Happy True Crime Thursday Guys!
Today's case I was surprised I had never heard of before, it's a roller coaster ride.
So buckle up and get ready for the story of Katherine Knight.
Katherine's childhood didn't begin with a great start and it didn't get any better. She claims that her father raped her mother several times a day and was a violent drunk. She also states that she was sexually assaulted by several family members up until the age of 11. She took this anger from the abuse and took it out at school, she would bully the smaller children. By the age of 15 she quit school, without ever really learning how to read or write, she got a job at a clothing factory. About a year later that's when things took a turn for the better for Katherine, she started her dream job...at a slaughter house where she cut the internal organs of animals.
While working at this butcher shop she met her dream man that reminded her of someone, her raging alcoholic father. The mans name was David Kellett, and he never turned down a drunken fistfight. Katherine even joined in on one. While at first he probably thought this was a hot quality for his lady to have, he soon was dominated by her and found she could do more than a little damage with her fists.
She convinced him that they should get married. It was a beautiful ceremony in 1974, David was heavily intoxicated the whole time and even was warned that Katherine had "a screw loose somewhere," by her mother Barbara. Aw Romance. Regardless he still married her and on their wedding night they consummated their marriage, 3 times to be exact. Exhausted David fell asleep, but Katherine was ready for more and was upset with her new husband. To express this to him, she started to strangle him. David woke up and fought her off, but even with the attempt to kill him the marriage lasted for more than 10 years, in crazy, manic, unfaithful bliss.
The couple had 2 daughters together, and one night after discovering her husband was having an affair she took their 2 month old infant and placed her on train tracks while threatening several people with a stolen ax, thankfully the train never came and the infant was safe. She was seen by several witnesses violently pushing and swinging her child in a stroller down a busy road. She was diagnosed with postnatal depression after she spent a few months in a psychiatric hospital. She told the nurses there that she wanted to kill a mechanic who fixed her husbands car, why you might ask? Well because that made it possible for him to leave her of course. Despite it all David took Katherine back when she was released from the hospital, but it didn't last for long. Katherine was a mess when her husband finally did leave for good.
BUT not for long, shortly after she met David Saunders in 1986, he was a local minor and within only a few months he moved in with Katherine and her 2 daughters. Thinking he was being smart he still kept his own apartment. Well this pissed dear ol' Katherine off and she became incredibly suspicious about what he was doing. The relationship quickly became violent and toxic. This next part I want to warn you is terrible. She even went as far as slitting the throat of his 2 month old puppy to show him what she was capable of. I would have been so far out the door, but nope not David he stayed with her and the couple even had a daughter together. However things ended after Katherine attempted to kill David with a pair of scissors.
Being the charmer she was she soon after met a man named John Chillingworth, they had a baby boy and were together for 3 years. The relationship ended after John discovered that Katherine was having an affair with a man named John Price. John Price had 2 older children that lived with him and they seemed to like Katherine. They moved in together in 1995, and at that point the relationship was going smoothly with no complications. That all changed when she suggested he put a ring on her finger and he declined, her violent side came out.
Katherine also framed John for stealing things from the company he worked for, causing him to get fired. He broke up with her, but not surprisingly a couple months later they got back together, but wouldn't let her move back in with him. Come February of 2000 an argument broke out between the 2 of them and ended with her attempting to stab him in the chest. In fear for his and his children's lives he took a restraining order out against her. He told his coworkers that if he ever went missing, it was because Katherine had killed him.
Well on February 29, 2000 she was back in the picture. John came home from work, did his usual routine and went to bed at 11 pm. Shortly after that Katherine came to the house and made herself dinner, watched TV, showered and met him upstairs where she woke up John, the 2 of them had sex and he went back to sleep. She picked up a butcher knife from next to the bed and stabbed John...37 times. Katherine then dragged his body downstairs, skinned him, and hung up his body from a meat hook in the living room. She decapitated him and then cut up potatoes, pumpkin, beets, zucchini, cabbage and squash. She put the pieces of his body and the chopped up ingredients into a dish to cook, topped with gravy.
She then layed down next to the headless, mutilated corpse, took a large number of pills and passed out.
The next morning when John didn't show up to work his coworkers remembered what he had said about Katherine and called the police. When the police arrived to the home they found Katherine in a comatose state, when she woke up she claimed to have no memory of the night before. In the kitchen they found Johns head boiling in a pot, they found 2 full plates each labeled with a name. The names were those of Johns children, she had planned to serve his body parts to them.
October of 2001, Katherine's trial began, but Katherine decided to change her plea from not guilty to guilty. The judge adjourned the case without testimony. For the first time in Australian history a woman was given life without parole. Even though she plead guilty she still maintains her innocence. She is serving her sentence at Silverwater Women's Correctional Centre.
Crazy stuff right?!
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