WARNING DISTRESSING CONTENT: A mother stabbed her partner 37 times before dismembering his body and cooking it. Details about her disturbing background came to light at a harrowing trial
The night before John Price was murdered, he chillingly predicted his own death in a conversation with workmates.
When the 44-year-old, described by friends as a “terrific bloke”, didn’t turn up for his early morning shift, a colleague rushed to his home and found blood stains across the front entrance. A day earlier, he had told them: “If I don’t come in tomorrow, Katherine Knight killed me”.
Police were immediately called and, upon entering the home, officers were met with a truly horrific scene. The floors and walls were drenched in blood. Hanging from a meathook attached to the kitchen doorframe was a “pelt” of human skin.
READ MORE: Man who ordered partner to get breast surgery to be less attractive is jailedREAD MORE: Woman who lost family in drug-driver crash feels ‘failed’ after killer freed early
In the kitchen sat a pot on the stove. Inside police found Price’s head, cooked with potato, carrot and cabbage. Sections of flesh had also been plated on the kitchen table with a side of vegetables. Each plate was accompanied by a note bearing the names of Price’s children, who were staying at a friend’s house.
Finally, on the living room sofa, beside Price’s torso, was Katherine Knight, fast asleep. Following her brutal killing and dismemberment of her partner, Knight is alleged to have eaten portions of his flesh before taking a large dose of sleeping pills.
Knight, from Australia, was hospitalised and taken into custody. So graphic were the crime scene photographs that the judge on her case offered the jury the option to be excused.
It was determined she had stabbed Price 37 times. Justice Barry O’Keefe was so horrified by the severity of the offence and Knight’s absence of remorse that he handed down a life sentence without parole, representing the first occasion in Australian history a woman was given such a punishment. He advised she “never be released” and declared she “did not qualify for mercy”.
Throughout the trial, disturbing details about Knight’s background emerged. Her father, Ken, was a violent alcoholic who would sexually assault her mother, Barbara, up to 10 times a day.
Ken also repeatedly raped Katherine until she was 11. If she complained to her mother, she was told to endure it and stop complaining.
She left school at 15, unable to read or write, and was recalled by former classmates as a bully. Soon afterwards, she secured her “dream job” at a slaughterhouse and started a relationship with her colleague, David Kellett.
Kellett described Knight as exceptionally abusive and sadistic. She attempted to strangle him on their wedding night because they’d only had sex three times. She once torched all his clothing and fractured his skull with a frying pan.
Following the birth of her first daughter, Melissa Ann, in May 1976, Knight descended into severe postpartum depression and was found violently swinging the newborn around in a stroller. A few weeks later, she abandoned the child on a railway line.
The child was saved in the nick of time by a homeless man known as “Old Ted” who discovered her on the tracks, just minutes before a train was due to pass.
Meanwhile, Knight had gone into town wielding a stolen axe, threatening to kill those she encountered. Days later, she assaulted a woman with a butcher’s knife and held a young lad hostage at a petrol station, threatening his life.
This cycle of abuse continued when she met John Price in 1998, who was in the process of obtaining a restraining order against Knight when he was killed.
Luke Taylor, a former detective, stated, “There were so many warning signs, yet none were headed.”
He believes that Knight’s hatred of men, stemming from the abuse she suffered as a child, drove her actions.
“Knight had endured appalling sexual abuse throughout her youth at the hands of multiple men,” he said. “This led to a series of troubled relationships with men in her adult life.”
READ MORE: Eve Myles was ‘constantly on call’ with detective who inspired ‘gripping’ ITV drama
