John Price left work in Aberdeen, New South Wales, and before saying goodbye to his colleagues, he told them: “If I don’t show up tomorrow, it’s probably because she killed me”.
John was referring to none other than Katherine Mary Knight, his wife.
By then, the woman already had a long history of relationships marked by violence. According to accounts of her life, she had tried to strangle her first husband on their wedding night and, years later, killed another partner’s puppy to warn him of what could happen if he was unfaithful.
John Price had also begun to fear her. Days before the crime, Katherine had attacked him with a knife, and he requested a court order to keep her away, but sadly, his pleas for help went unheard.
In the year 2000, cases of violence against men were seen as unserious, even mocked, but Katherine was not joking.
Weeks earlier, the man had told her that he intended to end the relationship, which meant she would have to leave the house. So, one February night, while Price’s children were away from home, Katherine returned to the house and attacked him 37 times in the early hours of the morning.
The next morning, when he didn’t show up for work, his colleagues began to worry. The police entered the house and found a scene that even experienced investigators would remember for decades.
Katherine worked in an industrial butcher shop at slaughterhouses in Australia, so she put her knowledge to use. She removed her partner’s skin and hung his body from a butcher’s hook installed in a doorframe. Then she decapitated him and put his head in a pot with vegetables, while she cut portions from his buttocks, cooked them, and divided them between two plates with vegetables.
These were intended for two of Price’s children and were served alongside two handwritten notes; fortunately, the children never got to eat that food.
Katherine was found unconscious after ingesting a large number of pills. In 2001, she received a life sentence with no possibility of parole, a sentence unprecedented for a woman in Australia.
Sadly, violence had been part of Katherine’s life long before that. She was born in 1955 and grew up in a home marked by abuse. According to accounts of her childhood, her father, Ken Knight, was an alcoholic who sexually assaulted her mother, Barbara, even inside the family home. Katherine and her twin sister are said to have witnessed some of that violence. Katherine herself also recounted suffering sexual abuse during her childhood. However, that traumatic past alone does not explain the brutality of the crimes she would commit decades later.