When 45-year-old John Price became increasingly worried that his violent partner Katherine Mary Knight may seriously harm him, he confided in his co-workers should he ever not turn up to work.
When that day came, a concerned neighbor and co-worker arrived at his home but could not rouse him by banging on his bedroom window.
It was only when they saw bloodstains on the front door that they called the police. And little did they know what nightmare-filled horror awaited them inside the house…
But first, who was Katherine Mary Knight?
Knight's Early Life
When Katherine Mary Knight was born on October 24, 1955, she was born straight into scandal.
Her parents, Ken Knight and Barbara Roughan were having an affair. Barbara Roughan was married to Jack Roughan, with whom she had four sons—and Ken Knight was one of his co-workers.
When news of the affair broke out Barbara and Ken were forced to move to Moree, due to the affair being seen as a major scandal as both were prominent families in the community.
Ken Knight was a violent drunk who would repeatedly attack and sexually assault his wife, Barbara, sometimes raping her up to ten times a day.
Katherine also claimed that she was sexually assaulted by every member of her family—excluding her father—and although some doubted her, later testimony revealed that the family members confirmed this.
Barbara, who had four children with Ken—including twin girls (one of which was Katherine)—would often relay explicit details of her and Ken’s sex life to their children, and how she despised both men and sex.
In one incident, Katherine confided in her mother after one of her partners at the time wanted her to indulge in a certain sex act that she didn't wish to do, and her mother's scornful remark was for her to “put up with it and stop complaining”.
Knight was born and raised in Tenterfield, New South Wales. She was also known to have had two very different sides of her personality during her school years at Muswellbrook High School.
On one hand, she was seen as a pleasant girl, and even a model student, receiving awards for her good behavior. But she was also dark and rageful, turning to extreme levels of violence over small upsets.
She had many violent encounters with classmates, such as assaulting one boy with a weapon, and often bullied younger, smaller children. Once, she was hurt by a teacher—although it was revealed that the teacher was acting in self-defense.
By age 15, Katherine had left school without the necessary skills to read and write. She found her first job as a fabric cutter in a clothing factory and, after 12 months, a job in a local abattoir.
Katherine is said to have loved carving up dead animals and became very skilled with knives. She was so skilled that she was quickly promoted from ‘offal cutter’ to ‘boning’ and given her very own set of butcher knives, which she hung over her bed.
Katherine Knight
Photo Credit: MurderpediaKnight's Violent Relationships
David Kellet
David Kellett and Katherine Knight
Photo Credit: News.com.auIn 1973 Knight met David Kellet, a well-known heavy drinker who wasn’t a stranger to getting into fights. However, whenever this happened Knight often jumped in to fight on his behalf.
By this point in her life, Knight was known for her physical violence regardless of who or why someone had upset her.
Kellet and Knight married a year later in 1974, and when an intoxicated Kellet and Knight arrived at the service on a motorcycle, Knight’s mother reportedly took Kellet aside and told him “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.”
On their wedding night, after three rounds of intercourse, Kellet fell asleep, only to awaken to a furious Knight trying to strangle him. Luckily, he was able to fend her off, but this was only the start.
Their marriage was incredibly violent, with Knight once beating Kellet over the head with a frying pan as he came home late from playing a dart tournament. She had also burned all his clothes.
Kellet was able to flee to a neighbor's home before passing out, and was later treated for a severe skull fracture. However, a manipulative Knight was able to talk Kellet out of pressing charges.
In a separate incident, Kellet woke to Knight straddling his chest, holding one of her butcher's knives to his neck, and laughed, exclaiming how easy it would be to kill him.
In May of 1976, Kellet and Knight welcomed their first child together, Melissa Ann Kellet. But when Kellet was unable to deal with Knights’ violent outbursts, he left her and moved to Queensland.
The day after Kellet left, Knight was reportedly seen the next day pushing Melissa in a pram down the street whilst violently rocking it from side to side—she was apprehended and admitted to St. Elmo’s Hospital, where was diagnosed with prenatal depression and released several months later.
Upon her release, Knight placed two-month-old Melissa on some railway tracks before heading into town and threatening people with an axe.
Luckily, a local forager by the name of “Old Ted” stumbled upon Melissa and removed her from the tracks, apparently moments before a train blasted past. Knight was again arrested and taken back to hospital, but she signed herself out the next day.
Knight, still on a rampage, slashed a woman’s face with one of her butcher knives and demanded the woman drive her to Queensland so she could find Kellet. However, the woman escaped when they stopped at a service station.
The police arrived but by this point, Knight had taken a young boy hostage and was threatening him with her knife. The police managed to disarm Knight by using broomsticks, and she was then taken to Morisset Psychiatric Hospital.
There, she admitted her plan to kill the mechanic who fixed Kellet's car—as this had allowed him to get away from her—as well as her plot to kill Kellet and his mother.
Kellet was tracked down and informed of this incident, which prompted him to leave his new girlfriend and move back, with his mum, to support Knight after her release on August 9, 1976.
Knight started a new job at Dinmore Meatworks and welcomed another daughter on March 6, 1980, Natasha Mare, but in 1974 Knight left Kellet and moved into a house in Muswellbrook.
David Saunders
Knight met Saunders, a 38-year-old miner, in 1986, and he moved in with Katherine and her daughters. Unsurprisingly, history repeated itself.
Knight behaved erratically, often becoming jealous of Saunders when they weren’t together. She frequently kicked him out of the house—only to beg him to return.
The violence continued and in May 1987, Knight slit the throat of his two-month-old Dingo pup as he watched. She then struck him with a frying pan.
Despite this event, the pair welcomed a daughter in 1988, Sarah, and with this, Saunders put down a deposit on a house, which Knight decorated with knives, skulls, pitchforks, animal skins, rusted traps, and machetes.
In one argument, she hit Saunders across the face with a hot iron and stabbed him in the stomach with a pair of scissors—this incident prompted Saunders to leave, but he returned for his daughter's sake, only to find Knight had cut up all his clothes.
Saunders, no longer feeling safe, went into hiding, but this didn’t stop Knight trying to find him.
Several months later, Saunders returned to see his daughter and found out that Knight had reported him as a violent, abusive man and had taken out an AVO against him.
John Chillington
John Chillington was a 43-year-old former abattoir worker who had a three-year relationship with Knight. The pair welcomed a child together in 1991, but their relationship was short-lived.
Chillington reportedly left Knight after he found out that she had been having an extended affair. No violent incidents were reported during their relationship.
John Price
John Price and Katherine Knight
Photo Credit: The GuardianJohn Price was known as a ‘terrific bloke’ and was a father to three children before starting his affair with Knight, which resulted in John Chillington breaking off his relationship with Knight.
Price's marriage ended in 1988 and two of his three children lived with him—his youngest child remaining with his former wife. Price was apparently aware of Knight’s violent history and tendencies but as his children seemed to like and get on with Knight, he moved in with her in 1995.
In an argument in 1998, over Price's reluctance to get married, Knight filmed items that Price had allegedly stolen from work and sent the tape to his manager. The items in question were out-of-date medical kits that he supposedly took from the company's rubbish bins.
Despite this, Price was fired from this job, a job he worked for 17 years.
As a result of this, Price kicked Knight out of their home. After a few months reinstated his relationship with her, but refused to let her live with him again.
The relationship followed the same trajectory as all Knight’s relationships, with violent arguments and fights. Even Price’s friends refused to socialize with him if he remained with her.
One fight between Knight and Price resulted in Knight stabbing him in the chest on February 27, 2000. Due to this Price took out a restraining order for both his and his children’s safety.
The acts of violence were so bad that Price even confided to his co-workers that if he ever didn’t show up to work, it would be because Knight would have killed him.
The Murder That Shook Australia
There seemed to be a deep-seated issue centered around Knight and her ability to get away with many senseless and violent attacks, before ultimately committing one of the most gruesome acts of murder Australia had seen at that time.
Knight was known for being violent and her behavior was mostly shrugged away because “that’s how she was”.
In other attacks, she slashed 16-year-old Margaret Macbeth’s face after an argument, a slash so bad she needed stitches. Knight also stabbed a police officer after another altercation.
Again, she seemed to get away with it as it was just how people expected her to be. In fact, she was so well known for her violence that she was known by those who knew her as the “Black Knight”.
On February 29, 2000, John Price returned home, despite pleas from his co-workers. Because he was afraid Knight might harm his children if he did not, he did not heed their warnings.
Once Price returned home, he spent some time with his neighbors until around 11:00 pm. At that point he entered his home, finding that Knight wasn’t there, or his children, because she had sent them to a sleepover at a friend's house. So Price retired to bed.
Knight returned home around a similar time and spent time watching TV, before showering and heading upstairs. She woke Price and the pair had intercourse, after which Price went back to sleep.
At 6:00 am the following morning, a concerned neighbor noticed Price’s car was still in his driveway. When he didn’t arrive at work, his co-workers also began to worry and decided to head to Price’s home to check everything was okay.
As they arrived, both the neighbor and the co-worker spent some time knocking on his bedroom window, hoping he had overslept, but when Price never appeared they were at a loss—until one of them noticed blood stains on the front door.
With this, they alerted the police who arrived and promptly kicked down the back door.
What was waiting for them inside was nothing short of a scene from hell.
Katherine Knight lay on the floor, comatose, with an empty pill bottle beside her, along with the brutalized body of John Price.
John Price
Photo Credit: Victims of HomicidePrice had been stabbed 37 times with one of Knight’s blades that she kept over her bed and due to blood pattern analysis, it was reported that Knight attacked Price after they had slept together, and blood was found on the light switch.
Throughout the house, it is proposed that Price awoke during the attack and tried to flee, but was chased outside by a frenzied Knight.
It is not clear if Knight managed to drag Price back in the hallway, or if he collapsed, but Price succumbed to his wounds and bled to death in the hallway—but the harrowing evening didn’t stop there.
Several hours after Price had died, Knight, expertly skinned him. She removed his face, ears, scalp, and neck, leaving only one small rectangle of skin that bore the scar of the time she stabbed him in the chest.
Knight then proceeded to hang his skin on a meathook over the lounge room door, like a macabre decoration. Knight continued the mutilation by decapitating him and boiling his head in a pot on the stove.
In a chilling scene, the officers saw that the dining room table had been set with plates and food, with note cards next to each plate—on them, the names of Price’s children.
Knight had removed two large slices from his buttocks, cooked them like steak, and served them on the plates with potatoes, carrots, beets, cabbage, and gravy. She had planned to serve the cooked body parts to his own children.
One plate of food was found discarded in the back garden. Although authorities weren't sure why it was there, they speculated that Knight may have tried to eat one for herself, but was so repulsed she threw the plate outside.
In a final act of defilement, Knight arranged Price’s body with one of his arms draped over an empty bottle of soda, crossed his legs, and left a note splattered with blood and small chunks of flesh that read:
“Time got you back Johathon for rapping [raping] my douter [daughter]. You to Beck [Price's daughter] for Ross [his son] — for little john. now play with little johns dick john price” (sic)
The accusations within this note were found to be empty and unfounded.
Katherine Knight's Trial and Sentencing
Katherine Knight was quickly arrested for the murder of John Price, although she claimed to have no memory of the horror-filled evening that left her partner butchered to death. She initially pled guilty to manslaughter, but this plea was rejected.
On February 2, 2001, Knight was arraigned on a murder charge and entered a “Not Guilty” plea, with this a trial was set for 23rd July 2001, but was adjourned to October 15, 2001 due to illness.
At the trial, Justice Barry O’Keffe offered a jury of 60 people the option of being excused, due to the graphic nature of the photo evidence that would be used in the trial. With this, five people accepted his offer, with several more accepting after the witness list was revealed.
Once the jury was impaneled, the Judge adjourned the trial to the next day. In a twist that still isn’t clear to this day, Knight changed her plea to guilty.
When Knight changed her plea, she was sent to a psychiatric assessment to determine if she was capable of understanding the consequences of a guilty plea, to which she was deemed fit and sane.
With her guilty plea, the judge adjourned the case without testimony. Despite pleading guilty, Knight still refused to accept any responsibility for the murder, nor did she show any remorse.
During the sentencing hearing, Knight requested to be removed during the description of the crime scene, but her request was refused. When the gruesome details of the skinning and decapitation were aired, Knight became hysterical and needed to be sedated.
On November 8th, Justice O’Keffe pointed out the “sheer brutality” of the crime and Knights's “lack of remorse” was deserving of a severe penalty.
Katherine Knight was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole, with orders to mark her papers with “never to be released”—making her the first woman in Australian history to be handed a life sentence without parole.
Knight appealed her sentence, claiming that her sentence was “too severe” for the crime committed, but this was denied almost immediately.
Knight is still serving her life sentence at Silverwater Correctional Facility at the age of 69.
Sources:
https://allthatsinteresting.com/katherine-knight
https://mail.murderpedia.org/female.K/k/knight-katherine.htm#google_vignette
https://vocal.media/criminal/katherine-knight-australia-s-cannibal-killer
Featured photo: Murderpedia; Additional photos: News.com,au ; The Guardian ; Victims of Homicide
