EP05: Hell Hath No Fury Like a Butcher Scorned
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With me, your co-host, Hank Sinatra, and my co-host. Investigator Slater. She is my co-host, but I am her co-host. No one's better than anybody else here. Equals. Yeah, I mean, you decide for yourself whether or not you like me or her better, I guess. I'm not going to say I'm better than her. Why do they need to pick their favorite? They will, inevitably. No. And because they'll find out that I'm more fun. It's like picking your favorite child. You just don't do it. You don't have a favorite child. Oh, my God.

My dog, obviously. Yeah. No, we both bring different things to the table. She is a hardcore, hard-hitting, in-depth investigator. Like, that's what you really do. That's what I do professionally.

You investigate. I do. So like you get to the bottom of things. I try. And then under the things and then find things that nobody else found. And flip it around in a million different ways and then re-examine and then get even deeper. Yeah, she's an overthinker. I'm an overthinker too, but I think about dumb stuff like memes and jokes and...

It's not dumb. It's just different. It's different. It's a different kind of intelligence, if you could even call it that. You can call it that. As we get into this, you'll find that she's the expert, I'm the comic relief, and I just deal with anxiety by laughing, and you deal with anxiety by listening to true crime podcasts.

and I'm trying to figure that out. I'm trying to understand it. But without further ado, we'll get into the case. She'll try and throw me off track by doing some quizzes. Maybe you know the case. Maybe you don't. Maybe you like quizzes. Maybe you're not even paying attention, and this would be a good time to start now and when the quizzes start. So without further ado, adieu.

Why don't you tell me about this case? On March 1st, 2000, two police officers in Aberdeen, Australia, had gone to conduct a wellness check on a man who uncharacteristically hadn't shown up for work that morning. Guy didn't show up for work. Guy didn't show up for work. One day.

One day, but he was very reliable. This was a very, very small town in Australia. Everybody knew each other. So you knew each other's habits. You knew when somebody didn't show up for work. It typically meant there was an issue. Harry didn't show up for work. Call the cops. You're not from Aberdeen. No, I'm not from Aberdeen.

It sounds made up. But Aberdeen, Australia, some guy doesn't show up for work. They call the cops. When the officers arrived at the home, they saw a bloodstain, you laughing now, on the front door and decided to forcibly enter. Was there a finger outside the door? There was blood, as I said. Like in the Banshees of Inner Sharon? Nope. Okay. Just a bloodstain on the door. Also uncharacteristic.

Shouldn't have been there. Probably not. They opened the door. The lights were off in the home, so it was difficult for them to see, but both officers were able to clearly identify the smell of food being cooked, indicating perhaps that someone was home or perhaps had been home recently.

So these officers are walking through the dark room. It was not kangaroo, but way to stereotype. Koala bear? They were slightly disoriented, walking through the dark, unfamiliar home. Yep. But they continued forward and slowly and carefully walked from one room to the next, relying upon all their other senses to navigate. One of the officers extended his left arm to push aside a curtain, and he immediately felt a cold, wet substance dripping down the length of his arm. Ew.

He looked closely and saw that it was blood. His initial thought was that he must have cut himself on the front door when he forcibly entered just moments earlier. He was cooking. But he quickly realized that the blood was not his.

Oh, the officer thought he cut his hand. So the cop moves aside a curtain. He's navigating in the dark through this house and he feels like a cold, wet substance on his arm, on his left arm. And he looked and it's blood. And he said, I must have, I must have cut myself when I opened the front door, when I broke through it. And then he realized it wasn't his blood.

Which I had something similar happen, but not with blood. Yeah. So I waitressed for two hours when I was like 16 at a Greek restaurant. You have real staying power. And I got ketchup from the tip of my pinky down to my elbow. And I was like, I'm out. Yeah. This isn't for me. Yeah. Food is rough. It is. It's not pleasant. The officers proceeded with their slow, eerie walk through the home. One of them even drawing his service pistol in response to an innate sense of wrongness. Yeah. Blood. Blood.

They followed what appeared to have been a blood trail from the living room to the kitchen, and they found the source of what they smelled earlier upon entering the home. There were two plates of freshly cooked food sitting on the counter containing cooked veggies, a piece of meat, and some gravy. Pretty standard-looking meal. Australian. Why is that Australian? It's meat, veggies, and whatever. Because they eat healthy. They don't eat Twinkies and shit like that. How is meat and gravy healthy? It's just home-cooked. It's not like...

lean bison and it's like a slab of meat. It probably was kangaroo meat. Okay, again, the kangaroo. On the stove was a simmering pot and on the table were little paper cards with the names of the children belonging to the man whose house they were in, the one who hadn't shown up for work that morning.

It seemed almost like someone was preparing to host a dinner party, but for the fact that there was a blood trail in the living room, blood spatter all over the walls, a missing adult man, and a human head cooking in the pot on the stove. This case is already horrendous.

The curtain that the police officer moved aside upon entering the home, the one that left the blood streak on his arm, was not made of fabric. Tonight, I bring you the case of one of Australia's most famous convicts whose heinous brutality continues to defy comprehension to this day.

The gruesome nature of this person's crime makes her one of the most diabolical murderers in the nation's history. A female killer? She's a lady killer. Thank you, God. Why? Because men are just like such, they are always killing. Yeah, well, not here.

If you told me, hey, we're going to do a million episodes of this podcast, I would think it would be a million men. I know. Never would have crossed my mind. I mean, you wouldn't be that far off. It's most often men. Well, statistically. Right. But stereotypically as well. But stereotype indicates that there's not some truth to it. Like there's real truth to it. There is real truth to it.

Never before this case, or ever again since, has there been a crime of this nature perpetrated by a woman in Australia. Wow. This is the story of Catherine Knight, mother, wife, serial abuser, murderer, and cannibal. So this wasn't her first rodeo. Yeah. It was not her first rodeo in a sense that she was a violent, unpredictable woman.

just out of her head woman. Yeah. But this actual murder. Yeah. Well, we're going to get into it, but this was the first time she actually murdered. But serial abuser, you said. She was a serial abuser. She was a violent woman. So she would just like throw a box of Cheerios at somebody's head. I mean, that was probably just the first round. You don't even know what to say. What are Cheerios called in Australia? What's Cheerios? Cheerios. What's Cheerios upside down? Cheerios.

Cheerio. Yeah. You're missing it. It's perfect. Cheerio. Right. Yeah. Boomerang. I'm taking you back to the year 2000 to the town of Aberdeen, Australia, which is a very, very small town, three hours north of Sydney. Not much to say about Aberdeen at this point in time. There were only two pubs, a plethora of socioeconomic issues, a coal train that would pass through once per day, and a well-established, rather popular abattoir.

I will literally give you a million dollars. Literally. If you can tell me what an abattoir is. Pop quiz number one. Okay. Is it a brothel? Okay. Is it a domicile for Western religious traditions, including Christianity? Mm-hmm. Or is it a place where animals are butchered? A domicile for religious Christianity. Nope. That's an abbey. And I threw you off because abbey sounds like abattoir. I did not even know it was abbey. I was guessing 100%. Well, you guessed wrong. Shocking. Shocking.

So yeah, I'm not that great at this. So it's a brothel? Nope. It's a place where things are slaughtered? Yeah. Animals are slaughtered? It's a slaughterhouse. An abattoir is a slaughterhouse. That's what I was going to say. I'm sure. It took you three tries to get there. And there were only three guesses.

So let's talk about Catherine Mary Knight. Catherine was born in this slaughterhouse-centric coal and cattle town of Aberdeen on October 24th, 1955. She and her three siblings were born into a horrific family situation. Their father, Ken, was an alcoholic who was openly violent and sexually abusive towards their mother, Barbara. Catherine, sadly, also experienced ongoing sexual abuse at the hands of many different family members.

At a painfully young age, Catherine learned to fear and hate all men.

Catherine had basically no chance of learning fundamental moral constructs or a sense of right and wrong because she was raised in a very dysfunctional shitstorm of rape, physical abuse, incest, and pedophilia. Yeah, that's a bad childhood. It's not a great start. Not only did her childhood lack love, but in its place had been a steady stream of pure, unadulterated evil. Yeah.

As such, she developed what one psychiatrist referred to as a primitive conscience.

It may not be shocking to learn that this child, who'd grown up in such a violent and barbaric environment, had grown up behaving in violent and barbaric ways. Yeah. By the time Catherine was three or four years old, she developed serious behavioral disorders, including borderline personality disorder. By the time she was three or four? Three or four. Oh my God. Which is also known as emotionally unstable personality disorder, which some psychiatrists believe was like a defense mechanism that her

psyche created to deal with the trauma of daily life, which is a very sad way for this horrendous woman to have started life. Yeah. We'll give it to her at this point. We feel for her here. Yeah. I mean, I'm going to feel for her probably all the time. I don't want to say just because she killed a bunch of people doesn't mean she's a bad person because it kind of does, but there's always a reason. Curious what you would define as a bad person if not

Somebody who murders. I don't know. Well, there is a difference between bad and mad, which we're going to explore a little bit in this episode. Yeah, I mean, she was not. So I'm wondering if in your mind you're making that distinction between mad and bad. She was not set up for success. No way. She had no chance.

And I feel for her. I agree with that. I wouldn't want her babysitting my children. No, wait till you hear what we're going to get into. You would not want her near your children. No. My dad works in B2B marketing. He came by my school for career day and said he was a big ROAS man. Then he told everyone how much he loved calculating his return on ad spend.

My friend's still laughing at me to this day. Not everyone gets B2B, but with LinkedIn, you'll be able to reach people who do. Get $100 credit on your next ad campaign. Go to linkedin.com slash results to claim your credit. That's linkedin.com slash results. Terms and conditions apply. LinkedIn, the place to be, to be.

So Catherine at this very young age would disconnect from all that she simply could not process. And while in that state of disconnect, she'd miss out on crucial opportunities to grow and develop essential human emotions like love, empathy, and happiness. Just to name a few.

So borderline personality disorder, just to be clear, is a personality disorder characterized by an instability in mood, behavior, and functioning. Okay. As well as a long-term pattern of unstable interpersonal relationships, strong emotional reactions, and

and a distorted sense of self. And I'm going to sum it up. Got it. So BPD impacts the way you think and feel about yourself and others, which can, and in this case, does create dysfunction in everyday life.

It's a behavioral disorder. In every situation, no matter the circumstances. You misinterpret life. It's very hard for you to function in everyday life. You misinterpret situations. You misinterpret relationships. Your reactions are off the charts. Yeah.

Sometimes you probably don't react at all to something you should react to. Correct. You're off. I mean, that's just a simple way to put it, but you're off in a way that creates some serious damage, typically, or at least in this case. Relatable. Relatable. So there are nine symptoms that may be seen in someone with borderline personality disorder, and if you present with five of these symptoms...

you're deemed to have the disorder. So in my completely unqualified and unprofessional mental health capacity opinion, Catherine Knight displayed seven out of the nine. So they are an intense fear of abandonment, a pattern of unstable, intense relationships, rapid changes in self-identity and self-image, periods of stress-related paranoia, impulsive and risky behavior,

suicidal threats or behavior or self-injury, wide mood swings, ongoing feelings of emptiness, and inappropriate intense anger. So what if you have like two of those? You're good. Oh. How many did you connect with on that list? Zero. Uh-huh. So there was a question, like there's a test on the back of like the pamphlets when you go to your meeting for the first time. There's 10 questions. Mm-hmm.

I'm coming from school where like, I don't like, I was young at the time. I'm like, dude, just don't pass it. Like get a 70 or so 70 is like borderline. You can like wiggle your way out of it. So I answered yes to seven of them. One I lied about the other two were like just too far removed for me. Like, you know, just things like jail or whatever. I hadn't, that was a yet. I

I get to the bottom. It says, if you have answered yes to three or more of these questions, you have a definite problem with alcohol. Thank you, motherfuckers. Why'd you set it at three? Everybody's got three. No, most people don't. Maybe they're trying to make you feel like you've come to the right place. And if you didn't connect with enough things on that list, you would have walked out. Well, I mean, the things were like, you know, straight up alcohol things like

Are you losing time at work due to your drinking? Have you had a complete loss of memory due to drinking? No.

normal people are going to say no. They're going to get a zero. Right, right, right, right. So you got a three? I got a seven. Oh, you got a seven. Yeah, I was trying to like not, and I lied on one of them. So you really got a 10 out of 10. Pretty much, yeah. Yeah, it was, I mean, there was no, and definite was underlined. Then you know what? You were where you needed to be. Oh, yeah. But I don't have BPD, all right? No, you don't. But good for you for getting help. Yeah, and if I had BPD, I'd get help too. Good.

While in school, Catherine was a bully who terrorized smaller children. What a jerk. She never learned how to read or write. You would have got terrorized by her because you're small. Oh, fuck off. I would have defended myself. I really am on one today. I don't think I like you in this episode. She never learned how to read or write. She had a volatile, explosive temper, and she eventually dropped out of school at the age of 15.

She initially took a job at a clothing factory before landing her dream job one year later at the abattoir. At the slaughterhouse? Yes. Now, her parents, her grandparents, and her brothers had all worked there before her. Wow. So this was like a family tradition. Like everyone in my family is an attorney, more or less, which is where I work now. Not as an attorney, as an investigator. But she had the abattoir family biz before.

Abattoir. It sounds so fancy. It is fancy. It's not, but it sounds it. That's why I knew I could quiz you and you'd fuck it right up. Yeah. And you did not disappoint. I thought it was like a dresser or something.

At the abattoir, gear up for your next pop quiz. Okay. At the abattoir, Catherine had a very specific job, which involved Ophel. Jesus. Does that mean- How do you spell it? O-F-F-A-L, you spelling bee fucking weirdo. Origin, please. Does that mean that she, A, cut out the internal organs of the animals-

B, slit the animal's throats to drain them of their lifeblood. Or C, break down and process dead animal carcasses to make feed for the living animals. Feed. Nope. Come on. I am so good at throwing you off. And also creepy. I'm creeping myself out. That doesn't even exist. I don't think that role in a slaughterhouse. I made it up. Wow. From my own demented mental fucking head. Yeah, demented.

So it's not breaking down. When you cut the throats? No. Why am I so bad at this? I love it. It's just so entertaining. No, she would cut out the internal organs of the animals. So let me tell you what Ophel is.

It literally translates to mean organ meats, right? Also known as a variety of meats, which includes livers, brains, hearts, sweetbreads. Do you know what sweetbreads is? So can I tell you something? I feel like I've heard the word offal before and I thought it was food or innards or something. That's why I went with C initially. Well, you were correct. And next time go with your instinct.

No, I was wrong. No, you said that it would have to do with organs, Ophel, and it does. Yeah. She would cut out the internal organs of the animals. Yeah. Sweetbread, you were going to tell me what's- Oh, it's thymus and pancreas. I hear sweetbreads being served in real life, IRL. It's thymus and pancreas. Better use all the animal. You know what? I'm actually a proponent of that. In Aberdeen. In anywhere. Testicles, kidneys, oxtails. Buttholes. Buttholes, yeah.

I was joking. What is an oxtail? Do you know? I thought it was a butthole because you said it right when I said that. Oh, no. What is an oxtail? Is it? I'm going to quiz you. So something on this topic that I came across in my research, which I found interesting, so I'm going to share it with our listeners, is that in medieval times,

Humble pie was an actual dish made from animal innards and served to peasants and is the source of the commonly used idiom eating humble pie. Interesting, right? Or am I the only weirdo? I think that shit's interesting. Catherine helped to slaughter 600 animals per day. Oh my God. And she would nick their arteries just to watch them bleed out.

She found her calling at the abattoir and she would treat it as her personal killing field. So she was like taking her weirdness out on these animals. Every day was Disneyland for her at the abattoir. She loved the sounds. She wasn't masturbating like the priest. No, she wasn't masturbating, but I venture to say she was enjoying it. Yeah. Wink, wink. That priest was weird. That priest was. And if you don't know what we're talking about, go listen to our killer priest episode because it's a doozy.

So Catherine loved the sounds of the dying animals and she cherished all of her shiny, sharp instruments of death. She loved the sounds of the dying animals? Mm-hmm. So weird. So in a book called Bloodstain, written by journalist Peter Lallard, which I read, which is excellent, I recommend, he talks about how Catherine would hang her set of butcher's knives above her bed. So pop quiz about me. Let's see how well you know me.

What item didn't I have hanging up in my room in my late teens, early twenties? So this is around the Catherine's age in this story. Yeah. What item didn't you have? Correct. And this is around the time we met, but to be clear, you never saw my childhood bedroom. So you wouldn't know the answer to this necessarily, but you would know it if you know me and God, I hope you get this right. Cause we go back.

A, a movie theater-sized poster of The Matrix. Okay. B, a poster of JFK with his famous quote, ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country. C, a Master of Puppets Metallica poster. Or D, a ceramic hand coming out of the wall. Well, I know you had a Metallica poster.

I'm not going to speak until you give me your final answer. Which one didn't you have? JFK. The Matrix. Metallica or a ceramic hand coming out of the wall. JFK. Nope. I am the biggest fucking patriot. Have we met? I went to the University of Maryland to serve our country. You stormed the Capitol. I did not storm the Capitol. Take it easy. Okay.

But I went to pursue a career in FBI and secret service and politics. And I wanted to die for whoever the president was going to be. Really? At the time in which I would be guarding him or her. Wow. Yeah. So no, you're wrong. It's not that. So it's not JFK. I know you had the Metallica thing because Metallica concert and 40 and whatever. I'm afraid not, George. You didn't have a Metallica poster? I know. I put that in there. It's almost unfair. That was tricky.

As Catherine grew up, she remained in constant fear of being raped. She'd often give in to sex just to avoid the possibility of it turning violent. Who was she being raped by? Well, when she was a little girl. No, no. When she was a little girl, she was being raped by multiple family members. So as she continued to mature and grow, she just lived in a constant state of fear about being raped. So she'd often give in to sex just to avoid the possibility of it turning violent.

That's sad. Lacking control of any situation or person was a big trigger for Catherine. She ended up marrying her first boyfriend, David Kellett, in 1974, and she was still in her teens. She was 19. They were a slaughterhouse couple at the courthouse. They met at the slaughterhouse, if that wasn't clear. Overalls and blood? Yep. Shiny knives instead of rings. They really got into it. Really? No, I made that up.

Immediately, sadly, there were major issues between Catherine and David. I'm talking quite literally from day number one. The very same night of their nuptials while canoodling at their rented apartment, Catherine and David consummated their marriage. Okay, fine. They did so three times.

but it's pretty good. It is. But given the fact that Catherine's parents had had sex five times on their wedding night, Catherine was not about to settle for just three. And,

And of course, Catherine knew everything about her parents' sex lives because there was never any restraint or regard for propriety or discretion. Sex was everywhere. It was violent. It was abusive. It was taken. It was in her face constantly. So much so that when she grew up to get married, she knew that her parents had sex five times on their wedding night. So she didn't want to settle for three.

That's a very high bar. It's a very high bar. And that when you do the research on this case, that's what literally everyone says when they're reporting about this. They're like, what the fuck? Like, be happy, dude. You got three, three, like, romps in the hay. Or maybe her parents were lying and exaggerating. Maybe. She wasn't around yet. Oh, I had sex five times on my wedding night. All right, seven. Shut up. She was pissed. Yeah. So she wrapped her hands around David's neck.

and began to choke him and violently assault him while screaming five times. Shit.

I read a very apropos line in an article from all that's interesting.com and it read first comes love. Then comes attempted murder. Yeah. That's basically sums it up pretty much. So David woke up and he managed to fight off his knife wielding bride. And even though Catherine attempted to kill him less than 24 hours into their marriage, the couple somehow lasted for 10 years. Oh my God.

And it went as well as you could have expected given their personalities. David struggled with alcoholism and would cheat on Catherine regularly, which would regularly send Catherine into violent, jealous moments.

murderous rages. In a small town, too. Correct. Everyone knew their business. Yeah. On that note, pop quiz. Okay. These are so exciting for me. What did Catherine do in response to discovering one of David's affairs? I'm going to get this one. A. Did she chase him down their block swinging a stolen axe and smoking a cigarette? B. Did she place their two-month-old infant, Melissa, on the local train tracks shortly before a train was due? C.

Or C, did she lay David's drunk, blacked-out body on the ground before driving her Pontiac 200 over his legs, first in drive and then in reverse? So drive over him? Drive over him. Put the baby on the tracks and chase him? Chase him with a stolen axe. Chase him with a stolen axe. No.

Put the baby on the tracks. Yes. Yeah, that one's bad. That's bad. The other one, I'm trying to find out if there's a tell for you where I know you're making things up. Like a poker face? Yeah. Well, then I'm just going to hide behind my computer screen when I do these quizzes. Yeah.

Put a saying, put it in, drove over and then put it in reverse. Actually, no, that's, I mean. Details, the devil's in the details. I feel like that. Yeah, you are the devil. I am. Satan. Wait, so what happened with the baby? She took the baby off the train. A pedestrian found the baby before the train came. She left it there? She left baby Melissa on the train tracks. And this was her fucked up way of sticking it to David for cheating on her. Wow.

Horrible. Horrible. This woman sucked. Well, she was, understandably, she was institutionalized after that incident. Yeah. And she was institutionalized two other times as well. Once, after violently thrashing her newborn baby around in a public square. The second time was the train tracks. Jesus. And the third time was she took the entire family hostage in an attempt to get David back after he had left her. Wow. Wonderful.

Wonder why he left. Each time. Sorry, they're both bad. I get it. Well, she's a little worse. Some people just aren't good together. Like toothpaste and orange juice. Okay.

Each time she was released from the institution, the cycle of violence would continue. She would regularly attack David after accusing him of cheating and even fractured his skull with a skillet, attempted to kill him with a broken beer bottle, and burned all of his belongings in their bathtub. These are all separate incidents. She just was out of control. Yeah, that sucks. Eventually, ironically, it was Catherine who took the two children and left David.

but it had less to do with her being jealous and more to do with her needing to be the one in absolute control of the situation. So that was her final power play.

Catherine had several tumultuous relationships following David Kellett in 1986. He started dating somebody else? Oh, like immediately. Who? How? And the funny thing is, or not funny, but this was a small town. Yeah. So people knew her story. The victim that I referenced at the very, very top of the show, he was new to the area. So he actually didn't know her history, but these other gentlemen did. She used that against him.

Yeah. Cut his head off. Well, let's find out exactly what happened. The head was in the pot, so I'll give you that. So it's 1986 at this point in the case, and she enters another toxic relationship with a local miner named David Saunders. She assaulted Saunders with a hot iron after he'd come home late from work one day and displayed outrageously impulsive and cruel acts of violence when he would threaten to leave her.

Including? Incredible fear of abandonment. That's exactly right. EPD. Yes. I know. See? I pay attention. You do. But then you retain the knowledge. I don't know anything beforehand, but then I remember. Right. Well, good for you. You're paying attention. Yeah. So I mentioned that she had these impulsive, cruel acts of violence when they would threaten to leave her. So I'm going to pop quiz you now. Okay. Okay.

Did it include, A, chopping off the tips of his fingers and tossing the flesh down the garbage disposal? Mm-hmm. B, throwing acid directly into his face to create the irreversible formation of black dead skin? Mm-hmm. Or C, did she slit the throat of his two-month-old dingo puppy in front of him? Oh, my God. Pick your poison. She slit the throat of the puppy. She did.

You know how I know that? I know how you know that, but you can tell our listeners. Because you'd never make that up. Yep. There's no fucking way I would bring an innocent dog into this case if I could avoid it. Real or fake? Real or fake. Oh my God. She cut a dingo's throat? Clean cut straight through. How old was the puppy? Two months. Two months? Yep.

She went in the yard, she picked up the puppy, and without hesitation, she took one of her knives and she cut straight through. This woman's just out of her mind. Out of her mind. Yeah. Still, they stayed together and eventually had a daughter one year later. But let's fast forward because eventually he did leave her shortly after the birth because she stabbed him in the stomach with a pair of scissors. Smart move. I'm not really sure what he expected her to do.

To do or not do based on her past. But I guess that was the final straw for him. Sure. Which now brings us to the crux of tonight's case. Crux. To the incident that changed Australian history forever and made Catherine Knight its most infamous and brutal female killer ever. Sure.

Until this point, we've seen Catherine Knight as an unpredictable, volatile person who used fear and violence to get what she wanted when she wanted it. But here, we're going to see a very cold and calculated Catherine Knight, a well-thought-out woman in total control of her fucked-up decisions. It's October 1993, and Catherine by this point has four children with three different men,

And she meets the coal miner who I referenced earlier. He's the new kid on the block. He's new to town. His name is John Price and he's known as Pricey because it's Australia. Pricey had three children of his own. And by this point, Catherine and Pricey are 38 years old, just for reference. Sure. Thank you. I appreciate the detail. Mm-hmm.

Did you call me devil? Yeah. Accurate. The beginning of Catherine Knight and John Price's relationship was actually without complication. John's children liked Catherine. He made enough money as a minor to keep her comfortable. And she started to stay in his home in 1995. She didn't move in officially, but she would stay with him. And things were going pretty smoothly until Catherine decided that she wanted the two of them to get married. But Pricey refused.

Little does he know. Her first move was to punish Pricey by tormenting his then teenage daughters. She sat them down and told them that Pricey wasn't their real father and that their mother had slept around, which was not true.

But like how fucking horrible is that? Twisted. Twisted. She also took video footage of first aid kits that Pricey had stolen from work and then sent them to his employer and to the cops, resulting in Pricey's termination from his place of employment. Wow. I would say you can't make it up, but she did. And then she executed on it. Yeah. Doing the thing is what the, you know. Right. It's the follow through.

That's fucking crazy. All right. So keep going with this nightmare. Unbelievably, Pricey, who's now 43 in the case, took Catherine back. And this decision would end up costing him his life. On the night of February 29th, 2000, which must have been like a leap year because there really aren't 29 days in February. Yeah. Catherine slipped on a sexy black nightie. You don't miss anything, do you? And joined, I am an investigator.

So she puts on her black nightie and she joins John in bed. She initiates sex. They have sex and John falls asleep.

and never wakes up. Jeez. This brings us full circle to the top of the episode when the police were called the next morning to conduct a wellness check on John Price, who uncharacteristically hadn't turned up for work the morning of March 1st. The coal miner. Yes. Good worker. Yes. That guy? That guy. Didn't show up for work? Right. We better do a wellness check. Amen. Yeah. Plus he's married to that crazy bitch. Right.

Probably had less to do with the fact that he didn't show up for work and more to do with the fact that he was married to Catherine Knight. Yeah. After the cops forcibly entered the home and followed the blood trail leading from the living room to the kitchen, they were met with what I previously mentioned looked like a typical dinner scene. There were two plates of food containing cooked veggies, a cut of steak and gravy, as well as name cards containing the names of John's children. Yeah.

Only the steaks on the plates were not made of beef. Kangaroo? They were made of John Price. Wow. And the head cooking in the pot. Oh, she's a slaughterhouse person. Ugh. And the head in the pot, along with the cabbage and the seasoning, also belonged to John Price.

And the non-fabric curtain that I mentioned earlier, I don't know why I said it like curtain, that I mentioned earlier. Curtain. The one that the police officer, whose name was Scott Matthews, had to push aside to get in that left the blood on his arm, was in fact a human pelt made from John Price's skinned corpse. And it was hanging from a meat hook.

These slaughterhouse people. She knew what she was doing. It was a clean, once-over, entire skin suit. Yeah. Ripped off his body and hung up on a meat hook. Jesus. Well, she filleted his body expertly. Yeah. And intended to serve it to his children. Wow. She also put a piece of it in the dog bowl, which I'm not okay with. For obvious reasons. Right.

So here's what happened after John Price had fallen asleep on that fateful night. Catherine took one of her cherished butcher knives from near her bed and stabbed Pricey 37 times. According to evidence, he woke up during the attack, but he was unable to fight her off.

Then Catherine dragged his lifeless body downstairs, expertly skinned his mutilated corpse, and hung the skin suit from a meat hook in the living room. He's dead at this point. He's dead. Obviously. He died mercifully after the stabbings. She decapitated John's head, chopped up pieces of his body, and cooked them in a pot with potato, pumpkin, beets, zucchini, cabbage, squash, and gravy. Why? Because she ate him. What?

She prepared a plate for herself and ate him. Why'd she try to make it good, though? If you're gonna do it, do it. Put your best foot forward.

I mean, when you cook, do you add a little seasoning? I don't eat people. It doesn't matter. She doesn't give a fuck if it's a person. She's eating. She wants it to taste good. I feel like if you're eating a person, you just gum down whatever comes your way. Would you rather eat an arm that's unseasoned or an arm that's seasoned? Zero of them. None of them. Gun to your head. Which one are you eating? Gun to my head.

Put the gun to your head and pull the trigger before you eat a human arm. No, no food around, starving, person's dead already. Obviously, that's not the case here. I don't know. I think I would just eat it. I wouldn't be looking for it to taste like Old Bay or something. Keep something in mind. She was in control. This is important to understand. Yeah. And you'll understand why when we start to discuss her sentence.

She knew what she was doing. She was very much in control. She was very thought out. This was calculated. She didn't have a psychotic break. She didn't snap where she was in some kind of red zone and not processing what she was doing and not remembering what she was doing. And so she cuts them and slices and dices and throws in a stove and then eats.

She prepared this. That's crazy. Sorry. You know what I mean? Don't mean to use that in a pejorative way, but it is crazy. It's not crazy. It's fucking mental. It's crazy. Let's just call it that. Fucking mental. In the middle of this macabre nightmare, the cops hear a noise coming out of the bedroom. Pop quiz. Oh, boy. Did the cops find Catherine Knight snoring on the bed after swallowing a fistful of pills? No.

Did they find Catherine Knight sharpening knives in her black nightie? Did they find Catherine Knight wearing an apron and bagging up John Price's organs? Snoring? Yes.

Yes. You nailed it. Great. She attempted to make it look like- I have to be honest, though. I was just going over in my head what the choices were, snoring, sharpening knives, or sorting his organs. Yeah. I just said snoring first. That wasn't actually my guess. I was like- Why? It's just stuck in your head, you mean? No, I was going back through like, okay, what are the choices again? Snoring, sharpening knives, like I was going to, and then I said snoring, and you said yes. Okay.

Oh, you were reiterating what I had just said and I jumped the gun and told you you were right. And you took the credit. Sometimes you get a lucky one. I did not take the credit. You did it. You're right. I'm sorry. Yeah. But I'm taking the credit now. That's what I was going to say. Snoring. Snoring. Yep. She was snoring. Relaxed as hell. Yep. Just chilling. She attempted to make it look like she was committing suicide. Yeah. That was not the case.

The cops who stumbled upon this whole horrendous scene have apparently never recovered from the unfathomable horror of what they'd seen. They're people. Detective Sergeant Bob Wells, who was the lead investigator on this case, suffered a nervous breakdown. And I've heard him in interviews, and he almost can't even articulate...

Even if they're speaking to him just strictly about the facts and not about how it affected him, but strictly about the facts, he really struggles to even speak during these interviews. What's the guy's name? Detective Sergeant Bob Wells. Detective Sergeant Bob Wells. I'm going to look up some of his interviews. You should. For the six days that followed, Catherine Knight was admitted to Maitland Hospital claiming to have had no knowledge or memory of the crime. Sure.

Psychiatrists concluded that at the time of the murder, Catherine Knight had not been suffering from any type of mental illness. Further evidence to support that she was of sound mind was discovered by John Price's solicitor, so the guy who was representing John in this. He found bank statements reflecting money withdrawals from the night that Pricey was killed.

And three weeks earlier, Catherine told her brother that she planned to kill John Price and that when she did, she'd get away with it because she'd make everyone think that she was crazy. And he testified to that. Her brother? Mm-hmm. Good for him. Thank God for that guy. So is it possible that Catherine Knight could have been seen when she brutally killed, skinned, and cooked John Price? Yes.

How could someone be in their right mind and do what she did? Was she mad or was she bad? That's the question. Like the age-old question in like insanity defense cases and what have you. Yeah, I don't think she was mad. Bad, I mean, she's just way off. Unwell, needs to go to prison or probably just be killed. Like there's no...

Yeah. After a forensic psychiatrist named Robert Delaforce spent eight hours and 46 minutes with Catherine, he determined that not only did she know exactly what she was doing when she was doing it, but that she enjoyed it.

Yeah. In Australia, the law of mental impairment broadly states that to establish a defense on the grounds of insanity, it must be clearly proven that at the time of committing the act, the accused state of mind meant that they did not know what they were doing or if they did, that it was wrong.

So it was determined that Catherine was not legally insane when she butchered John. Yeah. She planned what she had done. She knew right from wrong. There were no voices in her head telling her to carry out the murder. She was cold. She was calculated. And she was completely lucid. That's terrible. If you're going to kill somebody, you want to be blacked out for it, I think. You don't want to remember every detail of it. Unless you're... What if you don't care? If you don't care, yeah, that's really sad.

So October 18th, 2001, Catherine Knight pleaded guilty to murdering John Price, and she was sentenced to life in prison at Silverwater Women's Correctional Center in Western Sydney. And for the first time in history, a woman in Australia was given a life sentence without parole. Good.

So the sentencing judge had the following to say, I think this is interesting. So, and if anybody is interested in like the legal angles of these cases, then they'll find this interesting too.

This is what the judge said.

even death on members of the community, particularly anyone who crossed her. These included the family members of Mr. Price. Furthermore, her history of serious violence, particularly involving knives and extending over a long period, strongly supports the conclusion that were she to be released into the community at any time, she would likely inflict serious harm, perhaps death and even mutilation on those who cross her. Yeah. He nailed it.

So while she continues to maintain her innocence and refuses to accept responsibility for her actions, even though she pleaded guilty, she still talks like she doesn't remember, she's innocent. Catherine Knight will never, ever be released. Good. And the final pop quiz, which one of the following statements is true? A, yes.

During her incarceration, Catherine Knight became prison friends with former penthouse pet Victoria Shemry, who was there for tax fraud. Okay. B, Catherine Knight sold her house to a tourism agency, which turned it into a macabre, there's your word, attraction, charging fees to those who dare to go inside. Uh-huh. Or C, Catherine Knight created and published a cookbook during her incarceration called Cooking What You Kill. Oh, my God.

So either she became friends with a playmate, sold her house to the tourism board, or made a cookbook called Cooking What You Kill. Right. Oh, my God. I will say that she... Tourism agency? Agency. I don't know what board you're talking about. Australian Tourism Board. Oh. She sold her house to the tourism agency. No.

She did not. I mean, she might have, but that's- She put out a cookbook? No. She became friends with a playmate, Victoria Chambry? Yes. I don't even think I could have made that one up. This penthouse pet was incarcerated for tax fraud, and she speaks so highly of Catherine Knight. Wow. And they became pals in prison. So, you know, never too late to just strike up a bestie. Make a friend. Right. Over some crime. Yeah.

Tax fraud. Cannibalism. Cannibalism. There's really no difference at that point. The IRS is sometimes worse than the FBI. Could be. You know? You might know. Not really. No, yeah, the IRS is. They don't play around.

They're not a joke. They're not to be trifled with. Well, they threw her into prison with cannibals and murderers, so... Yeah, those two things don't go together. No, I know. I think about that, too, because obviously tax fraud is a serious crime, but really? She's rubbing elbows with murderers and cannibals, and although she's not complaining, they became close.

I did see a video before, totally off topic, about a guy who ran from the police. And I felt so bad for the guy. He was, he's like, I'm on probation. I got kids at the house. And they were like, what are you on probation for? He's like, I got arrested for possession of marijuana. It's like, dude, you're like, you're going to ruin this guy's life. It's so bad. Ugh.

Let's get some laws in place that make sense. Right. I believe in accountability, but I do believe that there are circumstances that you have to consider if he's trying to feed his children and there were no victims involved in the crime. He wasn't even selling drugs at that time. They pulled him over for something else and he got scared and ran. It was heartbreaking. It is heartbreaking. But this case is like that all the time.

Right. But then you have like bail reform where they say, all right, fuck it. No bail for anybody. So this guy who may or may not have robbed us a store, we profiled, we're admitting it. We're letting him out. Let out the guy who we know who murdered three people so they can walk the street until their trial date. Backwards. Man, it's a blanket.

solution to a intricate problem. It's not going to, you know, thank you so much. Yeah. Blanket solution to an intricate problem. I know some words. Yeah. You want to write the next episode? Sure. All right. Not really. Um, all right. So thank you for listening to that. Sorry. You had to sit through it with us and go here, hear all the gory details, but you freaks probably like you guys. Don't be sorry. They love it. You love it. They love it. They're little freaks like me.

You little freak. So if you're enjoying the episode, please subscribe, rate, review. Find Investigator Slater on social media. I'm Tank Sinatra. And until then, have a great day and forget this episode ever happened. Thanks, guys.