“Never to be released.”
These words can be found on the file of one of the most famous Australian convicts, a murderer who became the first woman in Australian history to be sentenced to life imprisonment. It all started one fateful day in February 2000, Katherine Knight killed John Price in cold blood – but she didn’t stop there.
She skinned his entire body, chopped off his head, boiled him in a stew, and served his flesh as food in a meal meant for John’s children. Katherine Knight’s grisly crime wasn’t just murder, it was a grisly display of attempted forced cannibalism.
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Who Is Katherine Knight?
Katherine Mary Knight was born on October 24, 1955, to Ken Knight and Barbara Roughan. Ken was a violent alcoholic who would force himself onto his wife more than ten times a day, and Barbara would share way too many intimate details about these grisly events to her young daughters!
Growing up, Katherine was a bully. She’d start fights with her classmates and even her teachers! But once she turned 15, she dropped out of school to work at the local abattoir. This was her “dream job” – chopping up bones and offal, slitting the throats of pigs.
Katherine now had the skills to carry out what would be one of the worst murders in Australia.
David Kellett
Katherine met David Kellett in 1973. A hard-talking alcoholic, David would often find himself in fistfights, and Katherine would often step in and throw in a couple of punches herself. They married the following year, though they weren’t happy for long: Katherine tried to strangle David on their wedding night, furious that he fell asleep after only having sex thrice!
Despite almost dying at Katherine’s hands, David stayed and they’d go on to have two daughters, Melissa Ann and Natasha Maree. Katherine had excessively violent reactions to David’s infractions – she once smashed a frying pan into his head simply because he came home too late one night.
David Saunders
David Kellett eventually left Katherine for good, and she quickly replaced him with another David. David Saunders met Katherine in 1986, and he soon moved in with her and her daughters. He kept his old apartment though, and Katherine hated this – she’d fly into a jealous rage, and at one point took David’s dingo pup and slit its throat in front of him as a threat!
Like the first David, David Saunders often got physically abused by Katherine Knight. David went into hiding after a particularly violent fight where Katherine had smashed his face with an iron and stabbed him in the stomach with a pair of scissors.
John Chillingworth
Katherine and John’s relationship was short lived and uneventful compared to her previous affairs.
It turns out that John Chillingworth wasn’t the only John in Katherine’s life. Katherine Knight was already having an affair with John Price, and she would go on to leave one John for the other.
Who Is John Price?
John Charles Thomas Price had recently been divorced when he started dating Katherine. With already three kids of his own, John had no plans of marrying again, he was dating Katherine just as a casual fling.
But then Katherine demanded marriage, which John refused to give her. This caused her to fly into one of her rages – though instead of her usual violence, she just resorted to getting him fired from his job.
Still, it wasn’t the end for the two of them. John and Katherine were back together a few months later, though he still refused to marry her. They fought constantly, with Katherine becoming more and more violent. In 2000, she stabbed John in the chest, and he got a restraining order against her.
It was the beginning of the end.
John Price’s Murder
John Price now had first-hand experience of Katherine’s violent tendencies, but he didn’t leave her because he was terrified that she might do something to his kids. John would tell his friends that if he ever went missing, Katherine probably killed him.
He wasn’t wrong.
On the night of February 29, 2000, Katherine went to John’s apartment and woke him up for sex. He had work the next day, so he went to sleep right after.
But the next time John awoke, it was to the gory and terrifying sight of Katherine hacking at him with her precious butcher’s knife. He tried to run, but it was useless – he was stabbed 37 times in what became one of the worst murders in recorded history.
Aftermath
John Price’s murder was quickly discovered when he didn’t show up to work the next day. Katherine Knight was found by the police passed out in the bedroom. She had swallowed a lot of pills.
Once she came to, Katherine Knight claimed to have no memory of what happened. Psychiatric tests showed that she was sane, though diagnosed with borderline personality disorder. She stood trial in October 2001, was found guilty and sentenced to life imprisonment.
Katherine Knight is undoubtedly the most notorious Australian female murderer of all time! She’s currently serving her sentence at the Silverwater Women’s Correctional Centre. To this day, she still claims innocence! She maintains that she remembers nothing of the incident and that she committed no conscious crime.
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