Katherine Mary Knight was the first Australian woman to be sentenced to life in prison.
She was convicted of murder for murdering her partner John Charles Thomas Price.
Knights father was an alcoholic. He openly used violence and intimidation within the family. Her father would rape her mother up to 10 times a day. In turn Knights mother would tell Katherine details about her sex life and why she hated men and sex.
Katherine claims to this day, that she was raped and abused within her home when she was growing up.
Katherine was known as a pleasant girl with murderous rages caused by minor things.
David Kellett was Katherines first husband. On their wedding night Katherine strangled him because they only had sex 3 times before he fell asleep.
Their marriage was very violent, in one occasion Knight burned all of Kelletts clothes while she was pregnant right before she knocked him in the back of the head with a frying pan for being late coming home from a dart competition.
Kellett feared for his life and attempted to escape. He collapsed at a neighbors house and suffered a fractured skull in which he was later taken to the hospital for.
After Katherine gave birth to her first child Kellett left her for another women. Kellett couldn’t handle the abusive, violent relationship with Katherine.
Katherine was admitted into several psych hospitals due to violently pushing her new born down the street and even placing her child on a railroad track and leaving her there.
Each time she was released.
Eventually Knight met Daniel Saunders. A few months later he moved in with her and her two daughters although he kept his old apartment. Katherine would get extremely jealous and throw him out, only to be begging for him to come back.
In May 1987 she cut the throat of his two-month-old dingo pup in front of him for no more reason than as an example of what would happen if he ever had an affair before knocking him unconscious with a frying pan.
In June 1988 she gave birth to her third daughter Sarah, which influenced Saunders to put a deposit on a house, which Knight paid off when her workers’ compensation came through in 1989. Knight decorated the house throughout with animal skins, skulls, horns, rusty animal traps, leather jackets, old boots, machetes, rakes and pitchforks.
After an argument where she hit Saunders in the face with an iron before stabbing him in the stomach with a pair of scissors, he moved back to Scone, but when he returned home he found she had cut up all his clothes. Saunders took long service leave and went into hiding. Knight tried to find him but no one admitted to knowing where he was. Several months later he returned to see his daughter and found that Knight had gone to the police and told them she was afraid of him. They issued her with an Apprehended Violence Order against him.
John Price was the father of three when he met knight. Price was well aware of knights violent history, yet he let her move into their house in 1995.
In 1998 they had a fight over Price’s refusal to marry her and in retaliation Knight videotaped items he had stolen from work and sent the tape to his boss. Although the items were out of date medical kits that he had scavenged from the company. Price was fired from the job. That same day he kicked her out and she returned to her own home.
A few months later Price restarted the relationship although he now refused to allow her to move in with him. The fighting was almost an everyday thing, and most of his friends would no longer have anything to do with him while they remained together.
In February 2000 Knight had stabbed Price in the chest, he was finally fed up and kicked her out of his house. On Feb 29th he stopped at the court house on his way to work and got a restraining order to keep her away from him and his children. That afternoon Price told his co workers that if he didn’t come to work the next day it would be because Knight had murdered him. They begged him not to go home.
But he told them that he believed she would kill his children if he didn’t go home. Price arrived home to an empty house, not realizing that Katherine had sent his kids to a sleep over.
Price hung out with his neighbors until 11pm that night. Knight later arrived at Prices house and they had sex. Afterward Price had fallen asleep.
At 6am the next morning the neighbor became concerned that Price’s car was still in the driveway and when Price did not arrive at work, his employer sent a worker to see what was wrong. Both the neighbor and worker tried knocking on Price’s bedroom window to wake him but after noticing blood on the front door alerted the police who arrived at 8am. Breaking down the back door police found his body with Knight comatose from taking a large number of pills. She had stabbed Price with a butcher’s knife while he was sleeping. According to the blood evidence, he awoke and tried to turn the light on before attempting to escape while Knight chased him through the house, he managed to open the front door and get outside but either stumbled back inside or was dragged back into the hallway where he finally died after bleeding out. Later, Knight went into Aberdeen and withdrew $1,000 from Price’s ATM account.
Price’s 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 extending into vital organs. Several hours after Price had died, Knight skinned him and hung the skin from a meat hook on the frame of a door to the lounge room.
She then decapitated him and cooked parts of his body, serving up the meat with baked potato, pumpkin, zucchini, cabbage, yellow squash and gravy in two settings at the dinner table, along with notes beside each plate, each having the name of one of Price’s children on it, she was preparing to serve his body parts to his children.
A third meal was thrown on the back lawn for unknown reasons and it is speculated Knight had attempted to eat it but could not and this has been put forward in support of her claim that she has no memory of the crime. Price’s head was found in a pot with vegetables. The pot was still warm, estimated to be at between 40 and 50 degrees Celsius, indicating that the cooking had taken place in the early morning. Sometime later Knight arranged the body with the left arm draped over an empty 1.25 litre soft drink bottle with the legs crossed. This was claimed in court to be an act of defilement demonstrating Knight’s contempt for Price. Knight had left a hand written note on top of a photograph of Price. Blood stained and covered with small pieces of flesh the note read:
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. (sic)
The accusations in the note were found to be groundless.
Katherine murdered John Price with no remorse, and was found guilty.
