How an Australian woman butchered her boyfriend and removed the skin from his body

Police in 2000 found the head of Katherine Knight's victim John Price in a warm pot, stewed with potatoes, cabbage, and zucchini. Dangling from a nail in an archway was Price’s skin.

Katherine Knight  was sent to prison for life, without hope of parole, the first Australian woman to earn such a punishment, for the brutal murder of John Price.

If there is one lesson to be learned from the death of John Price, it’s that you should never trust a hot-tempered woman whose prize possession is a set of butcher knives.
Price learned this lesson on Feb. 29, 2000, a day before police in the tiny Australian town of Aberdeen — known primarily for its slaughterhouses — found his head in a warm pot, stewed with potatoes, cabbage, and zucchini.

Dangling from a nail in an archway, like a Halloween costume, was Price’s skin, which had been so skillfully removed from his body that only a few shards of flesh were missing from the toes, fingertips and chest. The skinless torso, arms and legs, were on the floor.

John Price with Katherine Knight in happier times.

Examiners later found 37 stab wounds, but it was impossible to tell if there had been more because so little was left of his neck.
Two dishes containing a stew of baked vegetables mixed with chunks of the dead man’s buttocks had been placed on the kitchen table. Under each dish was a paper towel, makeshift dinner place cards with the names of two of the victim’s adult children.
No one had any doubts that this true-life scene from a Hollywood slasher flick was the handiwork of Price’s girlfriend, Katherine Knight. Her violent outbursts were the stuff of legend in their small community.

Darren Pateman

Police swarm around the crime scene in Aberdeen following the gruesome murder.

Everyone had a Kath story, each more gruesome than the last. Remember the time Katherine left her baby on the train tracks? Or the time she slashed the throat of her lover’s Dingo puppy? Or when she whacked her fellow in the head with an iron?
By 2000, Knight, 45, had had four children with three different fathers. The men who got away said they felt lucky to have made it out of the relationship with their lives.

It could be said that the woman who became famous for butchering her boyfriend was born to shed blood, the daughter of an abattoir worker. As a child, she and her twin sister, Joy, saw a lot of drinking, violence and a suicide.

Katherine Knight recovers in the hospital after John Price's death. Knight said she did not remember anything that happened on Feb. 29, 2000.

Katherine insisted she had been sexually abused by her half brothers, but psychiatrists who examined her after the murder had some doubts, wrote journalist Peter Lalor in his 2002 book on the case, “Blood Stain.”
By high school, she was already notorious for the screaming, bloody schoolyard scrapes she had with her sister. She had dropped out of school and, at 16, landed a job in the slaughterhouse. The work suited her well. One of her proudest moments, Lalor wrote, was when she received her own set of knives.
She married a fellow slaughterhouse worker, David Kellett, in 1974. Two years later, the couple had a little girl. All was bliss, until the hubby, tired of his bride’s rages, ran off with another girl. The scorned wife ran shrieking through town and tossed her baby on the railroad tracks, in the path of a train that was due any minute. Quick action by an old man who lived nearby saved the child.

Kitchen area of Katherine Knight's home where a blood trail led to the shocking discovery on the stove.

Katherine was sent to the hospital, given a diagnosis of new-mom blues and some pills to lighten her mood, and then was sent home to mother. Kellett later returned to try to make a go of things. But in 1983 she dumped him, taking their two young daughters.
After their 1986 divorce, Knight took up with Dave Saunders, a one-time racecar driver who was working in the mines. He was a simple guy who loved dogs, booze and good times, which Knight, with her roaring hunger for wild sex, was quick to provide.
Saunders moved in and the couple had a baby, Knight’s third daughter. But Saunders soon realized that life with her could be dangerous.

Katherine Knight in an undated photo.

During one quarrel, Knight killed Saunders’ puppy. Another time, he came home too late after a night out with some pals. She hit him in the head with an iron and stabbed him with scissors. He ended up in the hospital for three days. By 1990, Saunders had fled and Knight took up with another slaughterhouse worker, John Chillingworth, who fathered her fourth child, a son. She dumped him in 1994, when her fancy turned to a new beau. The lucky guy was John Price.
For five stormy years they were together, on and off, until Knight ended an argument with a knife. Price got a restraining order to keep her away from him and his two children from a previous marriage.
Before leaving work on Feb. 29, 2000, he told friends that if he was not at work the next morning, it was probably because Knight had murdered him. He failed to show up.

The oft-married Katherine Knight and David Kellett on their wedding day in 1974.

Police found his corpse — skinned, beheaded and partially roasted — later that day.
The evening before, Knight had entered his house, put on a sexy new black negligee, and lured him to bed. After sex, he drifted off to sleep and she got out her knives.
She was still at the crime scene, zonked, when police arrived. Knight pled guilty to murder and was sent to prison for life, without hope of parole, the first Australian woman to earn such a punishment.

Family members of John Price following his murder.

In 2006, she appealed, saying the sentence was too harsh. The judge did not see it that way.
“This was an appalling crime, almost beyond contemplation in a civilized society,” he wrote.
For the sake of her family, friends and anyone who might come in contact with her when she was angry and had access to a knife, he decided to keep her behind bars.