John Price

**John Charles Thomas Price** (April 4, 1955 - February 29, 2000) was an Australian father of three who was murdered by his ex-partner, Katherine "Kathy" Knight.

## Backstory

John Price was born on the 4th of April in 1955, the oldest of six children. John had a limited education, when he left school at the age of 14 he could barely read and write. However, he was a hard worker and he worked in heavy machinery, earth moving equipment, trucking and mining. John married his wife Coleen, and they had three children together, a son and two daughters. In 1988, he split up with his wife Coleen after 15 years of marriage but they remained on good terms. John met Katherine at a local pub and the two started dating. It was a volatile relationship and Kathy became deeply paranoid that John was cheating on her. They split up and reconciled many times.

## Events

John Price desperately wanted to end the relationship with Kathy for good but he was worried that Kathy might start to target his children if he ended it. During the afternoon of 27 February 2000, a physical fight occurred whereby Kathy grabbed a knife and attempted to stab John. The next day John confided in his co-workers that he thought he was a dead man. His boss had offered John to stay at his house that night but John refused.

On 29 February, he stopped at the Scone Magistrate's Court on his way to work and took out a restraining order in an attempt to keep her away from both himself and his children. That afternoon, Price told his co-workers that if he did not come to work the next day, it would be because Knight had murdered him. Despite their pleas that Price should not return home, he stated that he was afraid Knight would kill his children if he did not. Price arrived home to find that Knight, although not there herself, had sent the children away for a sleep-over at a friend's house. He then spent the evening with his neighbours before returning home and going to bed at 11 pm.

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. She later arrived at Price's house while he was sleeping and sat watching television for a few minutes before having a shower. She then woke Price and they had sex, after which he fell asleep.

At 6 am the next day (1 March 2000), a neighbour became concerned that Price's car was still in the driveway, and when he did not arrive at work, his employer sent a worker to see what was wrong. Both the neighbour and the worker tried knocking on Price's bedroom window to wake him, but they alerted police after noticing blood on the front door.

Police arrived at 8 am. Breaking down the back door, police found Price's body, with Knight 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 the light on before attempting to escape while Knight chased him through the house. He managed to open the front door and get outside, but he either stumbled back inside or was dragged back into the hallway, where he finally died after bleeding out. Later, Knight went into Aberdeen and withdrew $1,000 from Price's account at an ATM. Price's autopsy revealed that he had been stabbed at least 37 times, in both the front and back of his body, with many of the wounds extending into vital organs.

Several hours after Price had died, Knight skinned him and hung the skin from a meat hook on the architrave of a door to the lounge room. She then decapitated Price and cooked parts of his body, serving up the meat with baked potato, pumpkin, beetroot, zucchini, cabbage, yellow squash and gravy in two settings at the dinner table, along with notes beside each plate, each having the name of one of Price's children on it. She was preparing to serve his body parts to his children. A third meal was thrown on the back lawn for unknown reasons, and it is speculated that Knight had attempted to eat it but could not.

## Aftermath

Kathy pled not guilty to the murder of John, despite the mounting evidence against her. Just as the trial was about to begin, Kathy changed her plea to guilty, and the jury was dismissed. The judge ordered a psychiatric evaluation for Kathy to determine if she understood the consequences of a guilty plea and was fit to make such a plea. She was determined to be sane other than a diagnosis of borderline personality disorder. Despite pleading guilty, Knight still refused to accept responsibility for her actions.

On 8 November, Justice O'Keefe pointed out that the nature of the crime and Knight's lack of remorse required a severe penalty. He sentenced her to life imprisonment, refused to fix a non-parole period and ordered that her papers be marked "never to be released", the first time that this had been imposed on a woman in Australian history.

She is currently is imprisoned at Clarence Correctional Centre located near Grafton, New South Wales, Australia.