She’s A Maneater
Bizarre Buffet Podcast – All You Can Eat Weird
Slaughterhouse worker Katherine Knight became the first woman in Australia to receive a life sentence without parole after she decapitated and cooked John Charles Thomas Price.
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She’s A Maneater: Katherine Knight
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Katherine Knight – Episode Credit’s
Hosted By Mark Tauriello, Jen Wilson, & Marc Bluestein.
Original story & episode concept By Jen Wilson.
Show Note’s By Jen Wilson.
Audio & Visual production By Marc Bluestein.
Katherine Knight – Episode Show Note’s
Question: What is your ideal dinner party ?
So I am going to set the scene for us. It’s Australia. It’s the year 1988. John Price, a father of three was known as a “terrific bloke”, and was well liked by everyone who knew him. He had an affair with a woman named Katherine Knight who had a violent reputation. (NOTE THAT JOHN WAS WELL AWARE OF THIS).
What does someone do who is having an affair with someone who has a violent reputation? Obviously move them into their home !
Katherine moved into John’s home in 1995. His children liked her. He was making a lot of money working the local mines. According to him despite Katherine’s reputation, “life was a bunch of roses”.
In 1998 there was a FIGHT ! It was over John’s refusal to marry Katherine. She decided to RETALIATE ! Katherine videotaped items he allegedly stole from work and sent the video to his boss. It was a bunch of expired medical kits he got from the company’s garbage bin, but ultimately he was fired from his job he held for over 17 years. Thanks Katherine.
He kicked Katherine out of the house, and news spread fast around the town. A few months later though, John rekindled his relationship with her, but refused to allow her to move in. The fighting became more and more frequent and his friends wanted nothing to do with him anymore as long as he was dating Katherine.
There was ANOTHER FIGHT
In 2000, Katherine stabbed him in the chest. He kicked her out of the house. He stopped at the local police to file a restraining order to keep her away from him and his children. That afternoon, he told his coworkers that if he didn’t show up to work the following day, it would be because his wife murdered him.
His co-workers PLEADED for him to not return home. He stated that if he did not return home, he would be afraid that Katherine would murder his children.
6am the following morning a neighbor was concerned that John’s car was still parked in his driveway. When he did not arrive to work, his boss sent a coworker to the house for a wellness check. There was no answer at the door nor his bedroom window, but immediately notified police when they spotted blood on the front door.
The police arrived around 8 am and kicked the door down. John was found dead with Katherine comatose from taking a bunch of sleeping pills.
WHAT HAPPENED !?
When John arrived at home that evening, much to his surprise his children nor Katherine were not there. Katherine sent his children away for a sleepover to a friend’s house.
He went over to a neighbors house and spent a few hours there before returning home around 11 pm. While he was sleeping, Katherine arrived at the house, watched some TV, and then woke him up and they had sex after which he fell back to sleep.
Katherine killed John. Several hours after he died, she skinned him and hung the skin from a meat hook. He was then decapitated, and Katherine cooked the parts of his body serving John’s meat with a baked potato, pumpkin, beetroot, zucchine, cabbage, yellow squash, and gravy in two setting at the dinner table. Along side the plates, Katherine left a note beside each plate addressed to each of John’s children. She intended to feed the children their father.
Police found John’s head in the pot with the vegetables. A third plate was found thrown on the lawn in the yard. Police assumed Katherine attempted to eat the meal herself but couldn’t stomach it and threw it out on the lawn. It was also stated that the pot was still warm which indicated that this all took place in the early hours of the morning.
The remaining part of John’s body was seated on the couch cross legged with a drink in hand. Katherine also left a note on top of the picture of John saying (MARC MAKE SURE YOU PUT THIS IN THE YOUTUBE VIDEO) :
Time got you back Johathon for rapping [raping] my douter [daughter]. You to Beck [Price’s daughter] for Ross – for Little John [his son]. Now play with little Johns dick John Price. (sic)
THE TRIAL
Knight’s initial offer to plead guilty to manslaughter was rejected, and she was arraigned on 2 March 2001 on the charge of murdering Price, to which she entered a plea of not guilty. Her trial was initially fixed for 23 July 2001, but it was adjourned due to her counsel’s illness and it was re-fixed for 15 October 2001.[citation needed]
When the trial commenced, Justice Barry O’Keefe offered the 60 jury prospects the option of being excused due to the nature of the photographic evidence, which five accepted. When the witness list was read out to the prospects, several more also dropped out after which the jury was empanelled. Knight’s attorneys then spoke to the judge who adjourned to the following day. The next morning, Knight changed her plea to guilty, and the jury was dismissed. It was then made public that Justice O’Keefe had been advised of the plea change the day before. He had adjourned the trial and then ordered a psychiatric assessment overnight to determine if Knight understood the consequences of a guilty plea and was fit to make such a plea. Knight’s legal team had planned to defend Knight by claiming amnesia and dissociation, a claim supported by most psychiatrists, although they did consider her sane. Two psychiatrists concluded that Knight suffered from borderline personality disorder.[6]
No reason has ever been given for the guilty plea, and despite giving it, Knight still refused to accept responsibility for her actions. At the sentencing hearing, Knight’s lawyers requested that she be excused to avoid hearing some of the facts, but the application was refused. When Timothy Lyons took the stand and described the skinning and decapitation, Knight became hysterical and had to be sedated.[citation needed]
On 8 November, Justice O’Keefe pointed out that the nature of the crime and Knight’s lack of remorse required a severe penalty. He sentenced her to life imprisonment, refused to fix a non-parole period and ordered that her papers be marked “never to be released”, the first time that this had been imposed on a woman in Australian history.[8]In June 2006, Knight appealed the life sentence, claiming that a penalty of life in prison without possibility of parole was too severe for the killing.[9] Justices Peter McClellan,
Michael Adams and Megan Latham dismissed the appeal in the New South Wales Court of Criminal Appeal in September, with Justice McClellan writing in his judgement, “This was an appalling crime, almost beyond contemplation in a civilised society.”[10]
Katherine knight is also the first woman in Australia to be sentenced to life in prison without parole.
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