Most arguments between lovers end in an apology. But for Katherine Knight, the end result 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 serve him to his own kids.

Even before this grisly killing, the life of Katherine Mary Knight was marked by violence and sexual abuse that only hinted at the bloodshed to come.

Childhood

Katherine Mary Knight was the offspring of a scandalous relationship between her mother, Barbara Roughan, and her father, Ken Knight. Katherine Mary Knight was born on October 24, 1955, in Tenterfield, Australia. In addition to having four sons from a previous relationship, Roughan also met Knight through her husband. Their small, religious town was shocked when word of their covert meeting spread.

Knight’s chaotic childhood didn’t get much better after this trying beginning. Her father was an abusive alcoholic who routinely violated her mother. Knight herself claims that until the age of 11, she was sexually assaulted by a number of family members.

Knight was a bully at school who terrorized younger students. She quit school at the age of 15 to work in a clothing factory without ever learning how to read or write. She finally got her “dream job” at an animal slaughterhouse, where she removed the animals’ internal organs, a year later.

According to journalist Peter Lalor, Katherine Knight loved her job so much that she hung her first set of butcher’s knives over her bed in case she ever needed them. Blood Stain is his true-crime book that features Katherine Knight.

And she did eventually.

First Comes Love, Then Comes Attempted Murder

Knight met David Kellett, a violent alcoholic similar to her father who was prone to fights, while she was working in the butcher shop. Knight shocked her new beau by joining in on one of his inebriated altercations because she was used to this kind of violence.

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

In 1974, she convinced him to marry her. He was heavily intoxicated the entire time and her mother even warned him about her daughter’s temper, saying that Knight had “a screw loose somewhere.”

Knight and Kellett had three legal marriage consummations on their wedding night. Knight was upset about her new husband’s exhaustion and wanted 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. However, the union was far from ideal.

Kellett frequently cheated on his wife and their two daughters, even abandoning them in the middle of the night once. Knight threatened several people with a stolen ax after learning about one of Kellett’s affairs. Knight also abandoned their two-month-old baby on the local train tracks just before it was scheduled to arrive (the train never arrived, saving the baby’s life).

After witnesses saw her ferociously dragging and swinging her second child in a stroller down a busy street, she was also identified as having 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 fixed Kellett’s car because it had allowed him to leave her. When 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.

Following her breakup 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 daughters within a short period of time. But because he continued to live alone, Knight developed intense jealousy and suspicion about his activities when she wasn’t around. This relationship quickly turned toxic and violent, just like her previous ones.

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

Nevertheless, 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 sever 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 reported violent incidents in their relationship, it ended when Chillingworth found out that Knight was having an affair with John Charles Thomas Price.

Katherine Knight’s Violent Relationship With John Charles Thomas Price

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. They moved in together in 1995 and things were going smoothly.

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 initially ejected her, but a few months later they resumed their relationship.

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

Katherine Knight tried to stab John Charles Thomas Price in the chest following an argument they had in February 2000. He filed for a restraining order against her in an effort to protect his kids. By 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.

Murder, Mutilation, And A Macabre Dinner Menu

John Charles Thomas Price returned from work on February 29, 2000, and as usual, he visited with his neighbors before going to bed at 11 p.m. Soon after arriving home, Knight made herself a meal, watched TV, took 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 hung it from a meat hook in the living room after he succumbed to his injuries. After that, she severed his head from his body and chopped up pieces of it to cook with potatoes, pumpkin, beets, zucchini, cabbage, squash, and gravy.

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

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

When Price failed to show up for his shift the following morning, his coworkers took heed of his warning and called the police. When the police arrived, 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, boiling in a pot of vegetables on the stove. They discovered two full plates with names on them on the table. The police were horrified to learn that Knight intended to feed his kids John Price’s body parts.

Katherine Knight: “Never To Be Released”

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 changed her plea to guilty for unspecified reasons, and the judge closed the case without hearing any testimony.

On the day she was taken to prison, the judge mandated that her papers be marked “never to be released.” Australia’s first woman to receive a life sentence without the possibility of parole.

Even so, 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 in the Silverwater Women’s Correctional Center carrying out her life sentence.