Katherine Knight
Katherine Mary Knight is an Australian murderer and the first woman in the country's history to be sentenced to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole. She was convicted for the murder of her partner, John Charles Thomas Price, in February 2000, and is currently imprisoned at the Silverwater Women's Correctional Centre in New South Wales. Knight stabbed Price to death, skinned him and then put his skin on a meat hook, which she had recently installed. She then cooked his head and parts of his body with the intention of feeding them to Price's children, but was stopped by police after an employee of his went to check on him after he had not been at work that day.
Early life and family
Katherine Knight was born and raised in an unconventional and dysfunctional family environment. Her mother, Barbara Roughan, had been married to Scottish-born John "Jack" Roughan and lived with him in the small town of Aberdeen in New South Wales' Hunter Valley. They had four sons before Barbara began an adulterous relationship with Kenneth "Ken" Charles Knight, a friend and co-worker of her then-husband.The local backlash forced Barbara and Ken to move to Moree. None of her sons went with her; the two eldest boys continued to reside with their father and the two younger sons were sent to be raised by an aunt in Sydney. Barbara had four additional children with Ken, including twin girls born in 1955 in Tenterfield; Knight was one of these twin daughters. In 1959, when Knight was four years old, John Roughan died and his two older sons moved in with Barbara and Ken.
Ken was a violent alcoholic who would rape Barbara up to ten times per day. Barbara, in turn, often shared intimate details of her sex life with her daughters and expressed her hatred for sex and men. Later, when Knight complained to her mother about a sexual partner wanting her to engage in a sex act she did not wish to perform, Barbara advised her to endure it and stop complaining. Knight alleged she was frequently sexually assaulted by several members of her family, excluding her father, until she was aged 11. Although there are doubts regarding the specifics, psychiatrists accepted her allegations, and these events have been largely confirmed by other family members.
Barbara's great-grandmother was an Indigenous Australian from the Moree area who had married an Irishman. Barbara took pride in this heritage and identified as Aboriginal. However, this was kept a family secret due to the racism prevalent in the area at the time, and Barbara's ancestry became a source of tension for the children. Apart from her twin sister, the only person with whom Knight felt a close bond was her uncle, Oscar Knight, a champion horseman. She was devastated when Oscar died by suicide in 1969 and continues to claim that his ghost visits her. The family moved back to Aberdeen the same year.
When she attended Muswellbrook high school, Knight became a loner and is remembered by classmates as a bully who stood over smaller pupils. She assaulted at least one boy at school with a weapon and was once injured by a teacher, who was subsequently found to have acted in self-defence. By contrast, when not in a rage, Knight was a model student and often earned awards for her good behaviour.
Knight left school at the age of 15, having not learned to read or write. She initially worked as a cutter in a clothing factory before moving on to what she described as her "dream job" at a local abattoir, where she began cutting up offal. She quickly advanced to boning and received her own set of butchers' knives. Knight kept these knives hung over her bed at home, stating that they would always be handy if needed, a practice she maintained until her incarceration. Residents of Aberdeen later recalled Knight for her tendency to physically threaten anyone who angered her.
Marriage to David Kellett
Knight first met co-worker David Stanford Kellett in 1973. Kellett engaged in heavy drinking which stemmed from two traumatic incidents from his previous railway job in Coffs Harbour: first, when his best friend was killed in front of him in a shunting accident; later, when he rescued injured occupants of a school bus in Kempsey which had been struck by a train, killing six children. He eventually lost the job due to deteriorating behaviour and performance, but he soon got work at the nearby Aberdeen abattoir and became close friends with Knight's brother. Often, if Kellett got into a fight, Knight would step in and back him up with her fists.Knight married Kellett in 1974, at her request. They arrived at the service on her motorcycle, with Kellett appearing quite intoxicated on the pillion. Upon their arrival, Knight's mother, Barbara, offered Kellett some stern advice about his new wife. Barbara warned Kellett to be cautious, stating that upsetting Knight or cheating on her could lead to serious consequences, noting that Knight had a volatile behaviour. On their wedding night, Knight attempted to strangle Kellett, later explaining that it was due to him falling asleep after they had intercourse only three times.
The marriage proved particularly violent, and on one occasion a heavily pregnant Knight burned all of Kellett's clothing and shoes before hitting him across the back of the head with a frying pan, simply because he had arrived home late from a darts competition after reaching the finals. In fear for his life, Kellett fled before collapsing in a neighbour's house and was treated for a severely fractured skull. Police wanted to charge Knight, but she changed her behaviour to ingratiating Kellett and talked him into dropping the charges.
In May 1976, shortly after the birth of their first child, Melissa Ann, Kellett left Knight for another woman and moved to Queensland, apparently unable to cope with the abuse. The next day, Knight was seen pushing her newborn baby in a pram down the main street, violently throwing the pram from side to side. She was admitted to St Elmo's Hospital in Tamworth, where she was diagnosed with postnatal depression and spent several weeks recovering. After being released, Knight placed two-month-old Melissa on a railway line shortly before a train was due. She then stole an axe, went into town and threatened to kill several people. A homeless man known in the district as "Old Ted", who was foraging near the railway line, found and rescued Melissa, by all accounts only minutes before the train passed. Knight was arrested and again taken to St Elmo's Hospital, but apparently she recovered and signed herself out the following day.
A few days later, Knight slashed the face of a woman with one of her knives and demanded she drive her to Queensland to find Kellett. The woman escaped after they stopped at a service station; however, by the time police arrived, Knight had taken a young boy hostage and was threatening him with the knife. She was disarmed when police attacked her with brooms and was admitted to Morisset psychiatric hospital. Knight told the nurses she had intended to kill the mechanic at the service station because he had repaired Kellett's car, which had allowed him to leave, and then kill both her husband and his mother when she arrived in Queensland. When police informed Kellett of the incident, he left his girlfriend and moved to Aberdeen with his mother to support Knight.
Knight was released on 9 August 1976 into the care of her mother-in-law and, along with Kellett, moved to Ipswich, a city west of Brisbane, where she obtained a job at the Dinmore meatworks. On 6 March 1980, they had another daughter, Natasha Maree. In 1984, Knight left Kellett and moved, first to her parents' house in Aberdeen, then to a rented house in nearby Muswellbrook. Although she returned to work at the abattoir, she injured her back the following year and went on a disability pension. Since she no longer needed to rent accommodation close to her work, the government provided her with a Housing Commission residence in Aberdeen.
Other relationships
David Saunders
Knight met 38-year-old miner David Saunders in 1986. A few months later, he moved in with her and her daughters, although he kept his old apartment in Scone. Knight soon became jealous of what he did when she was not around and would often throw him out. He would move back to his apartment, where she would invariably follow and beg him to return. In May 1987, Knight cut the throat of Saunders' 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 going on to knock him unconscious with a frying pan. In June 1988, she gave birth to a third daughter, Sarah, which prompted Saunders to put a deposit on a house; Knight paid off the deposit 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. No space, including the ceilings, was left uncovered.After an argument in which she hit Saunders in the face with an iron before stabbing him in the abdomen with a pair of scissors, he moved back to Scone, but when he later returned home to Aberdeen, he found she had cut up all his clothes. Saunders took a long service leave and went into hiding. Knight tried to find him, but no one admitted to knowing his whereabouts. Several months later, Saunders returned to see his daughter and found that Knight had gone to the police and unjustly told them she was afraid of him. They issued her an Apprehended Violence Order against him.