{O/C}
Down under, an Australian court has sealed the fate of a man who murdered a homosexual American man back in 1988 near a Sydney cliff known as a gay meeting spot.
This, after the murderer, 51-year-old Scott White, was sentenced to 12 years and 7 months in prison today.
{RVO}
Finding the alleged suicidal death of mathematician Scott Johnson intriguing, Johnson's family members pressed the authorities for a further probe.
Then in 2017 a coroner found a number of assaults, some listed as fatal, on the victims near the gay meeting place because they were thought to the homosexual.
51-year-old Scott White pleaded guilty in January and could have been sentenced to life in prison.
Judge Helen Wilson cited his contrition as the reason behind the lenient sentence given the murder couldn't be proven to be a hate crime against homosexuals.
For now, he must serve at least eight years and three months before parole can be considered.
It was when White was 18 and homeless that he met 27-year-old Los Angeles-born Johnson at a bar in the Australian suburb of Manly back in December 1988 and went alongside him to a nearby cliff top and North Head.
White's ex-wife, Helen White, told the police in 2019 that White had bragged about beating gay man and said the only good gay man was a dead gay man.
She also told the court on Monday that Johnson was said to have run off the cliff when in fact he hit Johnson, sending him stumbling backwards and falling off that cliff.
White claimed he was himself gay and was terrified his homophobic brother would eventually discover that.
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