Volume 17 · Chapter 1
The Butcher of Aberdeen
Katherine Mary Knight
Victim: John Price
Case at a glance
- When
- March 1, 2000
- Where
- Aberdeen, New South Wales, Australia
- Perpetrator
- Katherine Mary Knight
- Victim
- John Price
- Outcome
- Pleaded guilty to murder and sentenced in 2001 to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole; appeal dismissed in 2006
The case
Katherine Knight had long worked in meat plants in the Hunter Valley of New South Wales. By the late 1990s she was in a volatile relationship with John Price, a 44-year-old coal miner in the small town of Aberdeen. On February 28, 2000, days after Knight had knifed him in the chest, Price went to court for an order to keep her away from him, and he told coworkers he feared she would kill him.
Knight went back to his house anyway. In the early hours of March 1, 2000, she attacked Price with a butcher’s knife while he slept and stabbed him at least 37 times as he tried to flee, then mutilated his body using the skills she had learned at the slaughterhouse. When he missed work, a coworker was sent to check on him. Police found that Knight had started cooking parts of the body and had set places at the table for two of his children. She was lying unconscious after taking an overdose of pills.
Knight pleaded guilty to murder in October 2001. On November 8, 2001, Justice Barry O’Keefe sentenced her to life imprisonment and directed that she never be released, making her the first woman in Australia sentenced to life with no possibility of parole. The New South Wales Court of Criminal Appeal dismissed her appeal in September 2006.
Read the full story
This case is told in full in True Crime Case Histories, Volume 17 by Jason Neal.
Get Volume 17 on AmazonCase photographs
8 photos
Where it happened
Why this case
“People tend to remember only the kitchen in this case. I try to keep John Price at the center of it. He saw the danger clearly, went to court, and told the men he worked with exactly what he feared. His warning was on the record, and it still did not keep him alive through that night.”
— Jason Neal, author of True Crime Case Histories
