What is a psychological illness known as borderline personality disorder?

Katherine Knight has a BPS (Borreline Personality Disorder). She is the first Australian woman jailed for life without parole.

We thought that it is always a male who is responsible for domestic violence all over the world. Perhaps 90% of the times it is true but women can be equally cruel or perhaps even epic sadistic like Mary Katherine Knight ‘s story, one of the most dangerous women in Australia, who will put all cruel males to shame.

Katherine Knight :The Australian woman who killed her husband and served him as dinner for his kids. Katherine Knight stabbed her husband 37 times with a butcher’s knife before skinning him and hanging his hide from a meat hook in their lounge room back in 2000. She then decapitated him and put his head in a pot on the stove, baked flesh from his buttocks and cooked vegetables and gravy as side dishes to serve to the man’s children. Police found the macabre dinner before the children arrived home. Source: ebaumsworld.com

Canadian Children’s Rights Council: Katherine Knight is not a household name. In fact, many Australians have never heard of her. That’s because most of the journalists assigned to covering the gruesome case came to the conclusion that Katherine’s crime was so shocking, nobody could stomach the gory details. It became the story the newspapers couldn’t publish, and the broadcast media kept it off air.

‘We had to make a decision whether the story was palatable for people to read with their breakfast in the morning. A decision was made this couldn’t be reported. It was too horrific,’ said Peter Lalor, journalist with The Australian.

A well-known Australian news anchor, when asked recently if she’d heard of Katherine Knight, replied, ‘No.

Who is she? Should I know her?’

She mates. She kills. She eats.” Katherine Mary Knight was born to shed blood. Born October 24th, 1955. Abattoir worker Katherine Knight was charged with March 1, 2000, murder of John Price in Aberdeen, NSW, Australia  Source: amazon.ca  Image: megatopten.com

Video footage of the crime scene is locked away for good. So horrific are the contents, it’s believed anybody who viewed the tapes would be forever damaged. In fact, the police officers who had the great misfortune of being first at the scene have complained, years later, of still being affected by the horrors they saw; one officer endured years of therapy to try to wipe the vision from his head.

Another, Detective Sergeant Bob Wells, who was called to the crime scene on 1 March 2000 said, ‘It’s an image that I’m still trying to come to grips with today.’

You’d expect Katherine Knight to look like Satan’s sister.

Nobody would have been surprised if she had horns growing out of her head. But the devil comes in many guises, and Knight looked incredibly ordinary.

Canadian Children’s Rights Council: Crime week — The Black Knight: Katherine Knight stabbed her husband, skinned him and then tried to feed him to his children

Katherine was convicted of the brutal murder of her partner, John Charles Thomas Price, known to his friends as Pricey, in October 2001. She is currently serving her time at Silverwater Women’s Correctional Centre.

“I’m going to kill Pricey and I’m going to get away with it. I’ll get away with it because I’ll make out that I’m mad” – Katherine Knight

Knight’s little secret — a psychological illness known as borderline personality disorder. Her illness manifested itself in tremendous mood swings. In a second, sufferers of borderline personality disorder can turn from lovers to fighters. They feel slighted when there’s no slight, and they’re prone to being highly suspicious that their partner is cheating on them. Source: anadiancrc.com Image: nydailynews.com

Many times, she found her way back into their lives. Perhaps it had something to do with her ability to know what her partners liked. She tolerated their drinking, always had a meal on the table and knew about the little things that could keep them happy. But all too soon, each of her partners discovered Knight’s little secret — a psychological illness.

John Price Image: Ranker

Her latest and final lover, John Price, was an expert at weathering the ‘Katherine Storm’ because he knew that the loving Katherine would soon return. He didn’t suspect that one day the storm would destroy him.

Kellet and Price actually caught up in late 1999 to discuss Katherine’s erratic, violent behaviour. Price said he wanted to get out of the relationship but he was scared.

‘He was so scared he was almost shaking. He was really scared,’ said Kellet. Little did either man know that Katherine was on the verge of committing one of Australia’s most shocking crimes.

Some time after this ill-fated relationship hit the skids, Katherine met John Price — or Pricey. Pricey was an average Aussie man who worked hard, loved his beer and was a loving father to his children from a previous marriage. But on 1 March 2001, he was murdered, skinned and served up for dinner.

In 1995 Katherine moved in with him but as a local, Pricey would have heard the stories about Katherine: her violence, the suicide attempts, her stints in psychiatric hospitals and her fondness for knives. Pricey was said to have been a kind, loving man. He was the father of three beloved children he shared with his ex-wife, Colleen, with whom he’d had an amicable separation.

At the time he began dating Katherinet, his eldest child was an adult and his two youngest children were teenagers.

Katherine was in her late thirties and living with her two youngest children, Barbara and Eric. Price was living in the marital home, which his ex-wife had said he should keep.

Katherine hated that Pricey’s home was still filled with many of his ex-wife’s belongings; to her, it felt like it was still Colleen’s house. But it suited the couple to live separately, even though Katherine spent several nights a week at Pricey’s home, only returning to her own house so she could get the kids ready for school.

They two somehow managed to stick together despite their heated arguments. In 1998 Price refused to marry Katherine.

One point of contention was that Pricey had put his house in the names of his children. Katherine felt that, in the event of a breakup, she was entitled to a share of his house, seeing as they were pretty much living as de facto partners.

Furious with the refusal, Katherine filmed the contents of his garden shed, including a first-aid kit belonging to the mine he worked at, which he’d allegedly stolen. She took the video to Price’s boss.

Despite the fact that the stolen items were outdated and useless, Price’s boss, who fired him from his $100 000 a year mining job and lost his 17-year old job. This time Price was furious and he kicked Katherine out of his house. The news of Katherine’s deeds spread throughout the town like wildfire.

Pricey was so disgusted that he booted Katherine out of his house, telling her she could never come back. But just six months later, when she’d switched on her sweet and loving side again, he invited her to move back. It would prove to be the biggest mistake of his life.

Shortly before his death, there were signs that trouble was brewing. Price told friends that he feared for his life.

John Price took out an AVO against Katherine Knight on the day he was savagely murdered.Source:News Corp Australia

Police were called during one violent argument that saw Apprehended Violence Orders (AVOs) prepared — the AVO against Price was enacted but, ironically, the AVO against Katherine was not.

Katherine was feeling extremely upset about Pricey’s seeming lack of commitment to her, and his devotion to his children and ex-wife. The main argument was over Price’s house. Talking in front of Price’s friend Trevor, Katherine once said, ‘You’ll never get me out of this house. I’ll do you in first.’

Katherine’s brother Kenneth told police that, five months before the murder, Katherine said, ‘I’m going to kill Pricey and I’m going to get away with it. I’ll get away with it because I’ll make out that I’m mad.’ After an altercation with Katherine, in which he fled for his life, Price told his neighbour, ‘She’s gone for the butcher’s knife so I got out of there.’

“You’ll never get me out of this house. I’ll do you in first”- Katherine Knight

Image: O Aprendiz Verde

factslegend.org: Needless to say, Katherine was not happy and in February 2000, she eventually stabbed Price in his chest. Price was again fed up and threw Katherine out. On 29th of February, he managed to a get a restraining order from Scone Magistrate’s Court in an attempt to keep Katherine away from himself and his children.

That very afternoon he told his coworkers that if he fails to show up for work the very next day, they should know that Katherine killed him. His coworkers asked him not to return home but Price said that if he didn’t go home, Katherine would kill his children.

canadiancrc.com: The day before Price’s murder on 29 February, 2000 Knight’s behaviour was very unusual. First, she dropped in to her sister’s house to get a video camera that she had left several months earlier. Then she went to her daughter Natasha’s house and, bizarrely, recorded a video of herself playing with Natasha’s baby. In the video footage Knight looks at the camera and says, ‘I love all my children. I hope I see you all again.’ Was this a sign that she was going to kill Price soon and her life would not be the same?

Also out of character, Katherine decided to take her daughter Natasha out to the local Chinese restaurant for dinner, telling her, ‘I want it to be special.’ After dinner, she asked Natasha if she could leave her two youngest children with her for the night, even though they had no clean clothes and were without their school uniforms and other things that they’d need the following day.

Of course, this was because Katherine needed to be alone that night to carry out the frenzied killing. Natasha said in a statement to police that she sensed her mother was unstable and told her, ‘I hope you are not going to kill Pricey and yourself.’

Katherinet said goodnight to her daughter and drove to Price’s house, where he was already in bed waiting for her. She knew Price’s children were with their mother and that the couple would be home alone.

The Night of Murder

factslegend.org: Price returned home and found Katherine was not there and that she had sent his kids to a friend’s house to spend the night. He later went off to sleep at 11 pm. Katherine showed up after he had slept. She watched TV for a few minutes and then took a shower. She came back from shower and woke up Price and they both had sex.

canadiancrc.com: After sex Price went back to sleep but woke up in horror some time later, Katherine grabbed a large boning knife and began stabbing Price ferociously in the chest. He did manage to get out of bed and move towards the door in an attempt to flee but Katherine kept stabbing him on the back. Evidence shows the struggle would have lasted for several minutes as he got out of bed, bleeding profusely, to make a desperate dash to escape, while Katherine followed, stabbing him repeatedly in the back. Price made it to the front door and opened it — evidence showed bloodstains on the door handle — and, judging by the blood on the front doorstep, he managed to get outside. But then, according to blood evidence, he was dragged back, Katherine still stabbing at his body in a frenzy, until he collapsed in a pool of blood.

According to blood evidence, Price was dragged back, Katherine still stabbing at his body in a frenzy, until he collapsed in a pool of blood. Source. canadiancrc.com Image: news.com.au

His autopsy revealed he’d been stabbed in the front and back of his body thirty-seven times, with many wounds to vital organs: the stomach, both lungs, the aorta, the liver, the left kidney, the descending colon and the pancreas. Price was dead, blood pouring from his body and splattering across the room and the walls. The living room must have resembled the abattoir Knight was so fond of.

Experts agree all it takes to kill somebody is one well placed stab. To stab a person thirty-seven times indicates incredible rage and anger. Most of the stabs would have occurred post-mortem, which indicates a stabbing frenzy Knight could not stop.

After the Murder

At Katherine’s trial, the judge Justice Barry O’Keefe stated: The last minutes of [John Price’s] life must have been a time of abject terror for him as they were a time of utter enjoyment for [Katherine Knight] … she has not expressed any contrition or remorse and if released she poses a serious threat to the security of society.

Hallway of Price’s home Source: news.com.au

 The wounds resulted in the loss of a great deal of blood, found splattered and smeared throughout the house and in a pool that measured 1 metre by 2 metres in the hallway of Price’s home. By the time police arrived the next morning, the blood was not fully congealed and had dried only at the edges.

After she killed her lover, it’s believed Katherineshowered and then got Price’s ATM card from his jeans pocket. In a move that would ultimately seal her fate (by proving she was in control of her actions) she did something calculated and greedy — she drove to the nearest ATM to withdraw $1,000 from Price’s account. It was an hour round trip to the Muswellbrook ATM. What would have been racing through her mind during those sixty minutes? Would she have been planning the next instalment of her night of terror? It goes without saying that the next evil trick up Knight’s sleeve made the first part of the evening look almost tame.

When she returned to Aberdeen, she parked her car in her driveway and then walked the short distance to the Price family home.

Cannibalism

As if stabbing and killing Price was just not enough for Katherine. She took the brutality and insanity to epic scales by neatly skinning Price and hanging his hide on a meat hook in the lounge room.

She decided to have some fun with her lover’s body. She went back to the life she’d loved: cutting up carcasses.

Katherine methodically skinned Price’s corpse, taking off the entire skin, including his face, ears, scalp and neck, like a ghoulish suit. She’d done this job hundreds of times with animals, so she knew what she was doing. It’s quite a skill to know where to make the incision and how to pull back the skin without tearing it apart.

Using a variety of her precious knives, she even left a small square of skin on the body that featured the scar from where she’d stabbed him previously. (So expert was the skinning that, after the post-mortem examination, the mortician was able to resew the skin onto Price’s body.) The macabre suit of skin was then hung up on a hook in the entrance of the house, where it remained until it was removed by the horrified police officers. Upon seeing it, the men were puzzled at first.

Image: Strange But True News

What was that thing hanging from a hook? But on closer inspection, they recognised facial features, hair, arms and legs.

Once she’d removed the skin, Katherine continued to degrade the body by chopping off Price’s head and cooking it in a large pot on the stove with some vegetables, like a sickening stew. The pot, when discovered, was pretty warm at around 40ºC to 50ºC. This suggested that Katherine cooked Price’s head somewhere in early morning so that it could be served to the children when they come back. Parts of his buttocks were also sliced off and baked in the oven, together with a selection of peeled vegetables. The gruesome steaks were then arranged on plates with the vegetables and left as meals for his children.

Another piece of his buttock was thrown into the backyard, but it is believed that Katherine tried eating it but failed and threw it away.

Bizarrely, this stomach-churning cook-up was all happening in the early morning, way before dinner time, and Katherine was getting so well prepared she even made some gravy to serve with the meal, in addition to writing vindictive handwritten notes to Price’s children which was left by Katherine on Price’s photo. The note was covered with small flesh pieces and was stained with blood.

The suburban house in Aberdeen where Knight’s horrific murder of Price took place.Source:News Limited/news.com.au

factslegend.org:  The note read: “Time got you back Johathon for rapping [raping] my douter [daughter]. You to Beck [Price’s daughter] for Ross – for Little John [his son]. Now play with little Johns Dick John Price. (sic)”.

deathlydames.wordpress.com: The note was proven false. It was her own abusive childhood Katherine was detailing in the note. Remember the introductory information I threw at you about BPD? Clearly cold-blooded, painful murder and cannibalism are not symptoms of BPD. This was the work of an utterly deranged sociopath.

canadiancrc.com:The notes were arranged on the dinner table, waiting for them. In court, the judge suppressed the details of the notes, but evidence shows that, in addition to the notes, Katherine had scrawled Price’s children’s names on kitchen paper and tucked the paper under the plates as place cards.

In a final act of debasement to Price’s body, Knight arranged what was left of his corpse in an armchair, with his legs crossed and his arms holding an empty drink bottle.

Knight then swallowed an assortment of prescription drugs in a half-hearted attempt to overdose and took herself to the bedroom, where she fell into a deep sleep.

Two meals waiting on the table

When Pricey didn’t turn up to work on the morning of 1 March 2000, alarm bells rang. He was not the kind of person who would not show up without letting his manager know. His boss tried to call him but there was no answer. Neighbours noticed his car was in the driveway and his workboots were at the front door. When one of his neighbours came to check on him, he saw blood on the door handle. That’s when the police were called. It was 8am when they arrived — and nothing could have prepared the officers for the carnage inside.

There was blood from one end of the house to the other. In the kitchen, the police found a pot still warm on the stove and two meals waiting on the table. It didn’t take the officers long to realize the meal had been made from Knight’s former partner. They soon found Knight, sound asleep in the bedroom.

Borderline Personality Disorder Pushed Katherine over the Borderline

deathlydames.wordpress.com: Borderline Personality Disorder is a “catch-all” expression for a baffling personality disorder (rather than mental illness). Many people are familiar with it. It is usually the result of a chaotic, abusive childhood. Moodiness, violence, temper tantrums, unreasonable demands, idealization and demonization of a loved one are all symptoms of this disorder. It is a pattern of behavior that occurs in every relationship a BPD person has, hence the partner can’t be the cause. BPD is extremely difficult to treat and the prognosis is poor.

History of Mary Katherine Knight 

Aberdeen, New South Wales, Australia – 2001. Overweight, ordinary-looking, at  44 -years-old, Katherine  Knight was a woman with BPD and she seemed to fit the classic profile. Katherine Knight was the younger of twins born to Barbara and her de facto partner Ken on 24 October 1955 in Tenterfield, New South Wales. The small town, which today is home to only 2000 people, mostly revolved around the local tannery and abattoir, where Knight would later hone her admirable cutting and slicing skills.

factslegend.org:

1.Katherine Knight’s mother was Barbara Roughan who was initially married to a man named Jack Roughan. However, Barbara ended up strangled in a relationship with Jack’s co-worker named Ken Knight.

2. Before getting married to Ken, Barbara had 4 children (all boys) with Jack. After Barbara married Ken, two of her 4 sons lived with Jack and two lived with a aunt who lived in Sydney.

3. Barbara and Ken had twins in 1955 but after Jack (Barbara’s previous husband) died in 1959, the two boys who lived with Jack moved in with Knight family.

4. Of the two twins born to Barbara and Ken, Katherine Knight was the younger one. Katherine was fond of only two people. One was her elder twin sister and the other one was Oscar Knight – a champion horseman who committed suicide in 1969.

 canadiancrc.com: Katherine and her twin sister, Joy, had a reputation in high school for being rough as guts and were feared by teachers and schoolkids alike. The twins apparently fought like cats and dogs in the playground — usually against each other — but if anybody looked sideways at one of the girls, her twin would jump to her defence and fight the good fight. But, that reputation aside, most locals remember Knight as a pleasant girl who was nice and friendly when she was in a good mood. People in her circle of family and friends also knew to keep away from Katherine when she was in a dark mood.

5. Katherine’s father Ken was an alcoholic and openly used to rape Barbara up to 10 times a day. Barbara used to tell intricate details of her sex life to her twin daughters and told how much she hated both men and sex.

  canadiancrc.com: The Knight children, six boys and two girls, were brought up in a home marked by domestic violence.

Katherine’s mother, Barbara, had the four eldest boys with her first husband, Jack Roughan, a pig farmer. But when Barbara had had enough of Jack’s drinking and gambling problems, she left him for Ken Knight, an abattoir worker, and had four more children.

Barbara suffered violent abuse in her second marriage. She endured black eye after black eye until the kids no longer noticed or bothered to ask questions. Children who become accustomed to seeing their mother badly beaten are known to eventually become desensitized to such violence; it just becomes part and parcel of family life.

Barbara would occasionally make light of her injuries by explaining to whoever inquired about her freshly battered face that her husband would ‘knock [her] out for sex’.

The violence was not only between the parents.

6. deathlydames.wordpress.com: Yet, in later years when Katherine complained to her mother that one of her partners wanted her to take part in a sex act she didn’t want to do, Barbara told her to “put up with it and stop complaining”.

Katherine complained later that she was sexually abused by many of the family members barring Ken.

  canadiancrc.com: According to Katherine, she was regularly sexually abused by her brothers, while her parents took turns in beating the kids with anything from an electrical cord to a dog lead.

There was even a wooden plank that was left hanging above the kitchen door as a reminder that the ‘big guns’ were within easy adult reach.

deathlydames.wordpress.com:  Court psychiatrists later accepted her allegations as all her family members confirmed the abuse did happen in her childhood.

7. Katherine’s troubling behavior began during her childhood.  She was thought of as a pleasant girl who experienced uncontrollably murderous rages  in response to minor upsets. When she attended Muswellbrookhigh school, she was a bully who picked on smaller children. She assaulted one boy at school with a weapon and was injured by a teacher who acted in self-defense.

factslegend.org: At school, Katherine displayed dual character. Small incidents would spark uncontrollable murderous rages in her.

She was a model student and often earned several awards for her excellent behavior when not in rage. Clearly her split temperament was firmly established during the years of childhood sexual abuse.

8. She left school when she was 15 years old but never learned to read and write. She however earned herself a job of a cutter in a clothing factory and later was hired for a “dream job“  of offal cutting in a local abattoir.

canadiancrc.com: Considered to be almost illiterate, she aspired only to join other family members at the local abattoir, the Aberdeen Meat Works. She began working at the abattoir in 1974, aged eighteen. An abattoir is a pretty revolting environment, but Katherine was said to have enjoyed her role and, according to work colleagues, she took her job very seriously. Co-workers claimed Katherine would wander over to the front of the production line and watch the pigs have their throats slit. They assumed she was watching and learning, but some commented that it was bizarre how much time the young woman spent watching the animals die.

9. Katherine really loved her second job and performed really well. Soon she was promoted to the position of boning and was also given her own set of butcher knives. She would carry the knives to her home and keep them hanging over her bed.

canadiancrc.com: Most abattoir workers are compassionate and make sure an animal’s death is quick. But there are a rare few who delight in just slitting an artery and let the animal slowly bleed to death. Apparently Katherine was one of that breed. Away from the abattoir, she was a skilled hunter, with many praising her efforts at shooting and skinning rabbits. Her home was filled with little keepsakes of her kills: horns, skins, bones and skulls. Even as an adult, she’d display her collection around the house, including the bedroom — where she also kept her precious knives.

10. In 1973 Katherine met her co-worker named David Stanford Kellett. Katherine proposed marriage to Kellet.  It’s quite possible he was too intimidated to say no. He was also a hard drinker and the two of them often ended up with a fist fight in which Kellett invariably lost every single time.

 Four Major Relationships in Knight’s Life:

canadiancrc.com: There’s no denying all her men must have loved her in the early years. It’s been said she was a terrific lover, full of enthusiasm as well as being open to experimentation.

Her cooking skills were average, as were her housekeeping abilities. But it was a combination of her possessiveness, her suspicious nature and the bursts of violence that frightened her men off and all, apart from one, successfully escaped with their lives.

1. David Stanford Kellett

One year later in 1974 Katherine and Kellett got married however, Kellett was in a severely drunk state that day and Katherine’s mother Barbara warned him before they were wed that Knight had the potential to murder.

“The old girl said to me to watch out. ‘You better watch this one or she’ll fucking kill you. Stir her up the wrong way or do the wrong thing and you’re fucked, don’t ever think of playing up on her, she’ll fuckin’ kill you.’ And that was her mother talking! She told me she’s got something loose, She’s got a screw loose somewhere,” said Kellet.

Katherine married David Kellet in 1974, giving birth to two daughters, Melissa in 1976 and Natasha in 1980.

factslegend.org: On wedding night itself, Katherine tried to strangle Kellett because he was tired and fell asleep after having three rounds of intercourse. Kellett however survived that.

Quite some time later on a particular night, Kellett returned late from a dart competition and Katherine who was pregnant at that time became furious.

canadiancrc.com: Kellet’s life almost ended because of a darts competition at the local pub. One of the elements of Knight’s personality disorder was a feeling of abandonment.

If somebody had said he’d be home by 10pm and at 10.15pm he was still not home, she would be in a rage.

By 10.30 it would be a murderous one. Kellet recalled, ‘She phoned at ten and said, “The pub’s closed, come on home” and I said, “The dart competition isn’t finished, I’ll be home when I’m ready.”’ To Knight, it was the ultimate insult. It felt like a total rejection, and the only way for her to make herself feel better was to exact revenge. So when Kellet came home she was waiting for him at the front door. As Kellet opened the door, Knight hit him in the back of the head with an iron. He woke up two days later in hospital. Recalled Kellet, who chose not to involve the police: When I came home [from hospital], she’d hung her tools above the bed. The knives were hanging on a special hook. Her knives were her most treasured items.

She was obsessed with knives. They were her life.

Knight’s fascination with knives is known as ‘picarism’ — a clinical term for someone who is aroused by the notion of cutting, slicing or stabbing skin. A person with picarism fantasies about using a knife to pierce skin. Her obsession with knives was dangerous when combined with her violent moods. One morning Kellet woke up to see Knight sitting astride his chest with a knife in her hand, grazing his throat.

She laughed and told him how easy it would be to kill him.

Still, Kellet denied any violence towards Knight. ‘I never raised a finger against her, not even in self defence. I would just walk away.’

He said that on their wedding night she grabbed his throat and choked him because of what she perceived to be a lacklustre sexual performance.

Still, there must have been enough love in the relationship for Kellet to stay put.

factslegend.org:  In 1976, Katherine and Kellett had a girl child and they named her Melissa Ann. However, soon after the birth of Melissa, Kellett left with another woman because he was unable to take the frequent violent behavior of Katherine.

The very next day, Katherine was caught punishing the baby Melissa who was seated in a pram down the main street, violently throwing the pram from side to side. Katherine was sent in for a medical examination and was admitted to St Elmo’s Hospital in Tamworth where she was diagnosed with postnatal depression.

It took Katherine a few weeks to recover but as soon as she was released, she took Melissa who was at that time only 2 months old on the railway tracks shortly before the train was due. Melissa was however rescued by a man named ‘Old Ted’ who picked up Melissa just two minutes before the train arrived.  Katherine was arrested and again taken to St Elmo’s Hospital but, apparently recovered, signed herself out the following day.

A few days later, Katherine managed to steal an axe and threated to kill several people with that axe.  This did not happen and Katherine was sent back to the same hospital but was released the very next day. Some people assumed she was beside herself with grief for the husband who had abandoned her; others labelled her ‘the town psycho’.

Then Knight’s psychotic behaviour reached fever pitch, only a few days had passed when Katherine came in limelight by slashing the face of a woman with one knife from her set of butcher’s knives and demanded to be taken all the way to Queensland so that she could find Kellett.

The woman however escaped when they halted at a service station. Katherine did however manage to get hold of a boy and held him hostage at the edge of her knife. The police arrived and used broom sticks to disarm her. She was admitted to the Morisset Psychiatric Hospital.

factlegend.org: At the hospital, Katherine confided with the nurses that her motive was to kill the mechanic at the service station who fixed Kellett’s car –  the very car he’d used to flee the family and then move to Queensland to kill Kellett and his mother.

The police managed to calm the situation and sent Katherine to the psychiatric ward of a local hospital, where she was assessed. She told a tale of woe — that she had been physically abused by her husband. Yet according to Kellet, he was the victim of violence, as evidenced by his numerous hospital visits, including one for a cracked skull. When police informed Kellett of the incident he left his girlfriend and along with his mother, they both moved to Aberdeen to support her. Say what? I would have changed my identity and run for my life.

Later, at her murder trial, Knight would be described as ‘dangerously unpredictable’. It was a phrase familiar to Kellet, as he’d used those very words to describe her over the years.

deathlydames.wordpress.com: Knight was released on 9 August 1976 into the care of her mother-in-law and along with Kellett, they moved to Woodridge, a suburb of Brisbane,where she obtained a job at the Dinmore meatworks. On 6 March 1980, they had another daughter, Natasha Maree. But the marriage never recovered and eventually Kellet, after surviving ten years of violence and threats from Knight, left for good.  In 1984 Katherine left Kellett and moved to a rented house in nearby Muswellbrook with her parents and rejoined her old abattoir job.Big sigh of relief from the husband but not the little girls, as Knight took the children with her.

Katherine didn’t take long to find herself a new lover.

2. Dave Saunders

In 1986 Katherine met a miner named David Saunders. Saunders was 38 years old and had an apartment at Scone. He moved in with Katherine and her two daughters but Katherine soon became skeptical about Saunders going to his old apartment at Scone in her absence.

Dave Saunders became the father of Knight’s next child, a daughter named Barbara. According to friends, Saunders was a gentle, polite man who loved dogs. He was not prone to violence, but soon found himself subjected to horrific bouts of rage involving scissors, irons and saucepans being wielded by his psychotic lover.

As is typical of BPD (Borderline Personalty Disorder), Katherine became jealous regarding what he supposedly did when she was not around. She often threw him out and, in a repetitive cycle, Saunders moved back to his apartment in Scone, then Katherine followed and begged him to return.

The worst thing Katherine did to Saunders was to slit the throat of his eight-week-old puppy in 1987.Saunders later told a packed courtroom that Knight had defended her ‘right’ to kill his dog by telling friends that she did it to repay him for punching her in the stomach when she was pregnant — an incident he denied. Instead, he claimed she’d killed his dog because she was having one of her violent outbursts and she wanted to do something horrific to upset him.

Saunders’s friends were so used to listening to tales of his partner’s violence that they jokingly took bets on when the next attack would take place. It wasn’t unusual for Saunders to turn up to work with cuts and bruises to his face. Katherine had even broken a couple of his ribs and inflicted such deep cuts to his wrist he needed stitches.

factslegend.org: In 1988, the couple had a daughter named Sarah. Katherine went on decorating the entire house including the ceilings with pitchforks, rakes, machetes, old bootIn June 1988 she gave birth to her third daughter Sarah.  Saunders bought them a house, which Knight decorated with animal skins, skulls, horns, rusty animal traps, leather jackets, old boots, machetes, rakes and pitchforks. No space, including the ceilings, was left uncovered. How weird is that? It couldn’t have been too pleasant living in the Texas Chainsaw museum. After a fight where Knight stabbed Saunders in the stomach with a pair of scissors, he left and moved where she couldn’t find him. Like Kellett, he left his daughter with Knight.s, leather jackets, rusty animal traps,horns, skulls and animal skins.

Saunders wasn’t happy with this and in 1989 they ended up with a heated argument. The result was that Katherine hit Saunders on his face with an iron and then took a pair of scissors and stabbed him in his stomach.

Saunders somehow managed to get back to his apartment at Scone but later returned only to find that she had cut up all his clothes. Saunders took a long service leave and disappeared never to be seen again.

canadianrc.com: Before the relationship ended, Katherine vandalised Saunders’s car and took an overdose of sleeping pills in a half-hearted attempt to end her life. She was soon staring at the walls of the psychiatric ward once again. Saunders, like Kellet before him, fled for his life.

3. John Chillingworth

factslegend.org: One year later in 1990, Katherine hooked up with 43-year old John Chillingworth – a former co-worker from abattoir. Katherine became pregnant and gave birth to a boy.

canadiancrc.com: The couple’s romance began in a local pub, and Knight fell pregnant within weeks of their meeting. This short-lived relationship — which saw the birth of her son, Eric — was, characteristically, marred by violence. It seems the final straw for Chillingworth was when she smashed his false teeth to bits. Like the two men before him, Chillingworth would come to count his lucky stars he was able to escape with his life.

4. John Charles Thomas Price

Three years after her relationship with Chillingworth, Katherine left him for a man named John Price with whom she was having an affair for quite some time. Everyone who knew Price loved him because of his good nature.

John Price (left) and Katherine Knight (right) pictured during their fiery relationship Source: Daily Mail

Price did not turn out to be as lucky as Kellett, Saunders and Chillingworth and ended up dead, making Katherine the epic murderer she is.

4 March 2000 Interview

Despite the elaborate preparation of the meal and the desecration of the corpse, Knight, under intense questioning, claimed she had no recollection of what had happened that night. In her record of interview taken on 4 March, Knight claimed she had no recollection of the events surrounding Price’s death.

Murder scene: Police outside the Aberdeen home of John Price where he was brutally murdered Source: Newcastle Herald

Q:Kathy, I’m investigating the death of John Price, known as Pricey to a lot of people in Aberdeen, on or about Wednesday, the first of March. I have reason to believe that you may be the person responsible. Is there anything you can tell me about the matter?

A:I don’t know anything.

Q:Can you recall the last thing that you remember?

A:The last thing I remember was going out for tea with me daughter and the kids, coming home.

Q:Do you recall going to Pricey’s at all?

A:I really don’t know nothing.

Q:Can you just take me to the last thing you actually recall which is the Tuesday, twenty-ninth of February?

A:The last time I recall was, I don’t know about your dates, but I went inside and watched a bit of TV.

Q:Right, was Pricey there?

A:M’mm.

Q:Do you, can you tell me where he was?

A:Not particularly.

Q:And do you remember nothing after that?

A:No.

At first, she claimed that all she remembered was having sex with Price and then falling asleep. She blamed amnesia.

But nobody believed her story, especially when records showed she’d been at the Muswellbrook ATM at 2am, withdrawing money in the time between stabbing Price and skinning him. Eventually she pleaded guilty to murder, thankfully sparing Price’s distraught family and friends from having to sit through weeks of horrendous evidence.

“The last minutes of [John Price’s] life must have been a time of abject terror for him as they were a time of utter enjoyment for [Katherine Knight] … she has not expressed any contrition or remorse and if released she poses a serious threat to the security of society.” – The Judge

During her court appearances, Katherine remained impassive. Journalists claim she looked almost demure. There was only one occasion when she lost her cool and acted like the psychopath many accused her of being.

Katherine Knight arrested Image: NBN News

When the court heard evidence from police officers who’d witnessed the horrific crime scene, Katherine began rocking back and forth, clicking her teeth loudly, kicking the partition and screaming, ‘No, no no!’ She was taken away and given a cup of tea (with plenty of sugar) before being removed to the prison, where she was given a sedative.

The next morning, Delaforce took to the stand again, where he was asked whether Katherine would have taken pleasure from dismembering Price’s corpse: It is probable that she thought about doing things like that for a long time, perhaps many years. Remember, up until the mid-eighties she worked at the abattoirs, and if you of course introduce the idea of dealing with animal parts … she told me how she enjoyed getting out the blood from the bone marrow, cleaning that out; she enjoyed slicing, she enjoyed that work. Not many people do, or would, but she enjoyed it.

When he was asked about the diagnosis of borderline personality disorder, Delaforce made it clear he did not believe her disorder had anything to do with the murder.

‘What she did on the night was part of her personality, her nature, herself, but it is not a feature of borderline personality disorder. It is not even slightly connected,’ he said.

Psychiatrists maintain that Katherine was acting out a violent fantasy she’d been nurturing for a long time.

Some people believe she ate part of Price and found what she did so abhorrent that she chose to block it out of her mind. But psychiatrists do not buy her story that she had amnesia. In fact, some experts do not believe Katherine ever intended to dine on her former lover — but that she prepared the horrific meal as a way to ‘prove’ her insanity.

While it was concluded that Katherine’s borderline personality disorder was involved in her decision to kill, psychiatrists gave evidence suggesting it did not explain the full circumstances of the killing, which included factors that had nothing to do with her disorder. In other words, she was not insane.

Katherine lives in Silverwater Women’s Correctional Centre in Sydney, Australia’s meanest women’s prison.Source:Supplied.news.au.com

Knight will spend the rest of her days at the Silverwater Women’s Correctional Centre, where she works as a cleaner, far away from her beloved knives. Some years ago she was making signed sculptures of claw-like hands, but she was ordered to stop that particular creative pursuit and concentrate on sewing classes instead.

deathlydames.wordpress.com: On 8 November, 2000 Justice O’Keefe pointed out that Knight’s lack of remorse required a severe penalty; he sentenced her to life imprisonment, refused to fix a non-parole period and ordered that her papers be marked “never to be released“. This made Katherine the first Australian woman on whom such punishment was imposed. In 2001, Katherine filed an unsuccessful plea to be released from prison. One of the Criminal Court of Appeal judges,  Justice McClellan stated,  “This was an appalling crime, almost beyond contemplation in a civilized society.” Katherine is currently detained in Silverwater Women’s Correctional Centre.

Credit to:

Queen Bee: Cannibal killer Katherine Knight’s life in prison where she’s known as ‘The Nanna’

news.au.com

JULY 22, 2017

CANNIBAL killer Katherine Knight lives inside the fearsome Silverwater Women’s Correctional Centre in western Sydney where she’s known to other inmates as “The Nanna”.

Phelps’ compelling book Green Is The New Black paints a picture of the cannibal behind bars.

He spoke with prison officers who supervise Knight and with former Penthouse Pet model Victoria Schembri, who became Knight’s prison confidante.

“A typical day for Knight, starts at 7am every morning when she wakes to go to one of the most tedious jobs in prison.

“She makes headphones,” Schembri said. “That’s her job.

“She’s stuck in a factory every day, from 8am to 1pm, making headphones on a big, loud machine.’

Knight is said to be one of the best workers in the head-phone factory and commands the top wage.

“She gets through more work than anyone,” Schembri said. “She enjoys her job and takes pride in what she does. Four guards flank her. They watch her every move and are with her every day.”

After Knight finishes her day at the headphone factory, she eats lunch before retiring to her cell.

“Her cell is the same size as every other cell in the wing,” Schembri said.

“It’s a one-out [single person] corner cell at the end of the wing.

“She has a bed, clothes, and the centrepiece of her room is a big old table that she uses for making art. She also sits at that table to write letters.”

ARTIST AND HOARDER

Schembri described Katherine as a hoarder whose cell is full of knitting, knick-knacks and art.

“Her room is very cluttered,” Schembri said. “She had s*** everywhere.

“She had been there for a long time, and it was like she’d kept everything she’d ever been given.

“Not many people ever got to go in her room. She keeps it very private.

“I was in there only once, to help her lift something she couldn’t lift on her own.

“It was her private space. She crochets and has heaps of blankets and things she has made. “There’s wool piled everywhere. Lots of knitted things.

“She has tried to make it as homely and warm as possible.

“She’s going to be there until she dies, so she has made it her home, a place she feels comfortable in.”

Katherine is also a prolific prison artist. She has become a skilled painter and raises money for the prison by selling her works.

“She’s an incredible artist,” Schembri said.

“But she never signs anything she does — and never will. She doesn’t want anyone making money off her name because she killed someone.

NO FRIENDS VISIT

“She doesn’t want some sick person buying her art because they think what she did was cool. “The thought of someone hanging something on their wall just because she is a killer repulses her.

“She’s amazing with pencil, paint and also pottery. A lot of her pottery is on display in the foyer at Mulawa.

“She has allowed them to sell a lot of it to raise money for charity and the jail — without her signature, of course.”

Katherine has little left for her outside of prison. Her family and friends have abandoned her.

“I never saw her on the phone,” Schembri said. “I think all her friends and family have wiped her. I don’t think she has anyone on the outside.

“I would say she has zero contact with the outside. Everyone would be on the phone every day, speaking to people outside, but I never saw that with Katherine. It was quite sad.”

Katherine Knight, now aged 61, has aged significantly in prison where she will die.Source:news.com.au

‘THE NANNA’

Inside Mulawa Max, Katherine is known as “the Nanna”. She is arguably the most popular inmate in the prison. She is also a peacemaker.

“We called her the Nanna,” Schembri said. “She is a gentle soul and not a criminal to me. She is a mediator at Mulawa. She’s someone who sorted out problems before they got serious. She would pull the girls in and try to get them to sort out whatever it was before it ended up with someone going into segro [segregation] or getting more time added to their sentence.

“She would stop girls stealing from each other, and stop girls from fighting. But she never did it by standing over anyone. She never raised her hands to anyone. She was just someone who everyone loved.”

Katherine is also the prison’s event planner.

“She organises a big catch-up every Friday,” Schembri said. “She organises all the food and makes sure that everyone in the wing is a part of it.

“She includes every single person, even those she doesn’t really like. She does it to bring everyone together. It stops a lot of problems from happening.”

TOP BOSS

An active officer labelled Katherine a prison “boss”.

“She’s the top boss of the jail,” the officer said. “She takes no crap from anyone and absolutely gives it to the guards.

“If you come in to search her cell, she will stand in front of you with a smug face and scream at you.

“She will demand to watch you search the cell, and she will not leave the area. ‘No, I’m f***in’ staying here!’ she’ll scream.

“You have to use force to get rid of her, so we just leave her there and let her watch.

“It isn’t worth the hassle. And every time you pick up something, she’ll be like, ‘What are you touching that for?’”

The officer described Katherine’s relationship with her fellow inmates.

“She is their confidante,” the officer said. “They all go to her to talk and ask permission for whatever it is they want to do.

“She knows everything that goes on in the jail, and whatever she says goes.”

The officer explained Katherine is not your typical prison boss. She did not gain her position of authority by way of intimidation and violence.

“No, she has never raised her hands in prison,” the officer said. “Not once. I think she has that level of respect because of her crime. Because she was so brutal. “She has a lot of respect in the inmate population, that’s for sure. They simply do not f*** around with her, and that’s a fact.

“Most of the other heavies get respect for being tough. Other crims fear them.

“But Katherine doesn’t really have a record of violence while in jail. I would actually say she hasn’t even had a single jail charge since she’s been inside. Even the guards respect her a bit. She’s the boss, put it that way. She would be the boss of any pod.”

Female inmates at Mulawa correctional prison at Silverwater in the year 2000. Picture: Renee Nowytager. Source: news.com.au

Katherine is housed in a section of Mulawa called “Willet”. She is a Category 4 inmate — the highest and worst category a prisoner can be assigned — and always will be.

“She will never leave Mulawa,” said Schembri.

“She’ll always be classified high-risk. She will never go to a place like Emu Plains, where she can see trees or walk in a field.

“She can never have a job mowing lawns or where she can leave the jail.

“She will always be locked in a factory because everyone thinks she’s a heartless, callous monster.

“But she has emotions. I’ve seen them. I’ve seen her cry. She is no monster, but she’ll always be caged like one.”