Katherine Mary Knight, Australia's worst female killer, profiled in new documentary (2024)

Abattoir worker Katherine Knight. Photo / News Corp Australia

Warning: Graphic

It's been 19 years since Katherine Knight, an abattoir worker from the NSW Hunter Valley, murdered her de facto partner.

But this wasn't any murder. This was the most diabolical, sick and twisted killing in Australia's history.

On the evening of February 29, 2000, the then 44-year-old mother of four stabbed her handsome miner boyfriend John Price 37 times, skinning his corpse and hanging his skin from meat hooks in the house they shared.

She sliced off his buttocks and cooked his flesh with vegetables and gravy before setting the dinner table with Price's children's names on place cards, news.com.au reports.

His decapitated head was boiling in a pot on the stove.

Knight was going to feed Price to his own children.

Price had just that day been at the Local Court in Scone taking out an apprehended violence order against her, following a series of violent fights.

Her motive was revenge, with exclusive insight into the case to come to light in a riveting episode on Foxtel's Crimes That Shook Australia tomorrow at 8.30pm.

DEATH IN DETAIL

Knight premeditated the murder of her partner days in advance, a court determined.

When Price was sleeping — after they had sex — Knight went on a stabbing spree while they were in bed.

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Judging by blood evidence, Price woke up during the frenzy before attempting to escape as Knight chased him through the home.

He managed to open the front door and get outside but either stumbled back inside or was dragged back into the hallway, where he finally died after bleeding out.

Knight then flayed his body with her favourite knife, which she'd learnt to do working at an abattoir.

She made a "skin suit", which she hung from a meat hook, and then decapitated him and boiled his head on his kitchen stove.

When Price didn't show up to work that morning his boss called police who arrived to one the most savage crime scenes in history.

They found Knight comatose on the floor.

In the kitchen, they discovered baked potatoes and pumpkin in the oven and a still-warm pot with Price's head floating in it with cabbage and zucchini.

Police had intervened before the children got home from school.

VIOLENT RELATIONSHIPS

Knight got together with Price, a well-off miner, in 1994, the couple moving in together the following year.

Their relationship started off well but quickly turned violent.

In 1998, the pair got in a massive argument because Price did not want to get married.

In a rage of anger, Knight videotaped out-of-date medical kits Price had allegedly stolen from work and sent the video to his boss. Price was fired from the job he had for 17 years.

Price kicked her out, but they got back together a few months later.

It wasn't long before the arguments kicked off again.

The final straw for Price was when Knight stabbed him in the chest in February 2000.

On February 29, he went to the Scone Magistrates' Court on his way to work and took out a restraining order against Knight. He told his co-workers afterwards that if he didn't show up at work the following day, it was because Knight murdered him.

Before Price, Knight was in a relationship with fellow abattoir worker John Chillingworth, whom she had a son with.

Prior to that relationship, Knight was with miner David Saunders after meeting in 1986.

Over the course of their long-term relationship, Knight cut his dog's throat in front of him as a threat, knocked him unconscious with a fry pan, burnt his face with an iron and stabbed him in the stomach with a pair of scissors.

He finally left her and went into hiding.

Knight started her long line of violent relationships with another co-worker, David Kellett.

Knight met Kellett in 1973, with the pair getting married the following year.

She tried to strangle him on their wedding night because they only had sex three times before he fell asleep.

Their turbulent relationship was on and off until it ended in 1984.

LIFE IN JAIL

In an Australian first for a woman, Knight was sentenced to life in prison without parole at her trial in 2001.

Her papers were marked "never to be released".

During sentencing, Justice Barry O'Keefe said Price's suffering would have been unfathomable.

"The last minutes of his life must have been a time of abject terror for him, as they were a time of utter enjoyment for her," Justice O'Keefe said.

She may be known as "Cannibal Kathy" and "Australia's Hannibal Lecter", but Knight has a good reputation at Silverwater Women's Correctional Centre in western Sydney.

She is referred to as "Nanna" and has been described by fellow inmates as caring and maternal.

According to Sydney author James Phelps, who wrote a book about Knight titled Green Is The New Black, she is known as the "Queen Bee" who sorts out disputes, loves to knit and has also become religious.

Despite this, Knight is not allowed to share a cell.

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