When John Price failed to show up to work on March 1, 2000, his colleagues knew something was wrong. The day before, the miner had told them how he feared that his partner of seven years, Katherine Knight, might try to kill him.
Tragically, John, 44, was brutally stabbed to death by Knight in their home in Aberdeen, NSW.
The now 70-year-old murderer used the skills she’d developed in her “dream job” at an abattoir to skin John and cook parts of his body. She intended to feed them to his children.
One of the first investigators on the scene, Detective Sergeant Robert Wells, described the scene in John’s home as so gruesome, he’s still trying to eradicate the memories.
“I walked inside and saw the human skin pelt hanging up, completely intact and in one piece,” he said in March 2023.
“John Price’s decapitated and skinned body was lying on the floor in the lounge room. We found his head… boiled and cooked in a pot on the stove.”
Knight has been dubbed Australia’s “female Hannibal Lecter” for her barbaric acts.
Yet before committing this shocking murder, those who knew her said she was a normal and hardworking mum-of-four.
“I don’t know if their relationship was ever perfect, but it was nothing out of the norm,” the couple’s neighbour Rick Banyard told the ABC in 2020.
VOLATILE NATURE
Prior to her trial in October 2001, Knight was diagnosed with BPD (borderline personality disorder), which experts argued fuelled extreme emotional reactions that made her volatile.
But during the trial, it was found that this diagnosis alone was not enough to explain the gravity of Knight’s offending.
Knight claimed to have no memory of what happened.
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During the court case, it was revealed that her dysfunctional upbringing might have played a part.
She had been subjected to extreme sexual abuse by extended family members as a child.
There were also warning signs – in 1974, the reportedly knife-obsessed Knight married David Kellett.
Theirs was a violent relationship and she allegedly tried to strangle him on their wedding night.
The pair, who had two children together, divorced in 1984. Two years later, Knight met David Saunders.
A year into that relationship, Knight allegedly cut the throat of David’s two-month-old puppy – and threatened to do the same to David if he ever cheated on her.
MODEL PRISONER
David eventually left Knight and went into hiding shortly after the birth of their daughter in June 1988.
Six years later, Knight met John and the couple enjoyed a relatively calm life together – until John left her just days before his death.
In 2001, Knight pleaded guilty to murder and became the first woman in Australia to be sentenced to life imprisonment without parole.
“Based on what I’ve read, prison’s been a place where she’s found peace from the demons in her mind,” Sydney-based author Roje Augustin tells Woman’s Day ahead of the release of a dramatised account of Knight’s life.
Nowadays, Knight spends her days knitting, painting and mentoring younger inmates in Silverwater Correctional Centre – and she’s even affectionately known as “the Nanna”.
