RedHanded - Episode 31 - The Lady Killer and the Human Pelt

Episode Date: February 1, 2018

Toxic masculinity, Borderline Personality Disorder and a whole lot of abattoirs. We're off to Australia this week to unravel why Australian big hitter Katherine Knight skinned John Price and hung him up like a pair of curtains.    See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wondery Plus subscribers can listen to Red Handed early and ad-free. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. They say Hollywood is where dreams are made. A seductive city where many flock to get rich, be adored, and capture America's heart. But when the spotlight turns off, fame, fortune, and lives can disappear in an instant. Follow Hollywood and Crime, The Cotton Club Murder on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. The gentleman's head, apparently located.

So we're looking for that. There's a pot on the stove. I think I might have even said, just give me one guess where the head is. I didn't eat meat for about three months. I'm Saruti. I'm't eat meat for about three months. I'm Saruti. I'm Hannah. Welcome to Red Handed.

For all of you asking that we cover a female killer, it's happening. Because today we are covering the case of Catherine Mary Knight. If you don't know this case, what have you been doing with your life? Well, where are, who are you? Who even are you? Why are you even listening? Because, seriously, if you don't know this case then prepare yourself because today's case is not just murder it is so so much more than that i feel like the murder is quite a minor part of this case it's

everything after the murder i totally agree and it's truly one of the most shocking cases we've ever come across and i know i know before you tweet me, I know that we say that a lot, but you tell me if you disagree once you've heard this case. Because there is no way that anyone in that small town in Australia, in the world, was prepared for what was found at John Price's house that day in March 2000 in Aberdeen, New South Wales, Australia. Aberdeen in the Hunter Valley in New South Wales is a small town with a population of around 1,500 at the time. It's about three hours north of Sydney and it's quite an industrial town. It was at this point during its heyday known for its abattoirs and I think, I can't think of one place I've ever come into contact

with in my life that is specifically known for its abattoirs. Like what a claim to fame. So it's a town that runs on death. That's what it is. Let's just... Yeah, being known for how well you slaughter animals is, it's going to attract no shade on people who work in abattoirs. We've all got to make a living. But, grim. And it's a small town too. It's got like two pubs. They say that in every single documentary. Don't they?

It's so weird. I was like, who cares? They had two pubs. A top pub and a bottom pub. And you know what that means. I was like, what does that mean? I don't know. To be fair, when I describe where my family's from in Ireland, I say it's got two pubs and a post office.

Small town. Yeah. I think that's why they say it. But there was problems in Abattoirville when all of the abattoirs started to close down and the town suffered from the same low socio-economic problems that are usually seen in such areas. There was a lot of crime, which is not surprising, but what we're covering today was something else altogether. On the morning of the 1st of March 2000, John Price, a local man, was reported missing by his boss. The 45-year-old minor hadn't turned up to work and he was described as a hard-drinking but also hard-working guy, so it was unusual for him to not show up that is stressed so much in all of the

stuff for him like he's a big drinker but a hard-working guy like work hard play hard that's how he's portrayed and it did also seem a bit weird to me that you know he's a grown-ass man he doesn't come to work and suddenly it's alarm bells everywhere but as we go through it, you're going to see that his boss was 100% had total call to ring the police. So Mr Price's bosses tell the police that while Pricey, as he was known, that's so classically Australian, isn't it? Like putting in a Y or an O on the end of everything. He wasn't at work and his car was in the driveway of his house. So the police go to investigate and when you hear everything we are about to tell you about what

they found, remember that these police officers personally knew Pricey. It's a small town so they arrive at Pricey's house and are immediately on alert as there's blood on the door. So they knock but there's no answer. They look through the window, but they can't see much. So given that there's been a complaint and seeing blood on the door, they broke into John Price's house. And when they enter the house, they enter through the back. And on entering, they saw straight ahead of them, hanging over the doorway, blocking the door into the hallway. They saw what they thought was a curtain, but that ain't no curtain, boys. But Scott Matthews, one of the police officers on the scene, even used his hand to move it away.

Because it's pitch black in this house when they enter. It's completely pitch black. And so he pushes away what he thinks is this curtain. And in the interview we watched with him, he said that after he had moved it aside, that he felt a cold, wet sensation on his arm. And when he looked down, he was shocked to see blood. And immediately he thought that he must have hurt himself when breaking in. But no, because it was blood, but it wasn't his blood. It was John Price's. Because hanging from a meat hook

over the doorway was a human pelt. John Price's skin. All of it. It was a headless human skin pelt hanging from the door. And I hate the word pelt. I was just gonna say. But what else can I call it? What else can we call it? I was right, like, we were writing this up and I was like, what do we call this? Well, we've, we've only ever had one skin suit before. We waited a good while before it was skin suit number two. I know. When the officer finally got to a light switch, they saw the full horror of the room they had just been stood in. There was blood everywhere, sprayed and splashed all over the living room. God knows why they didn't just turn the light on as they went in. Surely if you're going into a volatile, violent situation, you're a trained police officer, you don't know what's going on.

Wouldn't they have a torch? You always see that. Don't know. Don't know why they weren't kitted up with that. They didn't. They didn't turn the fucking light on like normal people. And on the living room floor were the remains of John Price's skinned and dismembered body. This is where the majority of the blood had pooled and it's clearly where he'd been skinned. There was also a huge bloodstain where the head had been. So it's where he'd also been decapitated. And the blood from where John's head had been drip, drip, dripped all the way into the kitchen, leading to a pot on the stove. Ten points for anyone who can guess where John Price's head is.

The horror of the scene at first, I think, was just increased by the seemingly domestic nature of the setup. Because when the police look in the kitchen, amid all the blood and the gore, the table had been set for dinner. There were plates laid out on the table with meals, vegetables, meat and gravy, all nicely set up. And the police officers who attended the scene of the crime said there was even a sweet smell of stew in the air, according to them. I mean, God, what? It was a boiling head. What did the stew you were cooking smell like? It's like pork, isn't it?

Apparently, human flesh is the closest thing. Yeah, long pork, right? The name for it? Oh, God. Okay, so if you could, if somebody gave you human meat to eat, there was no consequences, it was all legal, legit, been cooked properly, would you eat it? Yeah, I probably would eat it.

You sick bitch. I led you into that one though. You're leading the witness. I am. But it's okay because Catherine Knight is even more of a sick bitch because on the table where these plates had been laid out, there were little name cards next to each of the plates and this against the blood splattered everywhere at first made the police obviously think that this had been a home invasion disrupting a nice family evening but it was so much worse because they would later find out

that the stakes on each of the plates were in fact John Price. He had been butchered and carved up into five steaks. Four of them were on the plates in the kitchen and one was in the dog bowl outside. In a way, I'm more upset that she fed it to the dog. That upsets me more. But the names on the cards were the names of John Price's children. And, you know, thank fuck no one ate any of it. We don't know about the dog.

But John Price's children did not eat their own father. So maybe that is the one saving grace of this case. But that's what she wanted? Like, oh my god. You must have read that Roald Dahl story. He did a series of creepy adult stories. Not adult as in like, but as in like,

as in stories for grown-ups, like scary stories. And it's this lady who kills her husband and she feeds it to the police. She feeds him to the police as they question her about his murder. It's called like a leg of lamb or something. I'll find it.

I need to read that. I only know because I worked at the Roald Dahl Museum when I was a kid. So I called like a leg of lamb or something. I'll find it. I need to read that. I only know because I worked at the Roald Dahl Museum when I was a kid. So I'm like a fountain of Roald Dahl knowledge. In Aylesbury. No, in Great Missenden, where he lived. Any Roald Dahl questions? So there was blood and blood on the knives

and the measuring jug. So not only had she cut up her husband and tried to feed it to his children she'd been like measuring it as she was going along and that makes it like she was doing it's like she had a menu in mind like she had planned the measurements of things that makes it so much worse and i'm not sure why but it really does it really does she's like some fucking cannibal hol Nigella Lawson. Like, it's so...

No matter, even when Nigella was on all that crack, she wasn't doing this. I forgot Nigella did crack. I mean, this is like, you know when people are like, this is like Nigella on crack. No, this is like Nigella on fucking meth. I don't know what this... And Nigella on angel dust. Nigella on angel dust.ella on angel dust fucking hell i'd pay to see that so the scene in front of the police makes little sense because it's premeditation

it's the level of brutality and it's a small town and against this guy john price who by all accounts is an upstanding guy goes to work likes a his job, goes home, is a good guy. However, having said that, the police were able to quickly understand some things because there was blood all over the walls and it seemed to be coming from the bedroom. So John Price must have been attacked in there. So they're going, they're getting their dexter on at this, this point. They're just doing, doing their blood sp spatter it was clear that he had run towards the door because the blood stains on the walls had sprayed lower and lower and become heavier and heavier so they could see that john had bled out and there was blood on the door so

he had almost made it i think it's probably fair to say that he would have bled out anyway because you know when it's like dark blood that's like arterial that's over for you i think it's probably fair to say that he would have bled out anyway, because you know when it's like dark blood, that's like arterial, that's over for you. I think it's something to do with the trajectory of the spray, because arteries are so high pressure, you can tell what kind of vessel it is from the stains on the walls. However, if he had made it outside, he probably would have been spared the total degradation of what happened to him after his death. We also have to spare a thought for these police officers, I think, because just imagine

the fear. And in the interviews with them, you can tell they were terrified. First up, they're in this house. They don't know if the killer is still in the house. And this is when they heard snoring coming from the bedroom. That's where he'd been fucking attacked. And now they can hear snoring coming from there. So they go in and someone was in there, alive and asleep, fast asleep. There they see a red-haired 49-year-old woman they knew to be Catherine Knight, John Price's girlfriend. Catherine as they approached she's not just asleep she's completely unconscious and totally unresponsive. She'd clearly taken drugs. She seemed to have no other injuries though so they call an ambulance and in the hospital Catherine is totally out. The police weren't going to get a chance at

all to speak to her until she was awake but it didn't take them long to find out all sorts of information about Catherine and John's relationship. She was known around town as a strong woman and not in a like strong independent bitch, yeah woman, I mean like physically strong. And she was known also to have had a string of bad relationships. She was 40 and she'd already had three divorces. And now her fourth partner was dead. As we said earlier, like, John Price was a bit of a lad. He liked a beer and a fag. And he was pretty carefree.

Didn't take life too seriously. At first, he and Catherine seemed to have been a good match because they were, like, a good time couple. couple and I think especially in the town where they lived it was so small like everyone would go to the one of the two pubs and get pissed and have a good time so that was very much their public image because they liked to go out together and they'd get drunk and party but the cracks had started to appear because Catherine not only was she a jealous woman, she was an incredibly vindictive one and also like very domineering physically and personality wise. She had started to exhibit quite bizarre behaviour. She constantly suspected that he was

cheating on her and she would just fly off the handle at absolutely everything. So Price had tried to leave her but she wasn't having any of it and in classic Catherine Knight style she set out to get revenge because with Catherine Knight this is really important like everything is about entitlement like she feels like she is entitled to like the entire world and anything that deviates even slightly from her perfect image of how she should be treated is no dice like she's not playing at all it's all about revenge and this really did shock me to get revenge against john price for trying to leave her she videoed a first aid kit that pricey had taken from the mines where he worked and she took that video to his manager and price got the sack

which taking a first aid kit from work and getting the sack for it is bananas. I can understand if you're stealing money, then getting the sack, but stealing a first aid kit seems a bit much. That's like firing someone for stealing paperclips. But the worst thing about this is the first aid kit was expired. So they were going to throw it away anyway so he just took it home I find that so difficult to get my head around that they knew clearly the boss who fired him knew that they were going to throw it away it just it's a bit of a weird that's a weird one I think it's a really weird situation and I think it's even weirder because even if she did this everyone knew the kind of person that John Bryce was I could only find positive things about him.

And I know that always happens when someone dies, especially when someone dies like this. But even his ex-wife, so he was married previously before her. And even his ex-wife said after they divorced, he gave money, so much money for the children. When she went on holiday, he used to give her money to go on holiday. And then once she was apparently like, my washing machine's broken. Can I borrow some money to get it fixed? He just bought her a new washing machine because he didn't want his kids to not have clean clothes. Like, he's such, he's just such a nice guy. And I just think it's, she's such a bitch. She's such a bitch. But this was just some of the evidence that started to come out about just how vindictive Catherine Knight was. There was just

no barrier that she wouldn't cross. Pricey losing his job negatively impacted her because now her partner isn't earning any money but she still did it because revenge was more important than the practicalities of life. And this was enough for John and all his mates too were like just get rid of her. So he throws her out but the problem is as we see again and again with Catherine Knight it just didn't last she comes back and she's like hey come on let's just get back together I'm sorry come on let's just get back together and he takes her back pretty much straight away after and at this point his mates are like bye because they've helped him through the first breakup every time they've argued and they just

hated her so much they weren't going to watch him go through it again I feel like everyone's been in that situation like everyone's had that friend where you're like you know what I cannot sit here and watch you do this to yourself again like I'm done everyone's seen that and if you're going to do this then go do it but you're not listening to me so I can't watch this anymore absolutely so John just lost so much when he took her back all his friends lost respect for him and he's just stuck with this woman and I think to John now it became increasingly clear that he was completely isolated with her he had no job he had no friends and he was stuck on his own with this woman and I think this is when

John decided that he needed to get rid of her once and for all. But he knows that this time it's not going to be easy. And an increasingly worried John had started to confide in his bosses. So every time she hit him or every time she yelled at him, he went and told a friend at work or a boss. And this is important because you can tell the level of fear that John Price is now living with because he tells them things like I'm telling you all of this because if anything happens to me I need you to back me up so I don't think he thought at this point that she was going to kill him but I think he thought she's going to do something really serious in the documentaries and everything what struck me more more than the murder really was just in every interview, it's just, like, complete toxic masculinity throughout the whole thing. Like, no one suspected...

Like, all anyone says is, like, oh, but he was such a tough guy. Like, he was a proper, like, big Aussie guy. Like, you know, nothing bad could have happened to him. That's what struck me more than anything, that no one was willing to even broach the subject that he might have been in an abusive relationship and that he was the victim no one ever wanted to talk about domestic abuse from the point of view of the victim being a man and john price being you know john price being a

victim of what he clearly was even telling them she's hitting me she's yelling at me and i think john price was sadly a victim as well of the toxic masculinity that was so clearly present because he probably felt that he couldn't walk away from this because without losing even more self-respect I don't know it's such a it but you could say this for anybody man or woman why people stay in domestic abusive relationships like it's so multifaceted and there's so many layers to it but I think I completely agree that there was a real element of toxic masculinity here where no one, even now, in any of those interviews or documentaries,

talks about the fact that this was domestic abuse. And she murdered him. How much clearer does it get? But there's still no conversation about it, which is just staggering to me. And even in a lot of the interviews, despite the fact that it's proven that she wasn't a victim of domestic abuse at john price's hands they still say what drove this woman to kill would we ever say that if it was a male killer

what drove this man to kill no nothing drove this woman to kill. So two nights before his murder, John and Catherine had a monumental argument. She had even pulled a knife on him. But she was the one to call the police. And when they arrive, John told them to get rid of her. Because, after all, it was his house. But the police tell him that he'd have to get a court order to get rid of her, even though she has her own house. So she didn't even live with John full-time. It's not like they would have made her homeless. And can you imagine if it was the other way around? If a woman was murdered

by her partner and the police had been there and refused to remove him two days before the murder that would be a completely different story and I think that's why this case is so fascinating John was furious and I think in that final day he he knows the jig is up now like he knows that he is really really close to the end and the next morning the police turn up but not for Catherine they come to serve John Price with a restraining order at Catherine's request while she's still in his fucking house this makes no sense this makes no sense at all even though this restraining order has been served against John Price Catherine will not leave the house so she has instigated this restraining order but then is violating it on her own terms by not leaving it

it's bonkers i think it's almost like she's planning the murder and she's planning her defense i got a restraining order out against him but she's not following through by leaving the house and getting away from him you know like and the day after this happened on the monday john went into work and he was terrified and he told his bosses what happened and chillingly he told them word for word she's going to do me in and the day john's killed he had to appear in court for the restraining order and here he told the magistrates that the night before he had woken up at 2 a.m to find katherine standing over him with what he thought was a knife. She didn't have a knife in the end but she was basically...

Know that scene from Paranormal Activity where she just stands over the bed and just stands there for hours and hours and hours. Yeah yeah yeah. This is what Catherine Knight did to John. She's trying to scare him so she's basically doing that scene but minus all the to John. She's trying to scare him. So she's basically doing that scene, but minus all the demonic possession. She's just doing it because she is a fucking bitch, vindictive person, and she wants to scare him. And even after the court appearance, even after he goes there and tells them and he's like, fine, restraining order, get her out of my house, she still won't go. And it's really scary how John almost knew that she was going to kill him. Because the night before he was killed, he went over to a mate's

house and told them, if you wake up tomorrow and when you leave for work, my van is still in the driveway, call the police because she's done me in. And it was this mate who woke up the next morning and called John's boss who called the police. Let's go back to the investigation. Now Catherine Knight if you'll remember was in a coma. She was recovering from all the pills that she'd swallow after murdering John Price and finally five days after the murder Catherine Knight finally woke up and she told the police that she couldn't remember anything but she did accept that she had killed him. She just wouldn't give anything away or give the police any details. All Catherine would say was that, yes, she had killed John,

but it was because of the abuse that she had suffered throughout her life and then again at John's hands. So... You don't believe in ghosts? I get it. Lots of people don't. I didn't either until I came face to face with them. Ever since that moment, hauntings, spirits, and the unexplained have consumed my entire life. I'm Nadine Bailey.

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The Cotton Club Murder. Follow Hollywood and Crime, The Cotton Club Murder. Follow Hollywood and Crime, The Cotton Club Murder on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can binge all episodes of The Cotton Club Murder early and ad free right now by joining Wondery Plus. Basically, she's claiming battered woman syndrome. And the police obviously have to investigate this at this point. But more information started to come out about the nights before the killing. Catherine had apparently turned up at John's house the night that she murdered him. She'd woken him up and they watched some Star Trek. Then they had sex. Almost immediately after that, she killed him. In the bathroom,

the police found a slinky black negligee covered in John's sperm. So she'd had a shower and changed her fucking clothes. And she'd stolen his wallet after she killed him and tore his body apart. Like, let's just get your fucking head around this. So she'd killed this man who she'd been with for quite some time, skinned him, dismembered him, cooked him, chopped him into bits and laid him out to be eaten by his children and his dog. And then she went and took out $1,000 using his card at the ATM at quarter past midnight. The police on the one hand are dealing with this horrific murder but now they also have this woman

who's saying that she was driven to kill by years of severe domestic abuse but even if the abuse had been true there's no doubt that what the police were dealing with was a totally extraordinary case. I mean, that just comes down to the sheer brutality of the crime. It was a sleepy town. They'd never seen anything like this before. But I really think the key question is, was she mad or was she bad? The police now start a full background investigation into Catherine Knight and it revealed a woman with a very dark past full of violence, erratic behaviour and failed relationships. So Catherine Knight was born on the 24th of October 1955 in Tenterfield, Australia. She left school at 15, just barely able

to read and write. But she didn't care because all she'd ever wanted to do was work at the abattoir like her father. And by age 16, she was hired at the local abattoir as a general labourer. It basically meant it was her job to clean up the carcasses after the slaughters. But Catherine was a dedicated worker and she soon worked her way up to become slicer. And the people who had worked with her told the police that she just bloody loved her job. And that you could tell by the glee she took in, like, nicking arteries, scraping the animals' bodies clean,

and just generally spending her day slaughtering animals. I mean, who loves that? You do that because it's a job to put food on your family's table. Like, you don't... Who loves doing that? Ugh. They also said that she was absolutely obsessed with her knives and you could tell just by, like, the pride she took and the

care she took over them. It's never a good sign, is it, when someone is really keen on looking after their knives? Yeah. And people who knew Catherine, they described her as average looking and I would say that she's distinctly average looking. And there's really nothing that spectacular about her. But there was a dark side, her temper and her dark and violent behaviour. Because everyone remembers it. Everyone remembers thinking Catherine Knight was a woman you did not want to piss off. And the more the police dug into her past, the more vindictive nature they discovered. In 1973, Catherine Knight had met Dave Callett at the abattoir they both worked at.

But soon, things started to fall apart. Very soon, in fact, because things started to go sour on their wedding night. You know that's bad news when you can't even get through the wedding night fucking hell she was upset because dave could not fuck her more than three times on their wedding night that was this is the root of her anxiety at this point so much so she was furious it's like blind rage total unstoppable anger it was probably exacerbated by the fact that dave had fallen asleep poor guy jesus you know he's drunk so much like he's just he just wants a little sleep leave him alone expecting more than twice after a day of drinking is too much even for hercules i don't know why that was my

first like like dream perfect i like when whenever you um try to think up a good analogy for something that is really high quality you always go ancient greek i was thinking the other day about when you were like golden fleece quality audio is what we're after. And I laughed for a second in that recording. I was just like, what are you fucking talking about? I'm a classicist. What can I say? Brilliant. To sort of voice her displeasure at the fact that he had fallen asleep,

Catherine Knight, on their wedding night, woke this gentleman up, woke Dave up by strangling him. Surprisingly, he gets over this attack and they stay together. And actually for the next year or so, she's well behaved. But then her temper, anger and suspicious nature came right back to the surface. So it got to the point with Dave, he just had enough. Even though Catherine and he had a daughter together, he ran off with his pregnant mistress to Queensland. And Catherine's response was predictably a solid 10 out of 10 on the crazy charts because to get Dave back, she took Melissa, which is their baby daughter, to the railway track and placed her on the train tracks and just walked away. Miraculously, a local man who happened to be

walking past saw her and saved her. But later that day, Catherine grabbed an axe and was running around the town, swinging it at people and she was caught and taken to hospital she left her own baby on the train tracks that is like that's such a black and white film thing to do she's so theatrical and so dramatic you know we'll talk about kind of what she's diagnosed with and i think it's fitting it's fitting for exactly what's wrong with her but surprisingly I mean this is just astonishing she was released really soon after just running around swinging axes in people's faces pretty much it's not even at this point she gets any kind of diagnosis they're just like oh that was weird okay off you go never mind and after her release this woman has just got absolutely no chill because straight away she goes to her

colleague molly perry's house and she told molly that her baby girl melissa was sick and that she needed to go to the hospital and that she needed a ride there firstly why was she giving melissa back she left that baby on some train tracks and they're just like oh here you go what it just makes no sense so So her colleague Molly is like, of course, jump in the car. So Molly, her mum and her brother all get in the car and head to the hospital with Melissa and Catherine with them. But Melissa wasn't sick. It was just a ruse. And Catherine at this point then took out a knife and slashed Molly's cheek. So Molly's driving, which she thinks is her colleague and

the baby to the hospital. And suddenly this woman just pulls out a knife and nicks her face. So basically she then starts making threats and she's saying she wants Molly to drive her to Dave's mum's house, husband who's ran off with his pregnant mistress. And she says that she wants to go there so that she could ask his mum why he left her and then kill her and then kill herself. It's the ultimate revenge. Every time you left me, okay, I'm going to kill our baby. Okay, that stopped. I'm going to go to your mum's house. I'm going to kill your mum and then I'm going to kill myself. And again, we're like John Price's, let's kill you and then make your children eat you. It's like every time it's like the most extreme thing you could do to hurt that person and hurt everyone in their life.

Like, vindictive isn't even the word. But somehow, during this ordeal, Molly managed to get to a police station and Catherine was again taken into hospital. Thankfully, Melissa, the baby girl, went to live for a while with Catherine's parents, Ken and Barbara. Also, like, actually, Ken and Barbie. That's hilarious. That is amazing. now in hospital finally

Catherine gets a diagnosis and she's diagnosed with borderline personality disorder and I feel like borderline personality disorder is just such like a catch-all term and it's such a weird name and I feel like it really confuses people maybe a better name for it is it as it's sometimes referred to emotionally unstable personality disorder because that's exactly what it is i saw a really great article about because i've had a similar thing like borderline personality disorder and i know a couple of people who've been diagnosed with it and i thought it'd be like i've had a similar thing no no no but i i know a couple of people who've been diagnosed with it so i wanted to understand it so i read about it and i read this amazing article that described what it's like to

have borderline personality disorder and it was called I hate you please don't leave me and I think like that's what encapsulated it so beautifully I'll post on the Facebook group because I really can't do it justice but it sounds terrifying absolutely it's completely like a problem with how you relate to other people it manifests itself as a long-term pattern of abnormal behaviour characterised by unstable relationships with other people, an unstable sense of self and unstable emotions. And the person will present often with dangerous behaviour and frequently with self-harm. People with this disorder are subject to tremendous mood swings and they can feel slighted over basically nothing. They're often highly suspicious and paranoid.

And it's really important to note though that this is not a psychiatric condition. People with borderline personality disorder are not mad. This is an emotional and behavioral problem. So it's the difference between someone being mad and someone being bad. And we see this most commonly in the difference between psychopathic and psychotic. Because sometimes i feel like we see these phrases used interchangeably and there is in fact a huge difference because i this is so important i think like if they're mad they

genuinely don't know the difference between right and wrong and the best example i can think of is richard chase like the vampire of of Sacramento prime example totally psychotic killer because he would murder people he'd commit these murders in broad daylight and he would just walk away covered in blood and an interesting example of someone who this is why you see so few cases of not guilty by um what's it not guilty by insanity reason of insanity oh yeah that's why you see not guilty by reason of insanity just fail time and time again it's really really actually very rare richard ramirez the night stalker tried to say oh i'm mad i'm i'm mad i'm psychotic like that's why i did all of this and he got caught because they realized that he was wearing gloves

during the time of his killings if you're wearing wearing gloves, you're not psychotic, you're not mad, you're bad, and you're a psychopath. And there's a big difference. I think the difference also comes in with people with borderline personality disorder because they do know the difference between right and wrong, but they get themselves so worked up that they do not care. And I think that that is the big difference here. So if we get back to the case, after Catherine's diagnosis I suppose Dave probably felt bad, maybe he was scared for Melissa, I mean scared for himself, or whatever reason Dave came back and got back together with Catherine. Catherine's only been out of hospital for about six days. She was just released and then let go again, even though she had kidnapped

a car full of people at knife point. Regardless, anyway, she's out, they're back together and they move to Aberdeen. But almost immediately, her controlling, demanding behaviour came back. She couldn't get over Colette's affair. And in in 1983 she put him in hospital after she hit him with a frying pan and it was finally enough and he left her. Then next in 1986 she moved on to Dave Saunders and it's exactly the same MO. They were happy for a year and then drama and violence started and after an argument one day she went outside and grabbed hold of his eight-week-old puppy and slashed its neck. People killing dogs upsets me more than people killing humans.

It's just so, it's so sick. An eight-week-old puppy. Again, it's like the most vindictive thing. What can I do that's going to hurt you the most that I could do right now without actually just killing you? And again, when they said that after she killed the puppy, it was like a totally clean cut. You see this when killers slash people's necks, there's hesitation marks. Even when they stab, there's hesitation marks. No hesitation, straight, clean cut. After the puppy attack, Catherine took an overdose of pills and had to be rushed to the hospital. But Dave number two stays with her and in 1988 they have a daughter together. But eventually after Catherine

stabbed him in the stomach with a pair of scissors, Dave number two was out. And can we just say by this point she's put her first husband in hospital after smashing him over the head with a frying pan. She's stabbed her second husband in the stomach. And again, nothing happens. No ramifications. I think it comes back to that thing of these guys just didn't go to the police. They didn't report anything because of the fear of, what does that say about you as a man? That you let your woman beat you up. It's so, so sad.

Like, please don't forget that domestic abuse happens to men just like it happens to women and actually and also actually i read that women are more likely to be victims of physical domestic abuse but men are much more likely to be victims of emotional abuse by their partners so domestic abuse isn't just physical Just as many women can be culprits as men. So it's important. Yeah. And in 1990, Catherine is getting on a bit. And I think she's getting a bit desperate at this point.

And this is when she meets another co-worker at the abattoir. She's meeting all these guys at work. I have been in love with someone who works in the box office for like months. How is she doing it? What if he listens? He's going to know it's him. He doesn't know. He doesn't even know my name.

Go on. Oh, hang on. I know, it's tragic, isn't it? So she's getting desperate because all the men in this town now know what she's about. Whether these guys went to the police or not, you bet sure as hell they told the guys in the pub what happened. And no one's interested. But John was new in town and he didn't know. And again this was just another relationship filled with violence and eventually

John too left her. I think she wasn't that into John to be honest because John Chillingworth is because towards the end of the relationship she met John Price and left him. And this past that the police were digging up though revealed a woman of extreme violence, a woman who had never faced any consequences for her actions and who had never shown any remorse for anything she'd done. So the police also investigated her house and found piles and piles of violent and bizarre movies on VHS. And I love it, in this interview the police officer that's being interviewed said that they found all these sinister stuffed animals in her house. I was like, what the fuck is he talking about? He was talking about taxidermy. There was just like in her house, it's just full of taxidermy. I love that he described them as sinister stuffed animals. And there's just more red flags, more warning flags that come up. So when the police speak

to her family, they find out that apparently she told them, if he takes me back, he takes me back to the death. And I'll get away with it because they'll think I'm mad. She's just telling people her plan. Stop telling people your plan. You're not a fucking Bond villain, you idiot. And think this case just in the long run, it was a slam dunk. There was no question whether it was her. She'd admitted it. So almost exactly one year on, Catherine Knight stood trial for the murder of John Price and the question in court wasn't whether she'd done it or not but it was whether she was legally culpable or not. And she starts with a not guilty plea but bizarrely during the trial she changed her plea to guilty and the prosecution were really nervous about this because

they were concerned if they accepted her new plea of guilty that she would later claim that she was mad at the time and use that to appeal any conviction. So to safeguard themselves they got a psychiatrist to examine her and again Catherine was shown to be bad not mad she had antisocial personality disorder she wasn't psychotic and that makes this case even more terrifying because she carried out and sustained and calculated this attack with a totally sane mind and that and I think you really can see in like the way she tried to structure her defense, like the not guilty plea is absolutely a device. Like she knows, she knows what she's doing because she's telling people about it. And in court, she's just so fucking weird still.

However graphic the evidence was, whatever people said, she never looked at them. She was totally impassive. She never made eye contact. She just sat there with absolutely no reaction to anything. That was until they showed the crime scene video, at which point she started screaming and rocking and behaving completely outwardly mad. But bollocks to that. Like, she's putting on a show now. She's trying to manipulate. She's trying to show the erratic behaviour to be like, hey, look, not guilty by reason of insanity.

But the jury didn't buy it. And Catherine Knight was sentenced to life imprisonment, becoming the first female in Australia to be sentenced to life with no chance of parole. She's currently still alive and imprisoned at the Silverwater Women's Correctional Centre in New South Wales. She showed absolutely no remorse. And this wasn't

done in self-defence and given her history and behaviour, she absolutely would have done it again. I think there's no way that her defence could have sewn this together as a self-defence argument. It would have been miraculous if they got away with

insanity. No. There was no abuse from john price they were in an abusive relationship they were in an unhealthy relationship but he wasn't abusing her and she wasn't mad so yeah i think justice was absolutely served in this case that's the case of katherine mary knight and the merger of john price it's pretty full-on it's a good one though i think definitely i'm glad that we did a lady killer. Usual drill. Tell us what you think on the Facebook group, on the Twitter,

and on the Instagram. And thank you to our new Patreons this week. We have Jodie and Shane, and then Carla Hufstedler, I'm sorry if I said that wrong, MJ Howard, Mark Rafferty, Jill C, Catherine Johnson, Eva R,

Juliet Farmer, Katie Douglas, Melanie Baker and Nicole Robey. Oh thank you guys and a couple of reviews that we got this week that we really liked were Marathon Man 1986, a fantastic listen, nothing gets me more freaked out than listening to these two wonderful women when i'm marathon training in the pitch black of night and running past secluded woodlands or quiet unlit streets oh that's nice i'm never gonna run a marathon so this is the closest i'll ever get to doing one but what i was thinking about when i read that i was like well you know jogging at night is 100 how you get murdered but you're a bloke so you'll probably be fine he won't get murdered he'll find a body yeah yeah that's what will happen to him no we've

got lewis almond and all lewis needed to say was best podcast for sure big up the uk dons big up yourself good sir thank you very much love it absolutely and then uh sarkins too who says one of the best true crime podcasts around the girls give their honest and insightful view on crimes, well-researched and delivered with the right amount of dark humour. A must-listen for all enthusiasts. Oh. You can do the social media moment, I believe. Oh, no, I think you should do it.

No. I feel like it's... Hannah really enjoyed the social media moment of the week this week. So there was a thread that somebody started on the podcast we listened to Facebook group about how, you know, we need more diversity in mainstream podcasts. We're not mainstream, but we do have diversity. Not many people notice, but I am a lady of colour. And I just mentioned that we were one half person of colour in this group, if you didn't know. And very lovely Jordan commented on that to say,

I can't even say it. Oh, it was really sweet. Oh, he said that you're exceptionally beautiful and you have a voice for radio and a face for TV and you have many career options in your future. Don't worry about it, guys. I don't even have feelings. I'll just quietly drink myself to death, shall I? Oh, Hannah, no, I have news for you that will be I haven't previously told you my friend who listens at work her boyfriend works as like an engineer on an oil rig that's probably not what he does something like that but he works he works he works out on it out at sea and he listens to our podcast I have met him once and he's a very lovely man and he listens to our podcast and he said well she came over to me the other day at work and told me that apparently he said that he thinks

he's in love with you stop it 100% true because she came over and said that he spends a lot of time wondering what we look like and I was like but he's met me and she was like oh yeah but then he said that he thinks he's in love with her and I was like oh wait best not best make sure they never meet then. So there you go. Okay, I feel better now. We saw the new trend of people putting their negative reviews onto like pillowcases and like shower curtains and all that. So I was like, Jordan, I'm going to put your review on a tote bag and just carry it around.

So yeah. Watch out for that. Hashtag merch. No, because i text saruti in capital letters saying who's your boyfriend because i was just being a salty bitch and i used the wrong your so i ruined my own fucking joke it's all right you corrected yourself before i corrected you so it's fine then but no thank you guys for listening and for appreciating in in all the ways that you do we appreciate you appreciating us so as ever please come have a chat with us on the facebook group there were some really interesting conversations after last week suzanne kappa happening on there twitter us come follow

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