Katherine Mary Knight was born on the 24th of October 1955, she grew up in a dysfunctional family environment. Her mother Barbara Roughan was originally married to a man called Jack Roughan. However, she had started to have an affair, with Katherines the father (Ken Knight).
During the ’50s this was extremally trivial, as well as this woman were expected to follow specific rules. So, at this time the affair was literally the talk of the town. Eventually, Barbara and jack had to leave Aberdeen and move to Moree, Barbara left her children from her previous relationship.
Ken and Barbara had four children, one of these children were Katherine. When Katherine was four, her stepbrothers (from Barbara’s first marriage) moved into the house. Ken Knight wasn’t a nice man, he was an alcoholic who used violence and regularly raped Barbara, but then Barbara would discuss these details with her daughters.
Katherine claims that she was sexually assaulted as a child until the age of 11. Although Katherine was seen as a present girl, she did, in fact, have an awful rage. In high school, she was seen as a loner and a bully, she would hurt other children and even a teacher. At the age of 15 she left school and gained a job cutting clothes, this job only lasted her 12 months, she eventually gained a job at the abattoir which she described as her dream job.
In 1973, she met David Stanford Kellett who she completely overpowered, they were married in 1974, this is when Barbara gave David some advice. Barbara said: ‘You better watch this one or she’ll fucking kill you’ as well as: ‘Stir her up the wrong way or do the wrong thing, and you’re fuck.’
On their wedding night, David was apparently strangled by his new wife. This was due to his lack of ability within the bedroom. The marriage didn’t improve and would arguably get worse, resulting in the burning of items, hitting, and beating. This would all be committed by Kathrine, and David would find this extremely hard.
In May of 1976, David and Kathrine would have a baby girl, Malissa ann. Shortly after this, David would leave Kathrine and move to Queensland, he was unable to cope with the domestic abuse that Kathrine kept inflicting on him. Also, this month she would be admitted into St Elmo’s hospital and be diagnosed with postnatal depression.
Shortly after being released from the hospital, she attempted to kill Malissa by leaving her on a railway track; however, Malissa was saved.
In 1986, Katherine would start to date someone called David Saunders, who worked as a local minder. Like her other relationships, this one soon became toxic and violent, he kept his previous apartment due to this reason. At one point, she killed a puppy (dingo) in front of him, just to show him what she was capable.
After Katherine and David had a child, the relationship took a dark turn. Katherine hit David in the face with an iron before stabbing him with some scissors. David left Katherine shortly after this, Katherine attempted to find him, but he left no information on how to find him.
Several months later, David attempted to find her to see his daughter…. however, she had an (AVO) against put against him.
In 1990, she became pregnant by a co-worker called John Chillingworth, she gave birth to a beautiful boy named Eric. The relationship only lasted four years, she was having an affair with john price.
John price would be Katherines last relationship her first and only victim, he was fully aware of Katherine’s reputation. Despite this, he fully accepted her into his family, his children even really enjoyed Katherine’s company.
In 1998, Knight and Price fought over his refusal to marry her. In retaliation, she videotaped items he had allegedly stolen from work and sent the tape to his boss. He was fired from his then job despite the “stolen items” being out of date thrown out items. The relationship ended for a short while, however, a few months later, the relationship re-started, although she wasn’t allowed back in the house.
Murder of John Price.
During February 2000, John would be stabbed among other acts of abuse, in this month he would kick her out of the house and request a restraining order. John was really scared of being killed by Katherine and would even joke about it to his co-workers about her murdering him.
The 29th of February / the 1st of March would be the start of awful events. On the night of the 29th of February, John would spend the night with neighbours and his children would be staying with another family member. At 11pm, John returned home where Katherine was waiting for him, they then proceeded to have “pleasurable sex” before Katherine stabbed him 37 times.
Once John was dead, Katherine then proceeded to skin john, the skin was then hung up in the entranceway of the house. Now Katherine’s experience meant that everything was expertly removed. She then decapitated him and cooked parts of his body, serving up the meat with baked potato, pumpkin, zucchini, cabbage, yellow squash and gravy in settings at the dinner table.
Notes were also placed beside each plate of food, each having the name of one of Price’s children on it; she was preparing to serve his body parts to the children. Fortunately, the police intervened to interview the children before this could occur.
(Video footage of the crime scene is locked away and is marked as never to be released.)
Katherine’s initial offer to plead guilty to manslaughter was rejected, and she was arraigned on the 2nd of March 2001 on the charge of murdering John, which she pleaded not guilty. Her trial was initially fixed for the 23rd of July 2001 but was adjourned due to illness.
A psychiatric assessment was ordered overnight to determine if Katherine understood the consequences of a guilty plea and was fit to make such a plea. On the 8th of November, she was sentenced to live imprisonment, she was the first woman to restive this sentence within Australia.
n June 2006, Knight appealed the life sentence, claiming that a penalty of life in prison without the possibility of parole was too severe for the killing. This was revoked and not even considered, justice McClellan wrote: “This was an appalling crime, almost beyond contemplation in a civilised society.” Katherine is currently in the Silver water Women’s Correctional Centre, a maximum-security facility in New South Wales.
In 2016 it was announced that a film regarding Katherine would be released, it has been picked up by a Hollywood production studio.
Solved Crimes. 
One thought on “Katherine Mary Knight.”