How Katherine Knight Turned Her Lover Into Stew

Most arguments between lovers end with an apology. Yet for Katherine Knight, the eventual outcome was murder and mutilation.

In February 2000, this Australian butcher knifed her lover at least 37 times before chopping him up, cooking him, and getting ready to feed him to his own kids.

Katherine Mary Knight's life had already been characterized by violence and sexual abuse, which merely served as a preparation to the gory murder.

A Cruel Childhood 

Katherine Mary Knight was the daughter of her mother Barbara Roughan and father Ken Knight's scandalous affair. Katherine Mary Knight was born on October 24, 1955, in Tenterfield, Australia. Not only did Roughan already have four sons from a previous relationship, but she also met Knight through her husband. The discovery of their secret encounter shook their tiny, religious community.

Knight's unstable upbringing didn't improve much after. Her father repeatedly sexually assaulted her mother when he was a raging drunk. Until the age of 11, Knight alleges that she was sexually raped by a number of family members.

Knight was a bully who harassed younger students at school. She abandoned school when she was 15 to work in a textile factory, without having learned to read or write. She finally got her "dream job" a year later, taking out the internal organs of animals at a slaughterhouse.

According to journalist Peter Lalor, Katherine Knight liked her profession so much that she put her first pair of butcher's knives above her bed in case she ever needed them. And she did eventually. “Blood Stain“ is his true-crime book that features Katherine Knight.

Attempted murder occurs after falling in love

Knight met David Kellett, a violent drinker similar to her father who was prone to conflicts, while she was working in the butcher shop. Knight shocked her new lover by joining in on one of his intoxicated fistfights since she was used to this type of aggression.

But, he quickly discovered that Knight was more than capable of doing moderate damage with her fists. He soon realized that she was dominating him.

She persuaded him to marry her in 1974. Her mother even advised him about her daughter's fury, stating that Knight had "a screw loose someplace" while he was drinking the entire time.

Knight and Kellett had three legal marriage consummations on their wedding night. Knight was upset over her new husband's tiredness and demanded a fourth round when he fell asleep, so she began to strangle him.

When Kellett awoke, he was able to defeat Knight. Even though she made an attempt on his life just one day into their marriage, they remained together for another ten years. Nonetheless, the union was far from ideal.

Kellett frequently cheated on his wife and their two girls; once, he even ran away in the middle of the night. When Knight learned about one of Kellett's relationships, she threatened several individuals with a stolen ax and abandoned their two-month-old child on the local railway lines just before it was scheduled to arrive (the train never arrived, saving the child).

Observers witnessed her yelling and swinging her second kid aggressively in a stroller along a public street, and she was also identified with postpartum depression.

During her brief stay in a mental health facility, she confessed to the nurses that she had planned to murder the mechanic who had serviced Kellett's automobile since it had allowed him to leave her. After Knight was discharged from the hospital, Kellett took her back in spite of the threat. Knight went through a period of extreme distress after Kellett did eventually leave her, and their reunion didn't last for very long.

The Series Of Toxic Relationships With Katherine Knight

Following her separation with Kellett in 1986, Katherine Knight quickly entered a passionate relationship with a nearby miner named David Saunders.

Saunders soon moved in with her and her two girls within a short period of time. Yet because he continued to live alone, Knight developed intense jealousy and suspicion about his activities while she wasn't around. This relationship swiftly turned poisonous and aggressive, just like her prior ones.

To prove to him what she was capable of, she once slashed the neck of his two-month-old dingo puppy in front of him.

Nonetheless, they remained together, and a year later they even had a daughter. Saunders, however, left Knight soon after the baby was born because she had tried to cut his head with a pair of scissors.

After that, she ran into John Chillingworth. After three years of marriage, they had Eric, Knight's first son. Although there haven't been any known violent episodes in their relationship, it ended when Chillingworth found out that Knight was having an affair with John Charles Thomas Price.

John Charles Thomas Price and Katherine Knight's violent romance

The relationship between Katherine Knight and John Price didn't have any issues in the beginning. Knight appeared to get along well with his two older children who lived with him and earned enough money working as a miner to support her. In 1995, when they moved in together, everything was going well.

But when she proposed marriage and he said no, she became aggressive.

Price was fired after Knight falsely accused him of stealing from his business. He originally ejected her, but a few months later they resumed their relationship.

But this time, he forbade her from returning home. Then, according to their friends and neighbors, Knight's abuse got worse.

Katherine Knight tried to stab John Charles Thomas Price in the chest during an incident they had in February 2000. He filed for a restraining order against her in an effort to protect his kids. Towards the end of the month, Price admitted to being worried about his safety and informed his coworkers that if he ever went missing, Knight had murdered him.

He had good reason to be scared.

A macabre dinner menu, mutilation, and murder

John Charles Thomas Price returned from work on February 29, 2000, and as usual, he spoke with his neighbors before going to bed at 11 p.m. Soon after arriving home, Knight cooked herself a meal, watched TV, had a shower, and then went upstairs. Price was awakened by her, they had sex, and then he returned to bed.

Then, Katherine Knight stabbed Price 37 times with a butcher knife that she had always kept next to her bed. Evidence suggests that he awoke during the assault but was unable to defend himself.

Knight carried his lifeless body downstairs, skinned him, and hanged it from a meat hook in the living room when he died to his injuries. After that, she separated his head from his body and chopped up chunks of it to cook with potatoes, pumpkin, beets, zucchini, cabbage, squash, and gravy.

She then prepared a plate for herself, although the partially consumed food later discovered at the crime scene suggests that she was unable to eat it.

She took a lot of pills, laid down next to Price's decapitated, dismembered body, and passed out.

When Price failed to show up for his shift the following morning, his coworkers took note of his warning and alerted the police. When the police came, they discovered Katherine Knight's horrific crime scene and took her unconscious. She claimed to have no recollection of the previous night when she first awoke.

Police discovered Price's head in the kitchen, simmering in a pot of veggies on the stove. They discovered two full plates with names on them on the table. The cops were horrified to learn that Knight intended to feed his kids John Price's body parts.

"Never to Be Freed" - Katherine Knight

Katherine Knight was immediately accused of John Charles Thomas Price's murder despite her assertions to the contrary.

Her trial started in October 2001, but it didn't go very far. Knight altered her plea to guilty for unspecified reasons, and the court closed the case without hearing any testimony.

The judge ordered that her documents be marked "never to be released" before she was brought to prison that day. Australia's first woman to receive a life sentence without the possibility of release.

Even yet, Knight continues to insist on her innocence and refuses to take ownership of her mistakes.

When Katherine Knight previously appealed her sentence, it was promptly rejected. She is still at the Silverwater Women's Correctional Center carrying out her life sentence.