Paperback: It proves to be a morning that none of the cops, ambos or locals will ever forget. A glimpse into the dark, cockroach corners of the soul. A lot of the blokes there that day are never the same again. There are murders and there are murders. There are bodies and there are bodies, and then there is what lies waiting for Bob Wells - the senior investigating officer and one of the few to see the crime through from start to finish - the others behind the front door of this little brick house with its blinds drawn and air-conditioner working against the oppressive Hunter Valley (Australia) heat.
On 29 February 2000, Katherine Knight committed an unspeakable act. A mother of four from three blokes and a grandmother who sang about the little piggy and the teddy bears, she seduced and then stabbed John Price 37 times. A former abbatoir worker, she skinned him. A loving partner, she cooked him with vegetables, making a soup with his head. Made gravy. Left him on plates for his family. John Price's death is shocking beyond comprehension. It defies the imagination.
Why?
Price was her de facto and he wanted out. She did not like that. It was her nature to go one step further. To go over the borderline.
It is only later that the true horror of this begins to sink in. The cold, calculated spite. The layers of payback. The fact that she has done all this and then cooked and served him for his children.
What of the woman who did it? She must have been mad. Of course she was. The sane do not behave like that. She was a monster. Less than human, less than sentient. Wasn't she? It seemed important to us that she was because it was too horrible to contemplate otherwise.
People said that most of the time, Katherine Knight seemed normal and had a heart of gold. Dressed her kids up and sent them to Sunday school. Sewed dresses for friends' babies. Visited the sick. Ran people around in her car. She would do anything for anyone, her family say. Until she got angry. You just didn't cross her. She was judged to be legally sane - of right mind - when she committed a crime so horrible that the media shied away from the detail. She planned it and she did it knowing that it was wrong. It was all about revenge. And possibly even pleasure. And that is what makes this murder so worthy of examination. To examine her past is not to give her an excuse.
How can somebody be so bad? So immoral? And yet...not be mad?
Journalist Peter Lalor covered the trial and wanted to know what made Knight go way over the borderline. In this unflinching account - Blood Stain (2002) - he uncovers the layers of her dysfunction, opening the door of 84 St Andrews Street and taking us into the lives of Knight's ex-partners, her family, the world in which she was raised, and the locals of Aberdeen, New South Wales, Australia.
Katherine Knight is the first Australian woman serving a life sentence without parole and which she is never to be and will never ever be released. In handing down her sentence, Justice Barry O’Keefe described her crime as premeditated and horrific, "evil actions" that indicated cognition, volition, calm and skill.
On 11 September 2006, the NSW Court of Criminal Appeal on Monday rejected Knight’s appeal against the sentence, which she claimed was manifestly excessive. "This was such an appalling crime almost beyond contemplation in a civilized society," Justice Peter McClellan said in his written judgment. The psychiatric evidence indicates that her personality is unlikely to change in the future and, if released, she would be likely to inflict serious injury or perhaps death on others, Justice McClellan said.
About the author: Born in Bendigo, educated in Melbourne and later marooned in Sydney, Peter Lalor is an award winning author and journalist. He has written a number of books including the best-selling Ned Kelly True Crime prize-winning Blood Stain, The Bridge (2005), a history of The Sydney Harbour Bridge and Barassi (2010), a personal portrait of Australian football's first born son. A cricket writer and beer editor for The Australian newspaper, he has worked as a journalist for twenty-five years.
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