Katherine Mary Knight

Convictions

Warning! - this case graphically details gruesome murder details

On 29 February 2000, in what must truly be one of Australia's most gruesome murders, mother of four, Katherine Mary Knight cold-bloodedly prepared for the violent  murder of her de facto husband, John Thomas Price, by sending the children away overnight. Then carefully selecting a sharpening steel and a long boning knife from her selection of butcher's knives, Knight began honing the knife until it was razor sharp, in preparation for the grisly task ahead.

During the day, John Price, reacting to death threats, had warned police and sought an Apprehended Violence Restraining Order against his wife, a person with a long history of domestic violence against previous partners. Her first marriage ended when first husband, David Kellet,  fled in fear of his life. Knight would regularly fly into violent rages over nothing in particular, assaulting her husband with her fists, kitchen appliances and anything else she could lay her hands on.

Late that night, after having sex with Knight, John Price dozed off, only to awake in terror to find Knight repeatedly stabbing him.

Severely wounded, Price leaped out of bed and fled towards the front door with Knight chasing and repeatedly stabbing him in the back. With blood spurting from an arterial wound, John Price just made to to the front door before collapsing in a pool of blood and and dying.

Using skills acquired as an abattoir worker, Katherine Price carefully skinned her husband before hanging his hide on a meat hook in their lounge room.

She then cut off his head and boiled it in a pot and baked pieces of his buttocks to serve with gravy to his adult children.

Luckily the police intercepted the "meal" before the children returned home.

Justice Barry O'Keefe sentenced Katherine Mary Knight to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole. The judge said that her papers were to be marked "never to be released."

Knight later appealed her sentence. The NSW Court of Criminal Appeal on 11th September 2006 rejected Knight’s appeal against the sentence, which she claimed was manifestly excessive. "This was such an appalling crime almost beyond contemplation in a civilized society,” Justice Peter McClellan said in his written judgment." The psychiatric evidence indicates that her personality is unlikely to change in the future and, if released, she would be likely to inflict serious injury or perhaps death on others", Justice McClellan said.