Some people complain that their significant other is the worst. It’s understandable really, when you live with someone, even when you love someone, little eccentricities can begin to pile up. Most of us do our best to accept these little quirks, or else get into arguments about them.
However, there are some things one can’t overlook, things one shouldn’t overlook. It’s a lesson one poor Australian man learned the hard way…
Didn’t Show
John hadn’t shown up for work. It wasn’t like him to not call, and not show for work and so his supervisor decided he should send someone to his home to make sure he was alright. As soon as Price’s coworker arrived at the house, he felt like something was wrong. The pool of blood at the front door confirmed his assumptions. He immediately called the police.
Grim Scene
The investigating officers had no choice but to force the door open when they arrived. Inside, they found not only John’s body, displayed in a most unwelcome and gruesome manner, but also his girlfriend Katherine, completely unconscious on the floor. They had no idea what had happened, but they suspected the girlfriend knew…
Comatose
There was just one problem, Katherine was in a coma. The toxicology report had shown that she’d taken a large quantity of pills in an attempt to end her own life. Judging by the way she had treated her ex-boyfriend’s remains, she had done so out of guilt. Indeed the acts she had subjected the man’s body to both before and after death, had been reminiscent of the world’s worst serial killers.
No Memory
When Katherine finally woke up several days later, she had no memory of what had happened. Investigators pressed her for information, telling her that not only had John Price been stabbed a whopping 37 times, but he had also been skinned, decapitated, and subjected to an even more grisly means of disposal…
Prelude
It seemed that in the weeks leading up to his murder, John had some clue that his girlfriend of five years might have been planning something violent. He had been subjected to multiple violent outbursts and attacks by Katherine Knight in the weeks prior and was even stabbed in the chest.
Restraining Order
John was fine but kicked Knight out later that day. In fact, he was so afraid she would harm him again or that she would come after his children, that he went to the magistrate’s court in order go get a restraining order. At least that was how he felt on the morning before his murder and by that very evening, things would be much, much different…
Five Years Together
The two had indeed had a tumultuous relationship during their five years together. It began when Katherine started having an affair with him while she was still dating one of her coworkers from a local slaughterhouse. The two ended up together, but John was cautious. After all, she had been known for violently attacking her previous boyfriend multiple times over his refusal to marry her.
Warnings
On the day John Price got the restraining order, he came into work and told his coworkers what had happened. He explained how afraid he was of his girlfriend and joked that if he didn’t come in to work the next day, it was probably because Knight had enacted her revenge and killed him. He had no idea how right he was…
History of Violence
Knight was married to her first husband, David Kellet, in the late 70s. During their brief time together, she fractured his skull by hitting him in the head with a frying pan. Despite the ominous beginning of their marriage, the two were together until 1984 and had two daughters together. She went on to have two more children with two other men even after they split.
Unstable Lady
After they split, she became involved with a man named Saunders, who suffered similar bouts of abuse at her hands. She got so mad one time that she killed his dingo puppy by cutting his throat when he dared to retaliate against her abuse. This unstable and dangerous woman was a mother of four, but she wasn’t a very good one…
Postpartum
Soon after Knight gave birth to her first child, people saw her pushing her newborn around town in a stroller, purposefully slamming the baby carriage into the fences that lined the streets. She was hospitalized for post-partum depression soon after but her violent behavior against the child didn’t cease. She even left her carriage on the train tracks one day. Luckily the baby was saved in time by a passerby.
Romantic Evening
On February 29, 2000, the night after John had gotten the restraining order, he came home to find 44-year-old Katherine Knight waiting for him in a black negligee. The two reconciled and made love, then after John fell asleep, Knight attacked. She leapt upon him and began stabbing him in the chest. It was a rude awakening indeed…
Crawl for Your Life
Despite his 37 stab wounds, John Price managed to escape from the bedroom. He fell to to the floor, leaving a bloody trail behind him as he clambered towards the front door. He never made it. John Price succumbed to his wounds mere inches from salvation. But his indignity at the hands of Katherine Knight was far from over.
An Expert Hand
Knight had stabbed Price on the front and back of his body multiple times, many of his vital organs had been hit in the process. But she wasn’t done. She wanted to profane his remains even further. Using her skills as a butcher, Katherine Knight set to work, flaying her former lover’s corpse from toe to neck…
Skinned and Dressed
Knight was adept at butchery, so adept that when she used a knife to remove Price’s skin from his body, she did it with such precision that the funeral directors easily sewed it back on when it was reclaimed. Then she hung the skin from a meat hook she’d installed in the family’s living room.
Dismembered
As if stabbing and skinning him weren’t enough, Knight then proceeded to cut off John Price’s head and two hunks of flesh from his buttocks. This in and of itself was horrifying and was even more horrifying to behold, but what she did next was more depraved and disturbing than anyone could have imagined…
Stew
After decapitating his corpse, Knight placed John’s severed head in a pot on her stove. Then she made a grotesque stew of it by cooking it with an array of vegetables. She roasted the pieces of his buttocks in the oven and apparently even took a bite of them before throwing the rest into the back yard.
Table Set
Then, as if that all wasn’t enough, she added insult to injury in the worst way possible. She placed plates of John’s cooked flesh, complete with vegetables, baked potatoes and gravy, and set them at places around the dining room table. She completed her grim tablescape with place cards for each of Price’s adult children, with malicious messages written on each. That was when she attempted suicide…
Come Clean
Before her trial eventually began, Knight came forward and plead guilty to manslaughter. Prosecutors, cognizant of how brutal her crime actually was, refused to accept her offer. Eventually, Knight pleaded to murder and therefore was able to forgo a trial. It seemed she didn’t want to explain her actions in court.
Unprecedented
Knight was convicted of the shocking murder, and the judge in charge of sentencing her was so disturbed by what she had done, that he sentenced her to a penalty that no other woman in Australia has ever received: Life in Prison. She appealed after five years, but was denied immediately.
