Jail

Thirty-four years after the death of gay American mathematician Scott Johnson, his family finally received justice. 

An NSW Supreme Court on Thursday sentenced his killer Scott White to nine years in jail. Justice Robert Beech-Jones set the non-parole period at six years. 

The death initially brushed off as a suicide by NSW Police, had remained unsolved for over three decades – it was one among the 88 unsolved deaths of gay men and trans women in Sydney and NSW between 1970 and 2010. 

Case Remained Unsolved For Three Decades

Johnson’s naked body was found at the base of a cliff at Blue Fish Point, near Manly’s North Head on Sydney’s northern beaches on December 10, 1988, 

The area was a well-known gay beat and has been the site of other unsolved deaths of gay men.

The police closed the case as a suicide. Johnson’s brother Steve and other family members had for years tried to get the police to reinvestigate the case. An inquest in 2012 returned an open finding and five years later an inquest concluded that Johnson was the victim of a hate crime. 

It took another three years, and matching $1 million reward announcements by NSW Police and Steve, before an arrest was made in the case. 

White Bragged About Bashing P***ters

In 2020, White was arrested and charged with Johnson’s murder. White’s ex-wife Helen had in 2019 alerted the police to her husband’s possible involvement in the murder. According to Helen, for years White bragged to the family that he used to go “bashing poofters”. 

Helen told the trial court that she had twice asked her husband if he had murdered Johnson, first in 1998 and the second time in 2008. 

“I remember asking him if this is one of the gay men he bashed?”

“He said ‘that girly looking p****r’,” Helen told the court. Helen said that in 2008, she again asked White, “did you do this?”

White, according to Helen, replied, “The only good p****r is a dead p*****r”. She recalled that she asked him if he had thrown Johnson off a cliff. 

White replied: “It’s not my fault the dumb f**k ran off the cliff.”

Guilty Plea

In January 2022, the case took a sensational turn when White confessed in court that he was ” guilty”. He retracted his confession, but the court sentenced him to 12 years in prison. An appeal court reversed the conviction and ordered a retrial. 

Earlier this year in February 2023, White pleaded guilty to the lesser charge of manslaughter. 

White had claimed he himself was gay and that “being gay was his biggest secret because his brother and his family ‘hate[d] gays’”

In a signed statement, he revealed he met Johnson at a Manly pub before they went to North Head. He claimed Johnson took off his clothes and the two had a fight. White claimed he punched Johnson, who fell off the cliff.