Katherine Knight: The Woman Who Cooked Her Lover
Katherine Knight was the first woman in Australian history to receive a life sentence without the possibility of parole. Her crime was so horrific that some media outlets refused to cover it. In fact, some of the officers attending the scene were so traumatised by what they saw, they had to take leave. They had PTSD. Some of the officers even stopped eating meat. Why? Because Katherine Knight cooked her lover and served him up on plates to feed to his children.
This article contains descriptions of violent or distressing events – reader discretion advised
A Troubled Childhood
Katherine Mary Knight was born on October 24th, 1955, at Tenterfield Hospital in New South Wales, Australia to Barbara Roughan and Ken Knight. However, Katherine’s early life was marked by family dysfunction.
Before Katherine’s birth, her mother Barbara had been married to a man named Jack Roughan, who worked as a manager at the Aberdeen Meatworks. Together, Barbara and Jack had four sons: Patrick, Martin, Neville, and Barry. But Barbara then began an affair with her husband’s friend and coworker, Ken Knight, causing a major scandal in Aberdeen, the small, conservative town where they lived. As a result, Barbara and Ken were forced to move away to Moree, while none of Barbara’s four sons from her marriage to Jack went with them. The two eldest sons, Patrick and Martin, stayed with their father, while the two younger sons, Neville and Barry, were raised by an aunt in Sydney.
Barbara went on to have four more children with Ken Knight: Charlie; twin girls, Joy and Katherine; and another son, Shane, later born in 1961. When Katherine was born, her home environment was already fractured because four of her half-siblings from Barbara’s previous marriage were not living with them. This was due to her mother’s prioritisation of her sexual relationships over her children. These issues of abandonment would later have a significant impact on Katherine’s life.
When Jack Roughan passed away in 1959 when Katherine was 4 years old, his and Barbara’s two older sons, Patrick and Martin, came to live with them. There was likely to be disharmony when merging these family units, with Barbara’s sons probably harbouring some resentment at having been abandoned by their mother. This would have led to further dysfunction within the household.
Katherine’s upbringing was characterised by significant violence and sexual abuse within her home environment. Her father, Ken, was a violent alcoholic who frequently raped her mother, Barbara, sometimes as many as 10 times per day. In turn, Barbara openly shared intimate details of her sex life with her daughters, expressing a strong disdain for men. This experience would significantly shape Katherine’s beliefs about sexual relationships.
When Katherine herself later complained to her mother that a partner was pressuring her to engage in an unwanted sexual act, Barbara instructed Katherine to tolerate it and stop complaining. This illustrates Barbara’s failure as a parent to protect Katherine and reinforces the notion that women do not have autonomy over their own bodies.
Katherine later claimed that she was sexually abused by one or more of her brothers, an experience that continued until she was 11 years old. If Katherine’s brothers witnessed their father’s abuse of their mother, this could explain how such mistreatment of women was passed down to them. According to court records, there are indications that Katherine may have also had some sexual interactions with her father, though this has not been confirmed. While certain specifics remain unclear, her accounts were supported by other family members and generally accepted by the psychiatrists who assessed her.
There was also violence within the family. Barbara suffered repeated physical abuse from Ken, often sustaining black eyes. Her children eventually become so desensitised to seeing her in that state that they no longer paid attention to it. Katherine’s parents also allegedly beat her and her siblings with objects like leashes and electrical cables. This early exposure to such aggression is believed to have been a contributing factor in the development of Katherine’s aggressive behaviour patterns.
Katherine had a close relationship with just a couple of people in her life. One was her twin sister, Joy, and the other was her uncle, Oscar Knight. Oscar was a renowned champion horse rider. He was someone Katherine felt safe with and could confide in, and seemingly one of the few men in her life that she truly trusted.
However, the devastating loss of her uncle to suicide in 1969, when Katherine was a teenager, had a profound and lasting impact on her. It left her feeling abandoned, a sentiment that was already present in her family, and deeply shook her sense of self-worth. To this day, Katherine maintains that her uncle’s ghost continues to visit her, suggesting an ongoing struggle to accept and fully come to terms with his tragic death.
The family moved back to Aberdeen the same year.
Katherine attended Muswellbrook High School, where she and her twin sister, Joy, had a reputation for being rough and were feared by both teachers and fellow students. Katherine was described as a loner who was known as a bully, often carrying a knife in her boots. She had assaulted at least one boy at the school with a knife and had even attacked a teacher.
Despite this intimidating reputation, many locals remember Katherine as a pleasant and friendly girl, but only when she was in a good mood. Those in her inner circle of family and friends knew to keep their distance when she was in a dark mood.
Katherine left school at the age of 15 without having learned to read or write. After leaving school, she took up employment at a clothing factory, working as a cutter. However, Katherine’s true aspiration was to join her family members who were employed at the local slaughterhouse, the Aberdeen Meat Works. As a result, she left the clothing factory after just 12 months and pursued her ‘dream job’ of cutting up offal.
Katherine took her role very seriously and was dedicated to her job. Her coworkers reported that she would often walk over to the front of the production line and watch the pigs having their throats cut. While her colleagues assumed she was simply trying to learn, some noted that it was quite unusual how much time she spent witnessing the animals die. It seemed that Katherine was becoming increasingly desensitised to violence, which was concerning given her already unstable personality.
Katherine was soon promoted, and her most prized possession was her set of razor-sharp boning knives which she hung on meat hooks over her bed so they would be handy should she need them.
A Descent into Murder
Katherine’s relationships were often volatile and abusive. She had a history of violence against her partners and was known to be possessive and controlling.
David Kellett
Katherine’s first significant relationship was with 22-year-old David Stanford Kellett, who she met in 1973. Kellett was an abattoir worker and a friend of her brother. However, Kellett had developed a drinking problem stemming from two traumatic incidents from his previous employment in the railways in Coffs Harbour. He had witnessed the tragic death of his best friend in a shunting accident, and the harrowing images had driven him to consume alcohol as a means of coping with the trauma. In a separate incident, Kellett had rescued injured passengers from a school bus that had been struck by a train in Kempsey, but unfortunately, six children had been killed. This experience left Kellett feeling helpless at being unable to save them, leading him to self-medicate with alcohol to numb those overwhelming emotions.
Kellett’s drinking often led to fights, and in these situations, Katherine would step in and back him up with her own fists, which was highly unusual and showed her enjoyment of violence. In fact, Katherine had gained a reputation in Aberdeen for offering armed combat to anyone who upset her, progressing from fighting with boys at school to fighting as an adult.
In 1974, Katherine turned 18, and she and Kellett married. The couple arrived at the service on her motorbike with Kellett intoxicated on the back. Before the wedding, Katherine’s mum had given Kellett some advice:
You better watch this one or she’ll fucking kill you. Stir her up the wrong way or do the wrong thing and you’re fucked. Don’t ever think of playing up on her. She’ll fuckin’ kill you. (4)
Shortly after their wedding, Kellett would experience just how volatile Katherine was when he awoke to find her trying to strangle him. She was angry with him because he had fallen asleep after they had sex ‘only’ three times.
David’s family would also comment about Katherine’s fluctuating moods, and how she would go from being cheerful one moment to yelling the next. David would warn his family to stay out of her way when she was in one of her moods. Katherine was never far away from one of her knives, and he feared she could stab someone with one of them.
A few weeks after the birth of their first child Melissa Ann in May 1976, Katherine tried to stab Kellett with a broken beer bottle. Unable to cope any longer with Katherine’s possessive and violent behaviour, Kellett moved to Queensland to be with another woman. This caused Katherine to become unhinged. The next day, she was seen pushing her newborn baby down the street, violently tossing the pram from side to side and smashing it into fences and poles on the street. Katherine was admitted to Saint Elmo’s Hospital in Tamworth, where she was diagnosed with postnatal depression and spent several weeks recovering.
However, once released, as an act of revenge against Kellett, Katherine took their two-month-old daughter, and placed her on a railway track. She then stole an axe, went into town, and threatened to kill several people. Fortunately, a local man found Melissa just minutes before a train passed. Katherine was clearly out of control and was admitted to the hospital again. Despite this, she recovered and discharged herself the very next day.
After leaving the psychiatric hospital, Katherine’s violent behaviour continued. She went to the home of her co-worker, Molly Perry, and convinced Molly that Melissa was ill and needed a ride to a doctor. Molly agreed to drive her. However, Katherine then pulled out a knife and slashed the cheek of Molly’s teenage daughter. Katherine then forced Molly and her two children into the car, demanding that Molly drive her to Kellett’s location. Her plan was to kill Kellett and his mother, Florence.
Molly and her daughter were able to escape when they stopped at a service station, but Katherine held Molly’s youngest son hostage. There, Katherine began swinging a metal rod around and threatening to kill people. Fortunately, the police were called and were able to disarm Katherine using broomsticks.
Katherine was admitted to Morisset Psychiatric Hospital. During her stay, she told the nurses that she planned to kill the mechanic who had repaired Kellett’s car, which had allowed him to leave. She then intended to kill Kellett and her mother-in-law once she arrived in Queensland.
The police informed Kellett of the incident, and surprisingly, he left his now pregnant girlfriend and returned to Aberdeen to support Katherine. On August 9th, 1976, Katherine was released into the care of Kellett’s mother, Florence.
While Katherine had been in the hospital, her parents, Barbara and Ken, had been looking after Melissa, so Kellett and his mother drove to Barbara’s house to retrieve Melissa. As they pulled into the driveway, Barbara emerged from the house and reached into the car, attempting to strangle Kellett. She blamed him for Katherine’s breakdown. Witnessing this, Katherine stormed out of the house, punched her mother, and knocked her to the ground, traumatising the horrified Florence, who was sitting in the backseat of the car.
A few weeks later, Kellett and Katherine relocated to Queensland for a fresh start. Katherine got a job in an abattoir, and David found work driving trucks.
In October 1976, Kellett organised a surprise 21st birthday party for Katherine. However, while staying with them, Kellett’s sister witnessed Katherine exhibiting volatile and explosive behaviour towards her children. The sister heard a child screaming and found Katherine scalding her daughter in boiling water in the bathroom. When the sister informed Kellett of the incident, he told her not to say anything, fearing that Katherine would kill his sister and him in her sleep. As a result, the incident was never reported.
In 1979, Kellett came home from work to find Katherine in bed with a meat worker. Despite this infidelity, Katherine pleaded for another chance, and the couple decided to relocate. Soon after, Katherine became pregnant again. However, her moods once again grew increasingly volatile during this pregnancy, marked by violent and aggressive outbursts.
On one occasion, the heavily pregnant Katherine became enraged when Kellett returned home late from a darts competition, where he had reached the finals. In response, she burned all his clothes and shoes, and struck him on the head with a frying pan.
Fearing for his safety, Kellett fled to a neighbour’s house and collapsed. He was treated for a severe skull fracture and was in the hospital for four days. Although the police wanted to press charges against Katherine, she convinced Kellett to drop them. However, when he returned home from the hospital, he found that Katherine had hung her knives above their bed.
The couple’s second daughter, Natasha Maree, was born on March 6th, 1980. However, Kellett’s frequent absences due to his job as a truck driver further fuelled Katherine’s paranoia and fear of abandonment, leading her to worry that he would be unfaithful. On one occasion, Kellett woke up to find Katherine sitting on his chest, holding a knife to his throat. She accused him of having a woman in every town and laughed at how easy it would be to kill him.
However, it was eventually Katherine that left Kellett, and by 1984, Katherine had moved away. She first went to her parents’ house in Aberdeen and then rented a place in nearby Muswellbrook. There, she found a job at the local abattoir. However, she injured her back and would later receive a substantial sum from workers’ compensation. Since she was now receiving a disability pension and no longer needed to live close to her workplace, Katherine moved into a Housing Commission house back in Aberdeen.
For years, Kellett would send his daughters presents and cards, and he would send them flowers on their birthdays. But Melissa and Natasha never received them because Katherine would dispose of Kellett’s gifts before the girls got home from school, telling them, “No, the bastard never sent you anything.” It wasn’t until Kellett was reunited with Melissa when she was 16 that he found out the truth.
David Saunders
Katherine’s next relationship was with a 38-year-old miner named David Saunders in 1986. A few months after they met, Saunders moved in with Katherine and her two daughters. However, Saunders kept his own apartment in Scone, which became a point of contention for Katherine, as she was jealous of his activities when she was not around. This led to frequent arguments, with Katherine often kicking Saunders out, only to then beg him to return.
Throughout their relationship, there were multiple incidents of violence exhibited by Katherine towards Saunders and his property. She damaged his car, cut up all his clothing, broke a couple of his ribs, inflicted such deep cuts to his wrist that he needed stitches, hit him in the face with an iron, and stabbed him in the stomach with scissors. Saunders would regularly turn up to work with cuts and bruises to his face.
Katherine also tried to end her own life by overdosing on sleeping pills, leading to another stay in a psychiatric hospital.
In one particularly disturbing incident, Katherine viciously slit the throat of Saunders’s eight-week-old dingo puppy right in front of him when he tried to leave her. She started pushing him, and he pushed back in an effort to get her away. She then started yelling that she was pregnant and that he had kicked her in the stomach. According to Saunders, he had not kicked her in the stomach. Furthermore, Katherine was not actually pregnant.
After killing his dog, Katherine went to her sister Joy’s house with a shotgun telling her that she had killed Saunders. Not only did Katherine enjoy shocking people, but she may have actually been planning to murder Saunders and was testing people’s reactions before she went through with the deed.
Despite this tumultuous relationship, in June 1988, Katherine gave birth to her third daughter, Sarah. Wanting security for his child, Saunders put down a deposit on a new home, which he and Katherine moved into, with Katherine using her workers’ compensation money to pay off the house. Katherine decorated this new home with a macabre array of items from her hunting efforts, including stuffed animals, animal skins, skulls, horns, animal traps, leather jackets, machetes, rakes, and pitchforks.
However, things didn’t improve, and the relationship ultimately came to an end. Saunders had tried unsuccessfully to leave Katherine on multiple occasions, so this time, he took long-service leave and went into hiding. Katherine persistently tried to track him down, asking several of his friends where he was, but no one would tell her.
When Saunders returned home a few months later to see his daughter, Katherine had obtained an Apprehended Violence Order against him and told the police that she was the one who was afraid of him.
John Chillingworth
In 1990, Katherine became pregnant by 43-year-old John Chillingworth, a former co-worker from the abattoir. She gave birth to a son the following year, whom they named Eric. However, just as in her previous relationships, Katherine exhibited spiteful, vindictive, and vengeful behaviour whenever she felt slighted by her partner. She snatched John’s glasses from his face and broke them in front of him, and she also smashed his false teeth.
Their relationship lasted three years before Katherine left him for a man she had been having an affair with for some time. His name was John Price.
The Murder of John Price
John Charles Thomas Price was born on April 4th, 1955. He had a great network of friends, and he had a reputation for being a hard worker. He was well-liked and affectionately known as Pricey. His only flaw was that he was a heavy drinker.
Price was the father of three children. While his two-year-old daughter remained with his former wife, his two older children lived with him. In 1995, despite being aware of Katherine’s violent reputation, Price allowed her and her two youngest children to move in with him and his children.
However, cracks soon started to appear. Price was living in his old marital home, which still had many of his ex-wife’s belongings, and Katherine resented this. Furthermore, Katherine hated Price’s reluctance to divorce his ex. Katherine wanted to get married, whereas Price made it clear to her he was only in the relationship for sex. Price had put the house in the names of his children, and Katherine believed that should anything happen to Price, she should be entitled to a share of his house.
In 1998, Katherine video-recorded some of the items John had scavenged from the rubbish tip of the mine where he had worked for 17 years, such as old vacuum cleaners and expired medical kits. In retaliation for his reluctance to marry her, she sent these recordings to Price’s boss, who ultimately fired him. As Price earned a substantial income from the mine, Katherine’s actions compromised his financial stability. Price was disgusted with Katherine and kicked her out of the house. However, after a few months, he took her back, although he didn’t let her move back in.
Katherine and Price’s relationship followed the same familiar pattern as all of her previous relationships. Katherine would start out as a devoted, loving partner, happy to satisfy her man domestically and sexually. No doubt, that was why Price took her back. But of course, after a while, the arguments, accusations of infidelity, and the separating and then getting back together again would resume and be clear for all to see.
During the relationship, Katherine made it known to several people that she intended to kill or seriously harm Price. Approximately five months before the murder, Katherine’s niece, Tracy Knight, overheard a conversation between Katherine and her brother Kenneth saying:
I’m going to kill Pricey, and I’m going to get away with it. I’ll get away with it because I’ll make out I’m mad. (6)
Price also expressed concern for his safety to several people and said that he intended to end the relationship and have Katherine removed from his house. He began confiding to his boss about every incident of Katherine’s abuse, and many of his friends wanted nothing to do with him while he was with Katherine. Those friends he could confide in he did so to have a witness in case something happened to him. One of his friends, Trevor Lewis, heard Katherine say to Price:
You’ll never get me out of this house. I’ll do you in first. (6)
In February 2000, a series of assaults on Price culminated with Katherine stabbing him in the chest. He tried to kick her out again and sought refuge in the nearby house of a friend, claiming that he feared for his life. The police were called, and he asked them to remove Katherine from his house. However, the police informed him that he would have to use a court process to do that.
Meanwhile, due to the recent altercation between Katherine and Price, Katherine did have bruising on her body. She showed these bruises to various people, including the police, her sister, her daughters, her friends, and a doctor. However, the doctor would later tell the court that his consultation with Katherine was brief, and she seemed more concerned with having the bruises documented rather than receiving treatment. It appears that Katherine was manipulating the people around her to make it seem like John Price was abusing her. This information would later be used as evidence that Katherine was creating a suitable setting into which the killing of Price could be placed.
On February 29th, Price stopped at the Scone Magistrate’s Court on his way to work and took out a restraining order to keep Katherine away from both him and his children. He told the court that the night before was woken up by Katherine standing at the foot of his bed with her hand behind her back. He believed she was holding a knife. It was only when Katherine was standing in front of a mirror that he could see that she had nothing in her hand. The court granted him a restraining order.
That afternoon, Price told his co-workers that if he did not come to work the next day, it would be because Katherine had killed him. They pleaded with him not to go home, but he believed she would kill his children if he did not. Later that day, Price went home, but to his relief, Katherine was not there, and she had arranged for her daughter Natasha to babysit her youngest children for the night. He then had a few beers at his neighbour’s house, telling the neighbour that if he saw Price’s van still parked in the driveway in the morning, he should call the police because Katherine had killed him. Price returned home and went to bed around 11 pm.
Earlier that same day, on February 29th, Katherine retrieved her video camera from her sister’s place, which was unusual as it had been there for months. She recorded herself playing with her grandchild and then looked directly at the camera, saying,
‘I love all my children. I hope I see you all again’.
The footage has been interpreted as a crude will and evidence that Katherine intended to murder Price and then take her own life.
That same day, Katherine also bought new black lingerie. When she dropped her children at her daughter Natasha’s house, she told Natasha that she wanted the occasion to be special. In Natasha’s later statement to the police, she said she sensed her mother was unstable, and said to her,
“I hope you are not going to kill Pricey and yourself”.
Katherine then drove to Price’s house and let herself in using a set of keys she still had. Price was already in bed, and Katherine knew his children were with their mother, so the couple would be alone. Katherine watched TV for a bit, took a shower, put on the new black lingerie, and joined Price in bed. The couple proceeded to have sex, and then Price fell asleep.
Katherine Knight launched a vicious assault on David Price while he was sleeping, stabbing him repeatedly in the chest with a butcher’s knife. The blood evidence suggests that Price desperately tried to escape, staggering down the hallway and trying to turn on the light as Katherine continued to stab him in the back and neck. He was bleeding profusely, and blood on the doorknob shows he managed to open the front door and get outside but was dragged back into the house. All the while, Katherine continued her frenzied attack, and he finally died in the hallway of his house after bleeding out.
When the police arrived, they found a large pool of blood in the hallway measuring one meter by two meters, indicating that Price had lain in the hallway for quite some time before his body was later moved. His autopsy revealed that he had been stabbed at least 37 times, in both the front and back of his body with many of the wounds penetrating vital organs, including the aorta, lungs, liver, stomach, colon, pancreas, and kidney.
After killing Price, she showered, changed, and then drove an hour’s round trip to an ATM in Muswellbrook to withdraw $1,000 from Price’s bank account. Upon returning to her own home in Aberdeen, she parked her car and then walked the short distance to Price’s house. This was a bizarre turn of events that would ultimately prove Katherine’s control over her actions.
Once there, she dragged his lifeless body from the hallway into the lounge and meticulously skinned him, utilising the expertise she had acquired from her abattoir jobs to remove the entire skin, including his face, nose, ears, neck, torso, genitals, and legs, in a single piece. Katherine had removed the skin with such precision that after the post-mortem examination, it could literally be sewn back onto Price’s body before his funeral. The skin was then hung from a meat hook on the architrave of a door to the lounge room.
Not satisfied with stabbing and skinning Price, she then decapitated him, carrying his head from the lounge to the kitchen, leaving a trail of blood along the way. She placed the head, along with various vegetables, into a pot of boiling water and sliced off parts of his buttocks, cooking them in the oven. She dished the ‘steaks’ onto plates along with baked potato, pumpkin, zucchini, cabbage, yellow squash and gravy. Katherine had served up John’s body parts to serve to his children. She made two settings at the dinner table and placed notes beside each plate with the name of one of John’s children on it. The contents of the notes were never released in order to protect the children.
Katherine then arranged the body, with the left arm draped over an empty soda bottle and the legs crossed; an act later claimed in court to be an expression of her contempt for Price. She then left a handwritten note, stained with blood and covered in small pieces of flesh, on top of a photograph of Price. The note read:
Time got you back Johathon for rapping my douter. You to Beck [Price's daughter] for Ross — for Little John [his son]. Now play with little Johns Dick John Price. (sic)
The accusations in the note were found to be groundless.
Finally, Katherine then swallowed an assortment of prescription drugs, seemingly in an effort to overdose. She then went to the bedroom, where she fell into a deep sleep. The doctors who later examined Katherine determined that the quantity of drugs she had taken was well within the therapeutic range for the medications involved. Consequently, the court concluded that her suicide attempt was not genuine.
The next morning at 6 am, Price’s neighbour became concerned when he noticed Price’s van still in the driveway. Price’s employer also grew worried when he did not show up for work without calling in and sent an employee to Price’s house to see what was wrong. The neighbour and employee tried knocking on his bedroom window to wake him, but upon seeing blood on the front door, they promptly alerted the police, who arrived at 8 am.
The police were unprepared for the horrific scene they encountered. After knocking on the door and not receiving a response, the officers made their way to the rear of the house and broke in through the back door. They noticed what appeared to be a curtain, blanket, or some other type of covering hanging down. One of the officers used his arm to push it aside and immediately felt a coldness on his arm. When he looked down, his arm was covered in blood. To their horror, the officers soon realised that the “curtain” was actually human skin.
The officers went into the lounge and discovered Price’s decapitated body. The body had been stripped of most of its skin and flesh, revealing the underlying muscles and some internal organs. Beside the body was the knife, and two different knife sharpeners were found nearby. Proceeding to the kitchen, the officers discovered a pot on the stove, its grizzly contents still warm, estimated to be between 40 and 50 degrees Celsius. This suggested the cooking had occurred in the early morning hours.
Outside, a third meal had been discarded on the back lawn. It was speculated that Katherine had tried to consume the meal but was unable to do so. Alternatively, she may have fed it to the dog as a further act of degradation towards Price.
Overall, the crime scene was so disturbing that some of the police officers who responded experienced severe psychological trauma, leading to PTSD. As a result, several officers had to take a break from their duties. Additionally, some of the officers even abstained from eating meat for an extended period after the incident, likely as a coping mechanism.
The police found Katherine lying on the bed. They tried to wake her, but she did not respond. She was taken to the hospital and questioned by the authorities five days later.
At first, she said that the only thing she remembered was having sex with Price and then falling asleep. Regarding the actual murder, Katherine claimed that she could not recall anything.
Katherine eventually confessed to killing Price, stating that she had committed this horrific act due to the severe domestic abuse she had endured by her partners. However, the police interviewed Katherine’s ex-partners, and it became quite apparent that Katherine was not the victim of domestic violence by them, but the perpetrator.
Legal Proceedings and Imprisonment
On February 2nd, 2001, Katherine Mary Knight was arraigned and charged with the murder of John Charles Thomas Price. She initially pleaded not guilty but later attempted to plead guilty to the lesser charge of manslaughter, which was rejected.
The trial was initially set for July 23rd, 2001, but was postponed due to her counsel’s illness, and rescheduled for October 15, 2001. There was then a further delay in commencing the trial because the photographic evidence from the crime scene was so graphic and disturbing that the prospective jurors were offered the option to be excused from the case. Several chose to remove themselves, necessitating in the selection of additional jurors.
Eventually, Katherine changed her plea to guilty, although she still refused to accept responsibility for her actions. This prompted a psychiatric evaluation to ensure she understood the consequences of her guilty plea, as there was a fear she might later appeal claiming to have been insane at the time of making the guilty plea. The evaluation concluded that Katherine was sane and able to comprehend the effect of her guilty plea. It also noted signs of borderline personality disorder.
On 18th October 2001, Katherine was formally charged with murder, and pleaded guilty. The plea was accepted by the Court, and a conviction of murder was recorded.
Insanity?
The defence argued that Katherine’s troubled past, including childhood abuse, had led to diminished responsibility. They presented evidence of her mental health struggles, including her diagnosis of borderline personality disorder, which they claimed affected her judgment and actions. The defence further argued that Katherine had suffered from dissociative amnesia, causing her to have no recollection of killing John Price.
However, the prosecution countered that Katherine understood the nature and consequences of her actions. They pointed out that she was able to vividly recall events prior to Price’s death, provide details about the medication she had taken, and the amount she had overdosed, and carry out a series of calculated actions during the murder, such as washing, changing her clothes, as well as leaving the scene and stealing Price’s money from an ATM half an hour away.
Not only was she fully aware of her actions, but she took pleasure in mutilating Price’s body in revenge for him wanting her out of the house. Her desire for payback made her an extremely dangerous individual. Skinning, decapitating, and cooking someone with such skill was not the act of someone unaware of their actions.
Premidation?
The prosecution presented overwhelming evidence that Katherine’s actions were premeditated. They cited several incriminating statements made by both Katherine and Price around the time of the murder. For instance, Katherine had told her brother about her intention to kill Price, saying she would get away with the murder by making it look like she was insane. Price had also expressed fear for his life in conversations with friends and his employer. Additionally, the prosecution pointed to Price’s official complaints to the police and courts, in which he had tried to have Katherine removed from their shared home.
The prosecution further highlighted Katherine’s unusual behaviour around the time of the murder as proof of premeditation. This included retrieving her video camera and making a strange recording which was interpreted to be a will. She had also left her younger children with her daughter, without clean clothes or any of their necessary school items, ensuring no one else would be in the house on the night of the murder.
Ultimately, the prosecution was able to paint a clear picture of Katherine’s calculated, premeditated actions.
However, when the medical examiner testified in detail about the skinning and decapitation, Katherine became hysterical and had to be sedated. This has raised questions about whether she was truly telling the truth about not remembering the events of that night. Nevertheless, the overwhelming evidence of premeditation suggests that Katherine’s hysteria was likely a calculated act to manipulate the court into believing she had dissociated at the time of the murder.
On November 8th, 2001, Katherine Mary Knight was the first woman in Australia’s history to be sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. Her file was marked:
"Never to be released"
In June 2006, Katherine appealed her life sentence, arguing the penalty of life without parole was too severe and that the gruesome mutilation of the victim’s body was irrelevant to the seriousness of the offence. She also questioned the decision that she never be released, displaying a total disregard for the victim’s family and a lack of understanding that her actions were wrong. However, the court immediately dismissed her appeal, affirming the original ruling that she should remain in prison for life.
Katherine currently resides at the Silverwater Women’s Correctional Centre in New South Wales. She is a Category 4 inmate, which is the highest category a prisoner can be assigned. Despite finding religion and spending her time painting, knitting, and mediating disputes among prisoners, she is closely monitored due to the severity of her crimes. For obvious reasons, she is not allowed near knives, nor is she allowed in the kitchen.
Conclusion
Katherine’s transformation into a violent offender stemmed from a complex mix of factors, including a troubled past, unaddressed mental health issues, and a dangerous pattern of controlling behaviour. Her history of psychiatric hospitalisations and missed opportunities for intervention are both frustrating and deeply tragic.
As someone who has experienced the challenges of Borderline Personality Disorder, I know firsthand how dismissal by healthcare professionals can impact individuals. The parallels between Katherine’s case and the experiences of many others who have been overlooked or misdiagnosed cannot be ignored.
It is also crucial to recognise that domestic abuse is not solely a women’s issue. Men can be victims too, and they deserve support without shame.
This case should serve as a stark reminder of the vital importance of early intervention, comprehensive mental health care, and challenging societal stereotypes about domestic violence. It illustrates the darkness that can lurk within the human mind and the devastating consequences of unchecked violent behaviour, as epitomised by the tragedy of John Price’s murder.
Sources
TV / Movies / Videos
- Beyond the Darklands. Episode 8. September, 2009. (Available on YouTube.)
- Crimes That Shook Australia. Season 1, Episode 6.
Websites
- Mail Online. Katherine Knight’s brother Neville Roughan get bail on child sex abuse charges. August 4, 2021.
- Murderpedia – Katherine Mary Knight.
- New Zealand Herald – Cannibal killer Katherine Knight’s life in prison. 22 July 2017.
- 7News. Katherine Knight butchers husband, John Price, then boils his head and plates him up.