Katherine Knight is the first woman to be sentenced to life without parole in Australia – after she skinned, cooked and served her husband in a pie to his kids
In a chilling crime that shook the quiet town of Aberdeen, New South Wales, a mother-of-four gruesomely murdered her partner.
Katherine Knight savagely stabbed her lover John Price 37 times, decapitated him, boiled his head, and hung his body on a meat hook, turning her home into a blood-soaked scene with stains reaching the front door.
After committing the gruesome act on February 29, 2000, Knight cooked up a macabre dinner of potatoes, cabbage, gravy, and the flesh of her de-facto husband, which she served to his unsuspecting children as they returned from school.
Knight’s barbarity earned her the moniker “Australia’s Hannibal Lecter” and led to her becoming the first woman in Australia to be handed a life sentence without parole.
Arrested after police discovered her unconscious next to Price’s body, as reported by the Australian Broadcasting Company, she was sentenced to life behind bars in 2001 and lost an appeal in 2006, reports the Mirror US.
The horrific murder wasn’t an isolated incident; Knight had a history of abuse, once stabbing Price during a dispute, prompting him to take out a restraining order against her, though they later reconciled.
But it was their final altercation that made Price fear for his life. After a particularly vicious argument, he told colleagues that if he failed to show up for work, they should alert the authorities and search for him.
Bloodstains ominously marked Knight’s front door, prompting neighbours to alert the police on the morning of March 1, 2000, after spotting signs of a violent struggle.
Officers arrived to find Price’s dismembered corpse inside the house, with Knight unconscious close by.
“By the time I got to the scene, Katherine was leaving in an ambulance. She had taken some pills. Not enough to kill her, but they made her sleepy,” recounted former Sergeant Robert Wells to ABC.
“I walked inside and saw the human skin pelt hanging up, completely intact in one piece. John Price’s decapitated and skinned body was lying on the floor in the lounge room.
“We found his head, it had been boiled and cooked in a pot on the stove. There were a number of slices of rump, taken off his human rump, baked in the oven with some vegetables and put on plates, with the name of two of his children on them.”
Supreme court justice Barry O’Keefe reflected on the horror at Knight’s sentencing, saying, “The last minutes of [Price’s] life must have been a time of abject terror for him, as they were a time of utter enjoyment for her,”.
Yet to those acquainted with the couple, their relationship appeared quite ordinary. Knight was regarded as “a very proficient meatworker,” according to neighbour Rick Banyard.
“I think, basically, nobody sort of expected any significant drama at all, let alone the crime that became recorded as one of the worst pieces of history in Australia,” he concluded.
However, ex-detective Luke Taylor told news.com.au she had a tendency for “violence” that stemmed “from an abusive childhood.”
The publication revealed that Knight had endured appalling sexual abuse throughout her youth at the hands of multiple men. This led to a series of troubled relationships with men in her adult life.
“There were so many warning signs yet none were heeded,” Taylor said.
Peter Lalor’s book ‘Blood Stains’ delves into Knight’s early years. Her peers described her as a bully who once assaulted a boy.
She attempted to strangle her first husband, David Kellett, on their wedding night and even fractured his skull with a frying pan. She also killed another partner’s dog and stabbed him with scissors.
“She was a horror movie in the making,” Taylor said.