Crime Files

Katherine Knight once worked in Australian slaughterhouses where she discovered a talent for decapitating pigs. She used the very same knives from her work to murder her common-law husband. John Price was skinned and beheaded; portions of his buttocks were cut from what remained of his body. All this was in preparation for a stew intended for his children. But it was not the work of a madwoman; courts determined that Katherine was quite sane. She had planned the murder, knew that it was wrong and was well aware of the consequences of her grizzly actions.

Katherine Mary Knight was born on 24 October 1955 at Tenterfeld, New South Wales, one of many communities in which her father, Ken, had found employment as a slaughterhouse worker.

Kath lived a semi-transient life until 1969, when her family settled in Aberdeen, 170 miles (270 km) north of Sydney. The town may have been small – with just over 1,500 inhabitants – but the Knight family was fairly large. A twin, Kath was one of eight children.

Violent bully

Barely literate, she wasn’t much of a student; Kath still made a mark at the schools she attended by being a violent bully. At the age of 16, following in the footsteps of her father, brother and twin sister, Kath became a slaughterhouse worker herself. The following year, she met and moved in with David Kellett, a 22-year-old truck driver. The couple married in 1974, a happy occasion that was marred when the bride, disappointed by his sexual performance on their wedding night, tried to strangle her groom.

It was her partner’s misfortune that Katherine Knight was destined to take the skills she had learnt in the slaughterhouse back home with her

As the relationship progressed, so too did the abuse. In what, by comparison, seems a trivial incident, Kath burned all David’s clothing. Early in the marriage, he arrived at work with the imprint of an iron burned on to the side of his face. The truck driver once awoke to find his wife astride his chest holding a knife to his throat.

And yet, he stayed with Kath long enough to father, and witness the birth of, a daughter, Melissa, born in 1976. It was a joyous occasion in an otherwise unpleasant and disturbing period.

‘I never raised a finger against her,’ David said, ‘not even in self-defence. I just walked away.’ Within two months he had done just that, leaving his wife for another woman.

In retaliation, Kath placed Melissa on railway tracks just minutes before a train was scheduled to pass. The baby was discovered and saved by a local drifter, and, incredibly, the mother suffered no repercussions.

Kath was not so lucky when, a few days later, she disfigured a 16-year-old girl’s face with a butcher’s knife. A stand-off ensued, during which Kath held a young boy hostage. She was placed in a psychiatric hospital, only to be released a few weeks later. There was a reunion with David, who worked to save what was left of the marriage.

Doomed

The attempt was doomed from the start. Despite the medication and therapy she’d received, Kath was, if anything, more violent. And yet, in 1980 the couple had a second daughter, Natasha.

It would have been understandable had David again walked away, yet it was Kath who ended the relationship. He returned home one day to discover his house stripped of its contents and Kath, Melissa and Natasha gone.

Even more disturbingly, Knight took one of Dave’s dogs, an 8-week-old puppy, and, making sure he was watching, killed the creature by cutting its throat

In 1986, she began seeing a man named Dave Saunders, with whom she had a daughter, Sarah, the following year. Kath soon left her slaughterhouse job, citing a back injury. With Dave’s help, and the aid of a significant compensation package, she bought a rundown house in an undesirable area of town, and, setting health concerns aside, began renovating and decorating. Kath’s tastes were fairly unconventional: cow hides, steer horns, a stuffed baby deer, rusted animal traps and a scythe hung on a rope above her couch. And the pattern of her life was unchanged. Kath cut up her boyfriend’s clothes, vandalized his car, hit him with an iron, stabbed him with scissors and beat him with a frying pan until he was unconscious. Even more disturbingly, Kath took one of Dave’s dogs, an 8-week-old puppy, and, making certain he was watching, killed the creature by cutting its throat.

As their relationship drew to an end, Kath took an overdose of sleeping pills and wound up in another psychiatric hospital. And yet, somehow, she managed to obtain an Apprehended Violence Order that kept Dave away from her and his child.

By May of 1990, Kath had moved on to another man. John Chillington, a cab driver, became another victim of her abuse. She smashed glasses grabbed from his face and destroyed his false teeth. Despite the drama, in 1991 the pair had a child, Eric, together.

In 1994, Kath dumped John for her final partner, John Charles Price, known as ‘Pricey’. He was a well-liked man; even his former wife, with whom he’d had four children, spoke of him only in glowing terms.

After a little more than a year together, Kath abandoned her shoddy, bizarrely decorated home for Pricey’s more tasteful, well-built bungalow. Even before moving in, the relationship had taken several bad turns. The pair had been seen fighting – typical behaviour for Kath, but very much out of character for Pricey.

Frustrated by Pricey’s refusal to marry her, Kath presented a videotape to her boyfriend’s employers depicting items allegedly stolen from his work. Though the goods featured, all well past their expiry dates, were probably scavenged from the trash, Pricey was fired – an abrupt end to 17 years of dedicated service. Kath and Pricey split up. But within a few months they were back together.

Unable to read or write, Pricey’s employment options were extremely limited. Pricey sank into drink for a time, until, by chance, he happened upon a job at Bowditch and Partners Earth Moving. It was just the sort of break he needed. A year after being hired, Pricey was made supervisor.

John Price (second from the left) and his original family in much happier times

He’d begun to share elements of his unhealthy relationship with the boys from work, telling them that Kath had a history of violence and that he wanted her out of the house. Pricey also claimed his wife could throw a punch as good as any man alive and that she’d once chased him with a knife. Pricey’s stories were at odds with the woman known to his friends at work. The Kath they’d seen might have been a bit of an odd bird, but to an outsider she seemed pleasant enough. By the early months of 2000, Pricey had begun making an effort to share his concerns.

On 21 February, he was forced to flee the house after Kath had grabbed a knife in an argument. Though some of Pricey’s friends encouraged him to leave, he felt the need to stay in order to protect the children. Eight days later, during his noon-hour break, Pricey went to a local magistrate. He feared for his life and showed a wound he’d received when Kath had stabbed him. After returning to work, his boss offered him a place to stay, but Pricey declined.

John Price, seen here with his son Johnathon, was a typical product of smalltown Australia – a conscientious worker with a love of beer and ‘cigs’

Eerie premonition

A family video, shot just a few hours later, captures Katherine singing nursery rhymes to her children. Her sole grandchild, a girl, sits on her lap. It was an out-of-character performance, complete with the peculiar message: ‘I love all my children and I hope to see them again.’ After the camera was switched off, she and the children enjoyed a dinner at a local Chinese restaurant. Again, it was something out of the ordinary. Kath told the children, ‘I want it to be special.’

Aged 20, Natasha had a vague feeling of unease about the meaning of her mother’s unusual behaviour. As Kath left to see Pricey, she said, ‘I hope you are not going to kill Pricey and yourself.’

Later, Kath claimed that she had no recollection of the evening after having watched Star Trek at Pricey’s house.

Much of what we now know is drawn from forensic evidence gathered at the scene. We know that at some point Kath donned a black negligee bought at a local charity shop. It’s highly probable that she was wearing the flimsy garment when they had sex – it is certain that Kath had on the negligee when she began stabbing Pricey. The wounded man managed to make it outside his front door before being dragged back into the house, where the stabbing continued. The coroner determined that Pricey received at least 37 stab wounds, destroying nearly all of his major organs.

When Kath began skinning, beheading and otherwise carving up her lover is unknown, though cameras did manage to record her movements at 2.30 am, when she made a withdrawal from an ATM.

It was at Bowditch and Partners that the first concerns for Pricey were raised. Such was Pricey’s dedication and reliability that at 7.45 am his boss phoned local police to report that he had not yet arrived at work.

The authorities visited Pricey’s bungalow, forced the door and found his skin hanging in a doorway. The decapitated corpse was lying in the living room. Pricey’s head was in a large pot, simmering away on the kitchen stove.

The dining room table held two servings of food, consisting of baked potato, pumpkin, courgette, cabbage, squash and generous portions of the cooked corpse.

Placement cards indicated that the two settings were intended for Pricey’s children. Barely literate notes containing baseless allegations were addressed to the children. Having taken a mild overdose, the author, Kath, lay semi-comatose on the bed she and Pricey had once shared.

In October 2001, Kath admitted her guilt in Pricey’s death. The following month she became the first woman in Australia to receive a life sentence without the possibility of parole. Speculation remains as to whether she ate any of the meal prepared from Pricey’s body.

Danger signs: Battered a lover unconscious with a frying pan, then cut the throat of a puppy in front of him

Pattern of crime: Stabbed Price in the chest and grew increasingly vindictive towards him

Judge’s summing-up: ‘This was an appalling crime, almost beyond contemplation in a civilized society’

Sentence: Life imprisonment (never to be released)