The Case of Katherine Knight

Tonight we’re going down under and talking about the case of Katherine Knight. This case is similar to the case of Omima Nelson (episode 16), but even she doesn’t hold a candle to this woman.

Katherine Mary Knight was one of 8 children. She was the youngest of a set of twins born on 24 October 1955. She was born in Tenterfield, New South Wales to Ken and Barbara.

Her mother had had 3 husbands and Katherine’s father was the latest husband. 

Katherine was close to only two people, her twin and her uncle Oscar Knight who committed suicide in 1966 when Katherine was 11 yeas old. This completely devastated her, but she says that his ghost visits her frequently so the blow didn’t hurt that bad. I think she just psychologically found a way for her to be ok with the loss of her uncle. 

Apparently her family had moved away from Aberdeen at some point in time because after her Uncle Oscar committed suicide, the family moved back to Aberdeen in 1969. By this time Katherine was 14 years old.

Now, Katherine’s father, Ken, was an alcoholic who was very abusive to the family, but extremely abusive to her mother in particular. He would intimidate her and use violence to rape Barbara. Not just once, not just twice, but up to ten times a day! Katherine’s mother would then usually tell her daughters the details of her sex like and tell them how much she hated men. What el freak? What kind of craziness is going on in that house?!

Katherine was described as a nice girl, when she was younger, with a temper when she got angry. While in highschool, she went from having a lot of friends to being a loner. Her highschool classmates had a different tale to tell than those of the elementary school. According to them, she was a bully who especially liked to loom over the smaller kids. They remembered that she had a fight with one boy and assaulted him with a weapon. A teacher also had to hurt her in self-defense, you know, back in the day when teachers could defend themselves against unruly children. Whenever Katherine wasn’t being a bully or angry, she was described as a model student who usually got awards for good behavior. She’s like Dr. Jekell and Mr. Hyde.

She dropped out of school at only 15 years old – so that was 1 year after they moved back to Aberdeen – and was illiterate; meaning she couldn’t read or write. After she left school, she got a job in a clothing factory as a cutter. A year later she got her dream job cutting up offal at a slaughterhouse that was close to where she lived. Now, if you’ve looked at your phone and said “HUH?! Her dream job was what?!” Then you’d be in good company because I didn’t know what that was either. So the offal are the entrails and internal organs of an animal that are cut up and used as food. So, for some reason, that’s what she liked to do. She loved it so much that she quickly got a promotion to the boning position (ooohh yea…I like the boning position) and for the position, she was given her own set of butcher knives. As if it were a trophy, she proudly brought her knives home and hung them over her bed so that they “would always be handy if I needed them.” Ummm what could you possibly need butcher knives for in your bedroom…..Char?

David Stanford Kellett was born around 1951. Not much is known about his early life, but Katherine met him in 1973 when she was 18 and he was 22. By this time, David was already a hard drinker – meaning he was already a drunk.

Regardless of his heavy drinking, Katherine got into a relationship with him and the two decided to get married a year later. Mind you, she was the one who insisted on the marriage. At the wedding, they arrived on her motorcycle with her driving and a very drunk David on the back. Before the ceremony, Katherine’s mother pulled David over and gave him some advice. The advice, in David’s own words, were: 

“The old girl said to me to watch out. ‘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.’ And that was her mother talking! She told me she’s got something loose, She’s got a screw loose somewhere.”

David didn’t heed the warning and continued with the wedding. It didn’t take long for Katherine’s mother’s words to ring through though. On their wedding night, Katherine tried to strangle David. Why? Well the same reason any rasional person would – he fell asleep after they’d had sex only 3 times. How selfish of him. This marriage is off to a great start.

The marriage, as you can imagine, was not a good one. Turns out, Katherine was very abusive. Hmmm where did I hear that warning? Oh yea, her mom right before David ignored it. While Katherine was about 8 or 9 months pregnant, she burned all of David’s clothes and el kabonged him in the back of the head with a frying pan. Again, why? do you ask? Well he’d come home late from a darts competition that he was a part of and had placed  in the finals for. David ran for his life thinking that she would kill him that night and passed out in the neighbor’s house. They called the cops but no charges were filed as Katherine apologized to David and convinced him to drop the charges. Wouldn’t be an apology in this world that would have convinced me.

Their first child, Melissa Ann was born in May 1976 and a little while later, David had had enough of the abuse, the possessiveness, and just the all around violence in the relationship. He walked out on his family and started a relationship with another woman. He and his new woman moved to Queensland.

The next day, witnesses saw Katherine walking down Main Street pushing her child in a stroller. Well, not really pushing would be the right word – more  like crazily throwing the stroller from side to side with her newborn inside of it. Of course, police were called and, after a mental evaluation, she was admitted to St. Elmo’s Hospital where she was diagnosed with postpartum depression. The hospital held her, inpatient, for several weeks while helping her recover. I was told that I had postpartum depression, but I don’t remember. How about you Char?

Well now a fully recovered Katherine took her new born baby on a walk down to the train station. There she hugged her and placed her down for a nap – right on the train tracks right before a train was due to come in. Then she stole an axe (from where?!) and went down to the town where she wielded the ax and threatened to kill anyone around. Back at the train station, an old man that the town called “Old Ted” saw the baby on the tracks and picked her up – minutes before the train passed by. Dude! You can’t make this stuff up! Of course, police were called and Katherine was arrested and readmitted to St. Elmo’s Hospital. Her depression must have been cured overnight and she saw the error of her ways because the hospital let her sign herself out the next day.

You know what really annoys me? Is how people don’t take mental illnesses seriously. And then when a mentally unstable person hurts themselves or someone else or a lot of someone elses, people are shocked. Do you know how many casualties could have been prevented if people just took these things seriously?

So speaking of them not taking it seriously but if they did people wouldn’t get hurt – a few days later, Katherine took one of her butcher knives, walked outside, found some random woman, slashed her face and told her that she better drive her to Queensland to find her husband David if she knew what was good for her. The woman started on the journey with Katherine but convinced her to let her pull over – probably to pee or to eat or something. While they were pulled over at a gas station, the woman ran off and called police. When police arrived, Katherine had taken a little boy hostage and had her knife to his throat. Police tried to talk her down, tried to get her to see reason, but in the end the only way to disarm her was with …brooms? What?! Anyway, they got the knife away from the boy’s throat with ..brooms… and arrested Katherine. She was admitted into the Morisset Psychiatric Hospital where she told the staff that she had wanted to kill the mechanic at that service station because he had fixed David’s car. You know, the same car he’d used to drive away from her. So somehow it was the mechanic’s fault. Do you think that’s why she agreed to pull over or is this a delusion? I don’t know. Anyway, her plan was that after she killed the mechanic, she was going to continue on to Queensland to find David, kill him and then kill his mother. The nurses reported this to police, who in turn reported this to David so that he could be on high alert. David, being the bright individual he is, left his girlfriend and he and his mom rushed right out to Aberdeen to support Katherine. What?!

On August 9, 1976 Katherine was released from the hospital and placed into the care of her mother in law and David. Yup the two people she’d planned to go on a murder spree for and end with them. What is HAPPENING in this story?!

The trio moved to Woodridge where Katherine got a job at the Dinmore Meatworks in a nearby town. What is with her and working at butchers and slaughterhouses?

Now, if you’d married someone with mental issues, yall had a kid, you left because you deemed them dangerous (and for some reason made the bright decision to leave your newborn baby with that person), the person planned to go on a murder spree so you and you mom came back to help this person – what do you think your rational next step would be?

On March 6 of 1980 Katherine and David welcomed another child. A daughter named Natasha Maree. 

Four years later, Katherine decided that she was done with David and left him to move in with her parents back in Aberdeen, but a short while later, she moved into a rental home in Muswellbrook – which wasn’t too far from her parents. She then went back to her dream job at the slaughterhouse, but hurt her back a year later and had to be placed on disability. With this, she moved BACK to Aberdeen. How many times has this woman moved so far?

In 1986, Katherine met a man named David Saunders and within a couple of months, they were living together. 

In true Katherine fashion, jealousy and violence soon found its way into the relationship. Katherine didn’t like that David would do anything without her, like when she wasn’t home, so she would often kick him out. Well, David had kept his apartment in Scone so whenever she would kick him out, he would just go back home to his place. A short time would pass and Katherine would apologize and beg him to come back, and he would. 

Now L and M-ers, this is the time when Ky is going to pause the show to bring you some relationship advice. If you are in an abusive relationship – whether physical or verbal – and your abusive partner shows a continuous habit of abusing you and apologizing – the apology means nothing. It’s just another form of abuse and a way for them to get you to stay. It’s not going to stop. It’s not your fault. Now, let me tell you what you need to do. Come closer to the speaker so I can tell you. Closer. A little bit closer. RUN BITCH! SAVE YOURSELF AND RUUUNNNNN!

Anyway, back to the story.

In May of 1987 Katherine knew that she had to set an example for David Saunders so she grabbed her 2 month old puppy and slit its throat in front of David. Then she told him, “This is what will happen to you if you ever cheat on me and leave me.” Then she smashed him upside the head with a frying pan and rendered him unconscious. I….I….I just can’t with this story. WHAT IS GOING ON???!!!

In June of 1988 – what do you think happened? She had a THIRD child! What the crap?! A THIRD child! Another daughter. This one named Sarah. David decided to put a deposit on a house for his new family and Katherine’s workman’s comp paid off in 1989. The house was decorated with nothing other than animal skins, skulls, horns, leather jackets, old boots, rusty animal traps, machetes, pitchforks, and rakes. I think they call this style southern modern open spaced feng shui? Every single space in the house was covered with something. There was not one empty spot; including the ceiling. Now, I know when you have children in the house, doctors suggest you have lots of pointy things around – rusty objects are highly encouraged. So I think Katherine and David are following the best parental suggestions here for keeping the kids safe.

Some time and some arguments later, David moved out of the house and moved back to Scone. Do you want to know what the last straw was for him? During an argument with Katherine, she hit him in the face with an iron and then stabbed him in the stomach with a pair of scissors. After some time he went back to Katherine’s house to get the rest of his stuff and found that she had destroyed all his stuff and cut up all his clothes. David decided to take leave from work and went into hiding from Katherine. Do you know how crazy you have to be to have someone “go into hiding from you?”

Of course Katherine searched for him, but couldn’t find him anywhere. However, he couldn’t stay away from his daughter for long so some months later he came by to see his daughter and found out that Katherine had gone to the police and told them that David was abusive and that she was afraid of him. She’d filed a restraining order against him and of course, it was granted even though there are files of Katherine being the one who was abusive.

Fast forward to 1990 and Katherine was in a relationship with her co-worker, John Chillingworth. He was 43 at this time and she was 35. Of course she did what seems to be a habit for her and gave him a child named Eric, in 1991. So she finally had a boy. John and Katherine’s relationship lasted 3 years before she left him for someone she’d been having an affair with. 

In steps John Price. Everyone called him Pricey. Price was divorced since 1988 and had three children. Everyone loved him. He was happy go lucky, friendly and just an all around good guy. His two older children lived with him, while his 2 year old daughter lived with his ex wife. 

In 1995, three years after they started exclusively dating, Katherine moved in with John. By the way, John was well aware of Katherine’s abusive and violent nature. Why do you think he would move her into his home and especially around his children???

At first everything was great, his kids like her and John was making money working in the mines. They did have some arguments – or what they called “violent” arguments, but I guess he didn’t feel it was bad enough to break up with her.  By 1998 Katherine wanted Pricey to marry her but he refused – and apparently, this wasn’t the first time. This time in particular, they ended up having a fight over it and later, Katherine decided to video tape things that Pricey had stolen from work and she generously shared that with his boss. Even though the items were actually just out of date medical kits that he’d taken from the company trash, he was still fired from the job he’d held for 17 years. Do you see why you shouldn’t trust jobs? They don’t care about you at all. I mean they could have spoken to him, issued him a warning, or something other than firing him! 

At the same time, Katherine just screwed herself. Pricey was making money and supporting her and her children too, but then again, when have we known Katherine to be sensible?

Pricey came home and kicked Kathereine out of his house so she went back to her own house. At least she had somewhere to go? However, as seems to be the habit with everyone who’s dealt with her, Pricey came back to her a few months later but she wasn’t allowed to move into his house. However, this ban didn’t last long and Katherine was right back in his house. This time around though, the fighting increased and Pricey’s friends decided not to hang around if he was going to stay with Katherine. 

Would you leave your friend because they were in an abusive relationship and wouldn’t leave the person?

By February of 2000, Pricey was tired of the amount of abuse he was going through (which included Katherine stabbing him in the chest) and he kicked her out of his house again. On February 29th, Pricey took out a restraining order against Katherine so that she would stay away from him and his kids. Which, a piece of paper really doesn’t do anything but I do admire him for doing that. At work on that same day, Pricey told his co-workers that if he didn’t come in to work the next day, that meant that Katherine had killed him. Of course his co-workers told him not to go home, that he and his kids could come and stay with them, but he told them that if he didn’t go home, she would probably kill his kids  instead. 

When Pricey got home that evening, he saw that Katherine had sent the kids away for a sleep over at a friend’s house and she wasn’t home herself. That would be my queue to pack my shit and my kids stuff, pick them up from their sleepover and disappear. Instead, Pricey went and spent the evening with his neighbors and went to bed and went to bed at 11pm – in the house – the same house that Katherine had the key too.

Later that night, Katherine came over to the house and let herself in. She sat watching TV for a while then went and took a shower. She then woke Pricey up and they had sex and went to sleep afterwards.

At 6am a neighbor came over to Pricey’s house because they saw his car still in the driveway and knew he should have been off to work by then. However, no one answered the door so the neighbor left. Later that day, when he didn’t come to work, his manager sent a co-worker over to Pricey’s house to make sure he was ok. He knocked on the door and Pricey’s bedroom window trying to wake him up. When there was no answer, the co-worker tried to see inside the house, but he couldn’t see. So he went back to the front door and was about to knock again, but then noticed some red stuff on the door. Was this paint or blood? Either way, he wasn’t taking any chances and called the cops. They arrived at 8am and entered the house through the backdoor. Upon searching the house, police found Pricey’s body AND they found Katherine passed out next to him, but alive. They tried to revive her but she wouldn’t wake up.

Pricey was taken by the coroner and Katherine was taken to the hospital. At the hospital, it was revealed that she had taken a lot of pills in an attempt to kill herself. They treated her in the hospital and saved her life.

During police investigation of the house, the blood evidence revealed a story. Pricey was stabbed in the bed, probably while sleeping. He’d awakened and tried to turn the light on and then tried to escape his attacker. The attacker chased him through the house and he was able to open the front door and get outside but didn’t make it far; he either stumbled back into the house or was dragged back in, where he finally died from blood loss.

Police also found this weird thing hanging in the archway of the door to the living room. They looked at it and realized it was bloody and was getting hard. The cops realized what they were looking at was skin – Pricey’s skin.

In a pot on the stove was Pricey’s head with vegetables surrounding it. The pot was still warm, indicating that it had been cooking early in the morning.

They also saw there was dinner at the table with notes besides the two dinner plates. Each note had the name of Pricey’s kids on it. There was also another dinner that had been thrown outside on the back lawn. The dinner plates held meat – which was Pricey’s cooked flesh, served with baked potatoes, pumpkin, zucchini, cabbage, yellow squash and gravy.

There was also meat in the oven baking with some more vegetables.

Before the police took the body away, it was documented that the body was arranged with the left arm draped over an empty 2 liter soda bottle with the legs crossed. 

Meanwhile, at Pricey’s autopsy, the coroner revealed that Pricey had been stabbed with a butcher knife while he was sleeping. The autopsy also revealed that he had been stabbed at least 37 times, both in the front and back of his body with a lot of the wounds going into vital organs. Also, chunks of flesh were missing from the buttocks of the body.

During the investigation, neighbors and Pricey’s co-workers informed cops of what Pricey said. Also, they found a handwritten, blood soaked note with pieces of flesh on it -on top of a picture of Price that said:

“Time got you back Johathon for rapping [raping] my douter [daughter]. You to Beck [Price’s daughter] for Ross — for Little John [his son]. Now play with little Johns Dick John Price. “

It was also revealed that Katherine had taken $1000 dollars out of Pricey’s account on the night of the murder.

Of course, Katherine was arrested. This happened the day after the murder. During her interrogation, she said she didn’t remember the murder. She told police, ‘“The last time I recall was, I don’t know about your dates, but I went inside and watched a bit of TV.”

The police brought in psychiatrists and they determined – THAT WAS A LIE. But they did have to determine if she was fit for a trial and, in the end, they found that she was. One psychiatrist said, “The problem is not that she did not know it was wrong to do such thing, but that she did not care about doing them. Callousness is not an absence of knowledge of what is right or wrong.”

What do you think Katherine pleaded? Not guilty. Actually, initially she tried to plead guilty to manslaughter, but that was rejected and she was arraigned on February 2, 2001 on the charge of murdering Pricey. This is when she entered her plea of not guilty. 

Her trial began on October, 15 2001 (one day later than it was originally set because her lawyer was sick) and was overseen by Justice Barry O’Keefe. Because of the gravity of the murder, the judge thought it was wise to have reserve jury members in case the main members couldn’t continue.

The next morning, Katherine changed her plea to guilty and the jury was dismissed. Justice O’Keefe ordered an overnight psychiatric assessment to ensure that Katherine understood the consequences of pleading guilty. Her legal team had planned to use the defense of amnesia and dissociation, but most of the psychiatrists considered her sane. 

Katherine never gave a reason for the guilty plea AND she refused to accept responsibility for her actions. 

At sentencing, Katherine’s lawyers requested that she be excused so that she wouldn’t hear some of the facts, but the Justice denied that request. Are they serious right now?

When  Dr. Timothy Lyons took the stand and began describing the skinning and decapitation, Katherine started going into hysterics and had to be sedated.

During the trail, it was revealed that the accusations of the blood and flesh splattered note were groundless. 

Also, the way that Pricey’s body was arranged was meant to be an act of defilement demonstrating Katherine’s hatred of Pricey.

Earlier on the day of the murder, Katherine had bought new black lingerie and had video taped all her children while making comments that the court interpreted as a type of will. 

Her younger life was also brought up and it was found that she had been sexually abused by seeral family members (but not her father) and this continued until she was 11. Also, at one point in time, Katherine had complained to her mother that one of her partners wanted her to take part in a sex act she didn’t want to do, Barbara (her mother) told her to “put up with it and stop complaining”. Good. Lord!

On November 8, 2001 Justice O’Keefe sentenced Katherine to life in prison without the possibility of parole. On her papers, he order the following words to be marked on it “never to be released.” This was the first time that this sentence had been given to a woman in all of Australian history.

Later, the Justice said that the skinning of Pricey’s body “was carried out with considerable expertise and an obviously steady hand so that his skin, including that of the head, face, nose, ears, neck, torso, genital organs and legs, was removed so as to form one pelt. So expertly was it done that, after the post mortem examination, the skin was able to be re-sown onto Price’s body in a way which indicated a clear and appropriate, albeit grisly, methodology.”

On June 2006, Katherine appealed her sentence saying that life in prison was too severe of a punishment for the murder. Justice Peter McClellan, Justice Michael Adams, and Justice Megan Latham laughed and laughed and laughed and then dismissed her appeal. Justice McClellan wrote “This was an appalling crime, almost beyond contemplation in a civilized society.”

Oh, remember the plate that was out in the backyard – it’s presumed that she tried to eat the meal but couldn’t bring herself to do it and threw it out back.

So Katherine Knight is in Mulawa Women’s Correctional Centre where she works as a cleaner in the governor’s office.

And John Price is dead.

And that is the story of the Australian Hannibal Lecter.

What do you think of Katherine’s outcome? What do you think about the constant line of men that she was with?

What did you think of this case? Let us know and also come on over to Patron and join the discussion. It’s only $3 www.patreon.com/loveandmurder

 

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