The Misery Machine - Katherine Knight: The Cannibal of Aberdeen

Episode Date: April 12, 2021

This week, Drewby and Yergy take a trip down under and discuss Katherine Knight, whose crimes shook New South Wales to it's core, earning her the most severe sentence every handed down to a woman in Australia. We touch on our reoccurring theme of bystander apathy, and domestic violence against men and why we as a society need to do more for all people suffering abuse.  A very special thank you to Levi for supporting our show as our highest tier patron! Levi's Adoption Fundraising Page: https://gofund.me/d658a3a7 Support Our Patreon For More Unreleased Content: https://www.patreon.com/themiserymachine Join Our Facebook Group to Request a Topic: https://t.co/DeSZIIMgXs?amp=1 PayPal: https://www.paypal.me/themiserymachine Instagram: miserymachinepodcast Twitter: misery_podcast Discord: https://discord.gg/kCCzjZM #themiserymachine #podcast #truecrime Source Material: https://murderpedia.org/female.K/k/knight-katherine.htm https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katherine_Knight https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/8544392/john-charles_thomas-price https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QPXexxSrT1w https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1BnMTP88m7w

However, the Misery Machine. I'm Gergy. And I'm Drewby. And this week we're doing probably Australia's most notorious female killer and probably the most popular one involving alleged cannibalism. And that's the Catherine Knight case. Yeah, I'm not really a big fan of Catherine Knight. She's a terrible person.

She got one of the most severe penalties. In Australian history. Yeah, of any female in Australian history. And this episode covers topics of domestic violence against men. And what can happen when people don't believe men? Don't believe men or don't take men seriously, which unfortunately was the result of this case. Now, if you're listening on YouTube, if you could please hit like and subscribe. We just passed 4,700 subscribers.

Thank you everyone so much for the support so far. Thank you so much. But without further ado. Catherine Knight. Catherine Mary Knight was born on October 24th, 1955, and Tenterfield, New South Wales, Australia. as the younger of two twin girls to Barbara Thorley Ruffin and Ken Knight. Catherine was the product of an affair started by Catherine's mother while married to Jack Ruffin with whom she already had four sons with.

The Ruffin and Knight families were very well known in their conservative rural town, so the uncovering of this affair was a major scandal. And furthermore, Ken was a co-worker of her husband, Jack. Barbara was soon forced to move to Mory with Ken. Her four sons, Patrick, Martin, Neville, and Barry refused to live with her, with Patrick and Martin choosing to stay with her father and Neville and Barry deciding to live with their aunt in Sydney. Ken Knight was an abattoir slaughterman, and they traveled throughout Queensland and New South Wales, wherever work was to be found, often taking his family with him and working 12-hour shifts per day.

Jack Ruffin died in 1959 four years after Catherine was born, and the two children who had lived with him moved in with him, moved in with the Knight family. Barbara and Ken Knight ended up having four more children. Catherine was only really close to two people in her family, her twin sister Joy and her Uncle Oscar Knight, who was a champion horseman. He committed suicide in 1969 when Catherine was only 14 years old,

and this absolutely devastated her. To this day, she insists that his ghost visits her. The Knight family moved back to Aberdeen the same year as Oscar's death as Ken was able to find steady work as a slaughterman there. Catherine's father, Ken, was an abusive alcoholic. He was physically violent with Catherine's mother, Barbara, and would rape her daily, sometimes up to 10 times a day. Barbara would frequently tell her daughter's explicit details about her sex life

and how much she hated sex and hated men. Despite this, Barbara made no efforts to protect her daughter from the same fate, as Catherine was frequently sexually abused by several members of her family. Her father not included, but several members of her family, until she was 11 years old. The extent of the abuse has been disputed, but psychiatrists accepted Catherine's claims is truthful, and all of her family members have confirmed

that the bulk of what happened was real. Now, despite all of this, Catherine was a relatively pleasant girl by many accounts. She was described as loving and very kind to animals. She just experienced uncontrollably violent outbursts when presented with minor upsets. Yes. So she would be walking around the house humming and singing,

and then the next minute she'd go into a violent, rage. She was witnessed violently beating her twin sister because she wanted to turn on a bike. And then later in life, she attacked other students and even a teacher with weapons. So quite commonly, if she had any issues with someone, she would challenge them to armed combat, which nobody ever was known to accept. Some accounts portray Knight as a model student with good grades, but I question the validity of this because many sources claim she left school at age 15 without being able to read or write. She started working as a cutter in a clothing factory, but 12 months later, she was able

to start working at to what she referred to as her dream job, and that was following in the footsteps of her abusive father working at the slaughterhouse. I prefer the term abattoir. I just think it's nicer. Abattoir slaughterman. It's a French word.

I know. I like abattoir. Abattoir. So Knight was quickly promoted at her new job and awarded her very own set of butcher's knives. She took these knives and hung them over her bed so that they, as she claimed, and I quote, would always be handy if I needed them. This was not a phase, but a ritual she continued to practice even as an adult. These butcher knives were her prized possessions. She carried them with her and she made no hesitation

to threaten other people with them. At work, she was described by other co-workers as the one who would cut carcasses and even live animals just to watch them bleed. It was as if she was getting off not only from hurting animals and carving up meat, but from how it would. intimidating she was coming across to her co-workers. Catherine first met hard-partying co-worker David Stanford Kellett in 1973 and fell madly in love with him. Madly being the keyword. The relationship wasn't conventional by any means. If Kellett got into a fight, Catherine Knight would step in and back him up with her fists. Kellett and Knight couldn't have been any more different, Knight being talled and red-haired and standing almost a head

above the short brunette Kennett. They ended up getting married in 1974 after she proposed to him and the wedding was wild. The couple arrived at the wedding on her motorcycle with a very drunk David Kellett riding on the back. As soon as they arrived,

Knight's mother Barbara gave Kellett some advice that he recalls and I quote, The old girl said to me to watch out, you better watch this one or she'll fucking kill you. Stir her up the wrong way or do the wrong thing and you're fucked. Don't ever think of playing up on her. She'll fucking kill you. And that was her mother talking. She told me she's

got something loose. She's got a screw loose somewhere, end quote. Yikes. So Knight's parents consummated their marriage five times on their wedding night. And so Catherine thought she was owed the same. However, Kellett fell asleep after they engaged to intercourse only twice. Insulted, thinking he didn't love her or found her attractive. She tried to strangle him to death. In May of 1976, shortly after the birth of their first child, Melissa Ann, Kellett left Knight for another woman and moved to Queensland and apparently unable to coat with Knight's possessive, violent, and erratic behavior. I wouldn't either. Who would have thought? The next day, Knight was seen pushing her new baby in a pram down the main street, violently throwing it from side to side.

A pram is like a stroller. It's a stroller baby carriage, as we know in the States. Knight was admitted to St. Elmo's Hospital in Tamworth, where she was. diagnosed with postpartum depression, given antidepressants, and allegedly spent several weeks recovering. After being released, Knight placed two-month-old Melissa on a railway line shortly before the train was due, then stolen axe, went into town, and threatened to kill several people. A man known in the district known as Old Ted, who was foraging near the railway line, found and rescued the baby Melissa. By all accounts, only minutes before the train passed, though other

sources claim it was a woman named Lorna who worked at a convenience store who was responsible for saving her. Either way, Melissa was fine for now. Night was once again not arrested for this and taken to St. Elmo's hospital, but apparently recovered and was able to sign herself out the following day, because apparently that was legal at the time, I have no idea. A few days later, Knight called a neighboring family begging for their help. She said baby Melissa was ill and needed to be rushed to the hospital. However, when the family arrived, she held them at knife point, saying they were going to drive her to Queensland to find Kellett in order to kill him. During this ordeal, she slashed the face of the family's daughter with one of her knives. The family convinced her to allow them to pull over at his service station because their son is asthmatic,

and it was there the boy asked an attendant for help. Realizing what was going on, Knight took the boy hostage and was threatening to kill him. She was disarmed when police arrived and attacked her with brooms. Yes, they literally Beat her up with booms. She has a boy hostage And what do the cops do? They come with the brooms

And are somehow able to save the day. I can't imagine this sight But thankfully the boy was not hurt. You would think she'd be arrested, right? Well, no, yet again, She was admitted to a psychiatric hospital. This time it was called Morissette Psychiatric Hospital.

Knight told the nurses straight out. She had no... This is just unbelievable. I can't believe this. flat out admitted she intended to kill the mechanic at the service station because he had repaired David Kellett's car, which had allowed him to leave her. And then she planned to kill both her husband and his mother when she arrived at Queensland. When police informed Kellett of the incident, he discussed it with his mother and they both decided it was their responsibility to take care

of Catherine Knight. And so, David left his then-girlfriend. who was now pregnant with his child, and he and his mother collected Catherine Knight on August 9th, 1976. David's a real stand-up guy. Yeah. I mean, this is the thing. He doesn't deserve what happened to him, but he's still a shitty guy.

The fact that he could have easily been like, I don't want anything to do with her. It's not my responsibility. I'm trying to understand here how the conclusion was that the moral thing to do was to leave your pregnant girlfriend. This should be the other way around. The moral thing to do was to go back and get your daughter. Yeah, right.

And leave this crazy woman. Yeah, and then leave permanently. And I'm sure that he regretted doing this, as we'll get into here in a bit. So all three of them drove to Aberdeen the following day to get baby Melissa who was being taken care of by Knight's mother. David's mother was petrified to see Catherine Knight's mother, Barbara, who she only met once before, come out of her house and begin choking David through the car window, blaming him for Catherine's hospitalization. Catherine responded by punching her mother unconscious. Knight and Kellett moved to Woodridge, Queensland, where she obtained a job at the Dinmore Meatworks in nearby Ipswich.

Catherine's violent behavior continued, and David's sister witnessed Knight holding her baby under a scalding hot water tap. When she told David about what had happened, he begged her not to confront Catherine about it, as she would likely kill her in her sleep and then probably David afterwards. Their marriage continually got worse, and Kellett found Knight in bed with another man. She begged him for one more chance, which he reluctantly agreed. They then moved together to Landsboro, Queensland after this.

But despite all their problems, Catherine pressured David to have another baby, which they did. So on one occasion, a heavily pregnant night burned all of Kellett's clothing in shoes before hitting him across the back of the head with the frying pan, simply because he had arrived home late from a dark's competition after making the finals. In fear for his life, Kellett fled before collapsing in a neighbor's house. He spent a week in the hospital and was treated badly for a fractured skull. She completely caved the back of his head in. Yeah. This is not like, oh yeah, I caved his head in, bro. No, she literally caved his head in. Like, she almost killed him. Yeah. I mean, this was a big woman. So police wanted to press serious charges against Catherine, but she was now on her best

behavior and talked David into dropping all charges. Something she was very good at doing. She's very good at this. On March 6th, 1980, they had another daughter, Natasha Marie Kellett. David worked as a furniture truck driver and frequently had to be away a lot, which fueled Catherine Knight's jealousy even further. One night, she woke him up at Knife Point, telling him how truck drivers have women in every town, and that he must have one. He denied this and begged for his life, and Catherine relented. Shortly after this, he came home one day to find the house almost completely cleaned out, and she had moved back in with her parents in Aberdeen, then to a rented house in nearby Muswellbrook. Catherine's impulse to leave likely saved David's life. I would a thousand

percent agree with that. So although she returned to work at the abattoir, she injured her back the following year and went on a disability pension. No longer needing to rent a home close to her work, the government provided Knight with government housing in Aberdeen. Eventually Knight met 38-year-old minor David Saunders, yes, another David, in 1986. A few months later, he moved in with her and her two daughters. Although he kept his old apartment in Scone, and again, if somebody from Australia is like, you're saying all these wrong, please correct me in the comments. I know, I try. Knight soon became paranoid regarding what David did when she was not around and would often throw him out on the street. He would move back into his apartment in Scone where she would follow him and beg him

to return. In May of 1987, Knight cut the throat of his two-month-old dingo puppy in front of him for no reason other than as an example of what would happen if he ever had an affair before knocking him unconscious with a frying pan. She loves that frying pan. Yeah. My goodness, do many people if you think have dingo puppies there. I wonder. Is it kind of like how here in Maine, a lot of people have like questionable wolf hybrids? Yeah, this is, it's just a husky mix. No, that's a wolf. That's a part wolf you got there by. It's very, very common here. Yeah. Very common here. So yeah, if anyone in Australia knows if people generally keep dingoes, let us know. Yeah, please. I've seen pictures. It's, uh, they are cute. They are. I do like wildish dogs. So in June of 1988,

Knight gave birth to her third daughter, Sarah, which prompted Saunders to put a deposit on a house, which Knight paid off with her workers' compensation. That would have been in 1989. Knight decorated the house, and this is interesting, she kind of would be considered a hipster by today's standards, with animal skins, skulls, horns, rusty animal traps, leather jackets, old boots, machetes, rakes and pitchforks.

And there was no space left uncovered, including the ceiling. I was watching a documentary where it showed, one of her houses. This wasn't the only house that she had decorated like this. Basically, from here on out, expect anywhere that she lives to be decorated like this. And we left this out of the notes, but one thing that she started doing all the time at this point is watching, I guess, very violent indie movies. They didn't seem like snuff films. I tried to really see are these snuff films, but they're mostly just like really gory movies. So kind of like faces of death and stuff. I guess so. Kind of like that stuff that I have in the

VHX box? In the VHS box? I don't know. I really tried to figure out what were the titles of some of these movies, but I couldn't find anything. So just take that for what it is.

But that's how she was spending her time during her disability. So after an argument where she hit Saunders in the face with an iron, and after she hit him with an iron, it left the iron mark on his face for weeks.

Like a cartoon? I'm not trying to make light of this. This is really screwed up. But what's interesting about this is that some of the things she's doing, you'd see in Looney Tunes cartoons. Tom and Jerry, you get fried with the iron to the face and it leaves the marker. You get hit over the head with a frying pan and it produces twittering birds and stuff like this, but the big egg on your head. Yeah, or you get the big old egg. But this woman has showed us what happens when you

actually do that to people. You can damn near kill somebody. And not only did she hit David Saunders in the face with an iron, she continued by stabbing him in the stomach with a pair of scissors. He He survived this and moved back to Skone once again, but when he later returned home, he found that she'd cut up all of his clothes, which prompted him to go into hiding. Knight tried to find him, but no one would tell her where he was. Everybody knew in town knew what her gig was. And this is like the really disturbing part. And I'm not going to get too far into this, but everybody knows what she's all about. Oh, we can get far into this afterwards, remind me. But yes, everyone knew. Everyone knew what she was up to. People warned each other. People had friends being like, hey, you know, man, you know, maybe you shouldn't be with this woman. But she still somehow kept getting around. This was not somebody who was operating in secret. She was operating out in the open. She was not good at controlling herself. Everyone knew what Catherine Knight was like. So after nobody would give up David's location, she told their daughter that he was dead. And then she showed up to her twin sister Joy's house with a shotgun, claiming she had killed him. Several months later, he returned to see his daughter and found

that Knight had gone to the police and told them she was afraid of him and received a protection order against him. So I really tried to look into this one. I wanted to know, because she's a lot of kids. And I don't know which ones she had custody of. And this case specifically with David Saunders, how this reads to me, I'm concerned that she took his kid from him and he was not able to get. That's how this reads to me. Yeah. And of course, maybe once we get to the end of the story, they get reunited. I don't know. I never found an answer to this. It was very strange because in the documentaries I watched on YouTube regarding this, it was as if we'll get into this a little bit more when as the story progresses, it didn't seem like they were with her all the time. Like, they

weren't mentioned all the time. Right. Especially when there was like other children involved. And then if she was in the hospital, the kids, from what I understand, would go into the custody of her mother. Of her mother who was equally crazy. And I don't know when Ken Knight died. I assume he was still alive. And you know, he's an abusive alcoholic, both physically and sexually abusive. So you just have to wonder, like, is there any safe place for these children? Not really. And the answers probably no. Nope. So in 1990, again, Knight became pregnant. with another child this time it was a boy by a 43-year-old former abattoir co-worker named John Chillingworth. And the boy's name was Eric. Chillingworth tried to make things work over their three years' worth of a relationship, but despite begging her to stay, she left him for a man she'd been having an affair with for some time, John Price. There's two Davids and two Johns in this story.

Yes. So now we're at child number four. Yeah. So John Pricey, as his friends called him, Price. was the father of three when Knight had an affair with him. Now, I'm not sure if he was married at the time or if he was newly divorced. He was married. He was married. So she basically broke it up.

Yeah. While his two-year-old daughter had remained with his former wife, the two older children lived with him after their divorce in 1988. Price was regarded as a great guy and was well liked by everyone who knew him. He was well aware of Knight's violent reputation, and she moved into his house. in 1995. His children liked her. He was making a lot of money working at the local minds, and apart from violent arguments,

life was pretty good at first. In 1998, they had a fight over Price's refusal to marry her. He had allegedly told Knight that he was just in the relationship for sex and that she had better get used of it. Of course, this is coming from Knight. Knight retaliated by being abusive towards Price's children and trying to convince him, them that their father wasn't actually their father and that their mother had secretly gone off with other men. Price told his friends he wanted her out of the house, but Knight was hard to get rid of as she'd go to the house when he was at work.

While searching through his things, she found his will, which stated his entire estate would go to his ex-wife. Catherine was furious and demanded $10,000 Australian dollars to leave or he'd be sorry. Price, of course, refused. But keeping true to her blackmail, Knight videotaped items, He had allegedly stolen from work and sent the tape to his boss and the police. However, Price didn't have any stolen goods, just out-of-date medical supplies that he had taken from the company dumpster. But despite this, Catherine's story was believed and Price was fired from the job he had held for 17 years. And he was a good employee.

I just don't understand if all of his friends knew what was up, all his coworkers knew what was up. The whole town knew what was up. You would think people would be able to come to him as like a good fit. faith witness or character witness and be like, hey, he's getting a raw deal here. But she was believed he was fired. John Price was now 43 years old and unemployed. That same day he kicked her out, rightfully so, and she returned her own home because she had a home of her own at the same time.

And news of what she had done spread throughout the town. Catherine Knight told Price's daughter that if he ever decided to take Catherine back, it would be until his death, which unfortunately turned out to be true. So a few months later, Price restarted their relationship, although he now refused to allow her to move in with him. And their fighting became even more frequent and most of his friends wouldn't have anything to do with him while he remained with her. Price's daughter surmises that he was lonely, struggling, and needed somebody after such a hardship had taken place, even if Catherine Knight was the one responsible for it. This is just sad. It's so sad.

Okay, this is something like isn't talked about a lot. But we obviously know the old story of saying a man and woman relationship, a woman not being able to find the resources and therefore she cannot leave. Well, we don't talk about is the reverse situation where a man doesn't have the emotional resources. And even if he's just absolutely and utterly abused by his partner, with nothing else, he will go back to her. and I've known many, many people this has happened to. And I'm sure you can look at a story like this. Why would he go back to somebody like this? After everything she did, and yeah, I can sit here and say this too,

but when you've just had such a major, major life event happened for the worst, you lose your job. And at that period of time, that part of the world, your job is everything. And you have kids to feed. And you have this one person here that's welcoming you with open arms. arms, you'll go back to your abuser. And yes, it does happen to women too, like this way as well. Absolutely. But this happening to men is something that's just not talked about.

It's not talked about and it's a shame. It's so sad to me because everybody in town knew what she was about, knew what she was up to. She had been with tons of people who had firsthand experience with her. Children were brought into this that didn't ask to be brought into such a abusive life. She almost killed other people, almost killed one of her children. Right. It's just terrible how this was allowed to go on. So many people, I don't even want to say so many people failed John Price, failed David Saunders, failed David Killett, failed the kids too. Like so many people were failed here and so many people knew.

And again, like... Failed John Chilling'sworth? Failed John Chilling's worth. Everybody was failed. Everybody was failed here. And I didn't think about this writing the next. notes are going into this, but here's another case, and I will always call this out until I'm blue in the face, another example of bystander apathy, which if you've been following this

podcast for a while, this is something that we unfortunately highlight in cases where people could have said or done something. And in this case, this is a little bit different. This isn't somebody knew, but didn't say anything. It's like everybody knew, but there wasn't the societal pressure to undo this. This was just a really violent and abuse. of woman and nobody really knew what to do with that, it seemed. She really upsets me. Like, this was a case that I said I just would never do. I had to kind of convince, one, we've had this requested multiple times throughout the almost

two years of being on a podcast. Like, she has been requested out of everything that we, every case that we have not done yet, she's probably been requested the most or the second most. Yeah. And Drewby had to convince me because I literally hate this woman. Like, I just don't like her whatsoever. No. Her case is a very good example, and I know we're kind of getting a bit ahead of ourselves.

I kind of want to talk about this is a good example, but I think it's fine to talk about now. This is a good example of what happens when you ignore domestic abuse towards men, when you ignore or downplay men who are abused, who are experiencing abuse, or you think that it's not that bad, or they should be able to get out of it themselves. Because you can't, because so many horrible things happen. One, you can have murder. too, you can end up having all of your things taken from you, your children taken from you. As we saw here, Catherine went and put a false protection order against someone in order for him not to have his child. And remember this protection order because there's a double standard that happens later in this episode that is very pertinent to this point. Continue, I'm sorry. You know, she might as well just start doing false rape allegations as well. They probably would have believed there. And she might have. I don't know. There's some gaps in some of the testimony. from other people. But from what I've gathered, it seems like everybody knew what this woman was and could see her coming a mile away. And that's what makes this even worse to me, because then I was like, okay, if everybody knows this, why wasn't something done? And if the roles were reverse,

would somebody have intervened? Probably, I'm not 100% sure on that. But what seems to me, the issue here was there as societal expectations that were just not up to par, these beliefs that either not being able to understand that a woman doing this to a man is that dire, or that they just didn't feel like that's something that you intervene into. Either way, that societal expectation, again, failed everyone here. I agree. And you would think that it's not just the man getting abused. Now you have children who are likely being abused, and we highlight some of the children abuse, but we don't know the full extent of it, especially the kids that were in the care of Knight's parents. What happened to those kids? I don't know. I can only guess. So even with the kids involved, nobody really did anything. So there's just a lot of moving parts here, a lot of problems, and that's why this case makes me so upset. Again, this is like through the 70s and the 80s. In the 90s, actually, this span.

almost three decades. It did because she got with her first husband in the 70s and now we are in 2000. We're approaching the year 2000 with John Price and the story. But I think what hurt me the most, his daughter tearfully being like, I don't know why he went back to her. I think he just needed somebody and he didn't have anybody during that period of time. I saw that documentary. I just killed me to see that because at your lowest point, somebody who absolutely ruined your life. And that's the only person you can go back to. Oh, I feel that so deeply in the pit of myself. And I've known so many people to have done that. And that's something that I wish on nobody, nobody to have to do to feel like that's your only option. I wish that on nobody. So in February of 2000, a series of

assault came to a head with night stabbing price in the chest. Finally fed up, he kicked her out of his house once more. He lived through that. On February of, 29th, he stopped at the scone magistrate's court on his way to work and took out a restraining order to keep night away from both him and his children. He was told he could not receive a restraining order until he attended a court hearing, which he couldn't get a date for for at least three weeks. Yes, this is what I was referring to. She was able to get one instantly. He had to attend a court hearing. Yep. And he openly told people he'd likely be dead by then. It was getting this bad. He couldn't even file for protection.

And now he had to choose. Could he flee and risk the safety of his children? What does he do? That afternoon, after being told this, he told his coworkers that if he didn't come to work the next day, it would be because Catherine Knight killed him. They pleaded with him not to go home, but he told them that he believed she would kill his children if he did not. And I firmly believe that she would have. Oh, absolutely. You would think that these people would band together and confront this woman.

Do something. I know hindsight's 20-20, but man, when somebody's saying I could be dead tomorrow and that they have to go face the music for their children, like, oh my God, I can't imagine that. Price arrived home to find that night, although not there herself, had sent the children away for a sleepover at a friend's house. He then spent the evening with his neighbors before going to bed at 11 p.m. Earlier that day, Knight had bought new black lingerie and had videotaped all her children while making comments, which have since been interpreted as a crude will. Knight later arrived at Price's house where he was sleeping and sat watching TV for a few minutes before showering. She then woke Price up and they had sex after which he fell asleep. I did a little bit of mental math here based on where our story starts.

At this point, Melissa's an older teenager. So she's probably making Melissa. making Melissa watch all the children and is like leaving them at the house. That's probably, yeah, I didn't think of that. I always forget when reading the story just how many, how many decades past, decades. Yeah, it's insane because in my head, I'm just like, oh, Melissa's still a baby. No, she's not. She's an adult now. She's got to be her close to it. I mean, I graduate in 2002. This is taking place at this point in 2020. She was born in the 70s. So she's basically an adult now. She is an adult now. At six the next morning, neighbors became concerned that price

Price's car was still in the driveway, and when Price did not arrive at work, his boss sent a worker to see what was wrong. This was taken very seriously because Price was known as a very good and punctual worker, and they knew what was going on, so they were somewhat prepared for this. Both the neighbor and the worker tried knocking on Price's bedroom window to wake him, but after noticing blood on the front door, they alerted the police who arrived there at 8 o'clock. Breaking down the back door, police found Price's body with night comatose from taking a large number of pills. She had stabbed Price with a butcher's knife while he was sleeping. According to the blood evidence, he awoke and tried to turn on the light before attempting to escape while Knight chased him through the house. Price managed to open the front door and get outside, but either stumbled back inside or was dragged back into the hallway where he finally died after bleeding out. Later, Knight went to Aberdeen and withdrew $1,000 from Price's ATM account.

Price's autopsy revealed that he had been stabbed at least 37 times in both the front and the back of his body with, many of the wounds extending into vital organs, you know, since she was an abattoir worker, she knew how to do this. Several hours after Price had died, Knight skinned him and hung the skin from a meat hook on a doorframe next to their living room. Police that had viewed the scene of the crime, described Price's skin as looking like a wetsuit at first. They didn't know what they were looking at. Yeah, they thought it was a wetsuit. It was completely in one piece. Knight then decapitated Price and cooked parts of his body, specifically stakes made.

out of his glutes, which is your butt if you don't know what that is. She served the meat with baked potato, pumpkin, zucchini, cabbage, yellow squash, and gravy in two settings at the dinner table, along with notes besides each plate. So a plate for each one of Price's children had a note written on them. I'm not exactly sure what the notes said. A third meal was thrown on the back lawn for unknown reasons. It was speculated it was for the dog, but it's also for. They further speculated that Knight had tried to eat it but could not.

Price's head was, and this is where the cannibalism theme comes from when people like call her a cannibal. But the cannibalism wasn't actually confirmed from my understanding. His head was found in a pot full of vegetables. Yeah. The police, when they got there opens it up and there's the head looking back at them. Yeah, she set it up so that way if somebody opened the lid, they would be face to face with it. The pot was still warm, indicating that the cooking. had taken place in the early morning, and Knight arranged Price's body what was left of it,

with the left arm draped over an empty soft drink bottle with the legs crossed. Knight had left a handwritten note on top of a photograph of John Price claiming that he was a pedophile, but these claims were never substantiated. I actually had the notes, and I was going to read it on here, but it was so hard to read. She's completely illiterate. Like, not to make fun of people who are illiterate, but you could. couldn't understand what she was trying to get across. Is there any basic point you thought she was trying to get across?

That he was a pedophile. She was inferring that he had raped her daughter and the neighbor's son. That's kind of what she was trying to get across. I wonder if this was part of her defense that she was building for ourselves, along with another common defense that killers like this tend to take on that we'll get to here in a little bit. So after being arrested, Knight had told police that she had no memory of that. the events. Exactly. Yeah. However, she did admit to cutting him with a knife days prior at an argument and that it was an accident. I saw the video of this. Oh my God, yes. Yeah, she was like, I was angry at him and I grabbed something. It could have been a spoon. It could have been a fork.

And I just turned around to point at him. And I didn't realize just how close to me he was. And I just nicked him a little bit. Well, she didn't nick him. She stabbed him in the chest. He had a stab wound in the chest, not a cut, a stab wound. But it was an accident. It was an accident. And the way, that she said it was just so matter of fact. Her body language and just everything just disgusts me when I see videos of her. Yeah, that's why I hate this woman. She later attempted to plead guilty to manslaughter,

which of course, thankfully was rejected. And she was arraigned in February of 2001 on the charge of murdering price, to which she entered the plea of not guilty. When the trial commenced, the judge offered the 60 jury prospects with the option of being excused through the nature of photographic evidence,

which five of them accepted. When the witness list was read out to the prospect, several more also dropped out. The next morning, Knight changed her plea to guilty and the jury was dismissed. I'm actually surprised she pled guilty. Yeah, and she's like wasted everyone's time. I figured she would have dragged this through court and put the jury through hell, but thankfully she did not. The judge adjourned the trial and ordered a psychiatric assessment to determine if Knight understood the consequences of a guilty plea. Knight's legal team had planned to defend Knight by claiming amnesia and disassociation, a claim supported by most psychiatrists, although they did consider her sane.

No reason has ever been given for the guilty plea, and despite giving it, Knight still refused to accept her responsibility for her actions. At the sentencing hearing, Knight's lawyers requested that Knight be excused to avoid hearing some of the facts, but the request was thankfully refused. So when a doctor took the stand and described the skinning and decapitation, Knight became hysterical and had to be sedated. I don't think they should have sedated her. She should have had to sit there and listen to it. And I think she's faking anyway. Because this wasn't the only time that this would happen.

If this went on too long and she wanted an adjournment, she would just start freaking out and go into hysterics just so that way they would adjourn court until the following day. This was just who she was. She was manipulative. On November 8th, the judge sent her. Knight to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole. This is the first time this had ever been imposed on a woman in Australian history, citing that the nature of the crime and Knight's lack of remorse required a severe penalty.

They don't have the death penalty there for my understanding. They should. I don't know. I'm just really worked up on her. Well, I think I'd rather have her, depending on the prison. She likes being in prison. Does she? Yes.

I haven't heard any interviews of her in prison. She likes being there because she finally feels safe. Oh, my God. Oh, cut it out. If it was in a prison she didn't like, I think I'd rather her rot for the rest of her life. And I hear she's quite a nasty hoarder. Oh, really? She'll just hoarder a bunch of things in herself.

She doesn't want visitors and she's a nasty hoarder. She's like a gross, crusty old woman. Oh, my God. In June of 2006, Knight appealed her life sentence, claiming that a penalty of life in jail without possibility of parole was too severe for the killing, which was later dismissed. That'd be hilarious. It'd be hilarious at hearing that in the States. When do you ever hear somebody trying to argue that a life sentence is too severe for killing somebody?

After you've committed murder. You skinned them. You have killed a dingo puppy. You've assaulted all of these men. You're just being a terrible person. You've almost killed children. You almost killed children. And then you try to feed a father's body to their children.

You might have eaten some body yourself because you're nasty. Too severe. Too severe. Knight is currently serving her sentence at the Clarence Correctional Center in New South Wales and will be for the rest of her life. So, I mean, my takeaway from this, and I think Drewie would agree, if your male friends tell you they're being abused, could you please listen to them? Because you could save people's lives.

And if you don't believe people when they tell you something like this is happening, they're not going to tell you again. Exactly. It's already hard enough for a man to come forward because they're already being told by men and women alike that they need to toughen up. They need to be a man. And it's not just men that say this. The trope is that men say this to other men, which they do. But women also say this to men, too. And not to be heteronormative, this happens in gay relationships as well. Oh my God. So that can, that's a whole other episode because in gay relationships. The police don't even believe you.

Yeah, the police don't even believe you. Abuse, nobody wants to touch it. So these non-heteronoronor. relationships, those are fraught with problems if there's abuse and people are seeking help. So that too. Obviously, if any of your friends are telling you take them seriously, but take them all seriously no matter who they are. If they're a man, if they're a woman, if they're in a gay relationship, if they're in a straight relationship, if they're non-binary, if they're transgender, take them all as serious as you would the other one because anyone can kill another person. Anyone can abuse a child. So in this case, the men in this story needed to be believed.

Support the men in your life. That's all I'll say. That's all I've got to say. Okay. Well, all right, so if you've made it this far, first of all, I appreciate you for making it to the end of this episode. And if you want to support us, the best way that you can do that is to like and support. subscribe, hit the bell notification if you're on YouTube. It'll ensure that you don't miss any of our new episodes. If you're listening on iTunes, if you give us a five star and written review, this goes a long way to helping us. This is the only way that we can build and get bigger as a podcast. Get to more listeners is by doing things like this for us or sharing our videos, sharing our episodes. All these things are the best things you can do for us. And we appreciate them so much. There's so many people that are already helping with that. And We've had such growth in the past year.

I was looking over the analytics with Yergy. And I mean, we're almost at 50,000 downloads. By the end of this month, we'll have hit 50,000 downloads on the streaming platform. We may be over it now because we lost our old Libson statistics. And then YouTube, we have had over 330,000 views, I believe. It took some off because we delisted some videos and moved them to Patreon only. But all of that growth, we. Odie you guys for one coming back week after week, telling your friends about us, all these things

are so helpful. So thank you so much for that. Furthermore, we have some wonderful people that want to go even further and become our Patreon subscribers. So let's thank those people now. So thank you, Eddie, Rowan, Marky, Holly, Ashley Vue, Anna, Lauren, Serena, Chloe, Mark, Tara, Sophie, Neil and Karen, Dave and Karina, Dom and List, Jen, Mo, Jenny, Nora, Robin, Tom, Dylan Kaylee, Alex, Jacob, Victoria, Dakota, Bailey, Lindsay, James Stephen, Casey, Casia. Welcome Amanda. Welcome, Amanda. Welcome, Kevin. Welcome, Kevin. And thank you, Levi. And Levi, our highest tier, Patreon supporter. There's his lovely picture. His GoFundMe is still open.

The link is in the description and the show notes. Anything that you can give. Huge help to Levi, who's helped us so much as a podcast. And I really do want to give a special shout out to Amanda. she is actually the person that got me into true crime podcasts. I was always a true crime fan, but she kind of opened the door and was like, hey, did you know this was a thing? Yeah. So I might not even be doing this if it wasn't for Amanda. Yes, thank you so much, Amanda. And she is the mom of Turkish. She was on one of our videos. I can't remember which video, but Turkish will be in a video again in the future. I guarantee it. He is a very, very wonderful pug who does very cute dances when he scratch his butt.

Oh. Pretty wonderful. Speaking of cute dogs, we got. to go see Dave and Karina today. And we met Rocket, their little corgi. He was so cute. It's like a little foxy. Yeah, he's like a little foxy. And I'm like obsessed with their cat, Thor.

Yes, Thor is very sweet. I wanted to pet Goosey because I like Orange Boys, but Rocket chased Goosey off. Thor's like Orange Boy adjacent, though. He's a white cat. How is the Orange Boy Adjacent? He's got like a little Orange Boy Siamese markings and beautiful blue eyes. I mean, he does have beautiful blue eyes, but he's a white cat. I don't think blue eyes is necessarily an orange boy trade.

And like little short legs like me and Rocket. Yeah. We're triplets. Oh, my God. It's wonderful. Like, we're starting to meet and see. Obviously, I knew some of these people beforehand. I got to meet Karen.

Yes. Yes. We met. We walked back bay with Karen. On Easter. And it was crazy. It was the first time I had seen Karen in a year and a half roughly. and it's just crazy

I think it's been this long but I'm finally seeing people I care about again I can't wait to meet more of the patrons there's so many of you that we talk to so frequently I know a lot of you

aren't in Maine but you know we're gonna be getting out there we're gonna be traveling and I hope to meet as many of you as possible what you're doing for us just helps us so much

you were keeping this podcast going and I am eternally grateful for that in the fall we had talked about this a little bit amongst in each other. I have a two-week period of vacation at the end of October, beginning of November. And it's my hope that if my car behaves, we can just drive down Maine to

Florida and back and see all sorts of places along the way. So if anybody is on the East Coast when we do that and wants to like maybe meet up for a drink or whatever, let us know. Let us know. Let us know in the comments. We'll figure it out. It's kind of strange because like, oh, we can travel now, I think. We're getting those details ironed out, but we'll have them come summer, I'm sure. Absolutely. And then, you know, Labor Day weekend will be in Vegas. So if you're there, yes, we're going to be there. Or if you're seeing Romstein at Foxborough Stadium, Gillette Stadium, Gillette Stadium in Foxborough. Sorry, I confuse it. We will be there too. We will be there as well. As long as it actually happens, poor Hannah, who is one of our listeners in England, her Romstein, was canceled.

Yes. Hey. Again. You know, you stress to me the proper German pronunciation. Rammstein. Stein. Romstein. Yeah, Yergi gets on me if I say W's instead of V's.

But then I just call them Ramstein. Ramstein. Ramstein. I hate when interviewers are interviewing them in English and call them Ramstein. Romstein. Whatever. Anyway, we've been... You got a roll at R.

Kind of like it the song. I've never been able to roll. Rhemstein. I could never roll ours. I remember my Spanish teacher in high school told me that I will never be great at speaking Spanish because I couldn't roll my arms. I can do it. I've never been able to. We are going on and on right now.

Yes, I know. If you're still with us, we love you. Yeah, we love you too. But we'll put this here because I don't know what's going to be like after I edit everything, I edit the gaps out, the mistakes out, and just cut parts out that I think aren't really to the point. But we've been going on for about an hour. I should probably leave this here. So until next week. We love you.

We love you. All right. Bye. Bye.