Rogue and Wicked
True Crime podcast with dark humor, two sexy brunettes, sprinkled with some paranormal stories and some pop culture for your hearing pleasure. We dive deep into true crime cases and give you the details that you don't always see in any one documentary. Follow us at Rogueandwicked on tiktok, instagram, facebook, twitter and youtube for pictures and more content on our cases.
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Rogue and Wicked
Katherine Knight: A Deep-Dive into Australia's Most Notorious Murderess
Would you dare to stare into the abyss that is the life of Katherine Knight, one of Australia's most notorious murderers? Hold on tight, as we unravel the chilling saga of this infamous woman. We take you through her troubling upbringing, her tumultuous marriage to David Collette, and her increasingly violent behavior leading up to the stomach-churning crime she committed against John Price. This is a tale that is as gripping as it is horrifying, unveiling the darkest corners of human nature.
Our discussion doesn't stop at the gruesome details of Katherine's life and crime. We delve deeper into the aftermath of her heinous act, the startling evidence found at the scene, and the unsettling note discovered on a photograph of John. The trial, the courtroom drama, and the final verdict, we cover it all. This narrative of Katherine Knight's life is an exploration into the macabre, one that promises to leave you pondering on the depths of human depravity.
References:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katherine_Knight
https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x3i3696
Crimes that shook Australia: Katherine Mary knight
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Script's, Editing, Social Media and the Creator of the show: Tiffany
Co-host and author of the book series "sage": Wendy
Music by Bo Todd
Welcome to Rogue and Wicked. We're the third weekend of spooky season. I'm real excited because before the end of spooky season, I have to go to some of the haunted attractions around here, because we have some around here in Jersey that are out of control. You mean haunted houses? Yeah, haunted attractions, not haunted houses, they're haunted attractions. They're like legit, like hay rides that have animatronic animals with different haunted house themes that you drive through. And then there's about I don't know, maybe four or five other haunted attractions within the haunted attraction Hell yeah, dude, we love to go to Fright Kingdom, which is not too far from here.
Wendy:It's in New Hampshire but we're in Massachusetts and everything is pretty accessible. It's about a 45 minute drive from where we live and it's a five part haunted house and it is bad as shit. The very first time I went there I was enthralled, because it's as I think I mentioned last year. There's like a whole array of horror fanatic collectors type stuff on your way in, before you even get into the haunted houses. And then each haunted house is so substantially different from the next, like they all have completely different aesthetics and vibes to them. Some of the clowns and stuff like I got fried dough and I asked one of the clowns to come up and use their chainsaw on it for me and I got a nice recording Like I was like in my glory there. I could sleep overnight in that haunted house. It's so bad shit.
Tiffany:Yeah, well, I gotta get you to come down here and see this one, because it's-.
Wendy:I know that sounds amazing animatronic horses.
Tiffany:Not everything. It's animatronic everything. There's monsters, there's devils, there's demon things. There's all kinds of stuff. There's different themed ones that you go through with the hayride, so there's like a lot. It's a lot. There's so many. That sounds dope. Yeah, and it's sweet. It's on this giant farm, it's in South Jersey and it's badass.
Wendy:Well, there were some animatronics at this place, but they were mostly the display type stuff, Like there was a band playing a skeleton band playing Ozzy, which was badass. They had the Crumpus. You know what I'm talking about. Hey, I think I posted it online where they're like holding children by their feet and they're fucking screaming. It's so it's fucking great. I laughed so hard when I saw that too. I was like standing in line laughing while I was recording it. But what's great is there's only adults that go. So you've gotta be a really cool adult if you're into that type of shit. So everybody's vibin' yeah yeah, that's good.
Tiffany:I like that when everybody's vibin' when everybody else, especially when you're all into the same things.
Wendy:Yeah, that's exactly dude, when you go to places like national parks or you know things of that nature like horror shows or actually we're gonna go see the Exorcist in about two weeks yeah, sweet, you know cool people are gonna be there because, like, who's gonna go see like an old school movie in the theater if they're not fucking?
Tiffany:awesome. No, because I wanna go see the Rocky Horror Picture Show, because they do it everywhere every Halloween. Hell yeah.
Wendy:It's the bomb.
Tiffany:Yeah, I wanna see it because they always do like the play, where they interact it, and then they do the actual movie showing, oh wow they do both. Mm-hmm.
Wendy:No, that's pretty cool. I didn't know they did that.
Tiffany:They do that shit everywhere, though I'm sure they have one in your area too. They do them all over.
Wendy:So, anyway, what are we up to today? What are we learning about?
Tiffany:Well, in lieu of haunted attractions, we're gonna be talking about Catherine Knight, and Catherine Knight is one of Australia's most infamous murderers. Does she have a?
Wendy:firebird that speaks to her.
Tiffany:No, but she has a house that is very similar to the Texas Chainsaw Massacre home. This chick was so wild that roughneck brothers were afraid of her, especially with her hair trigger temper and unpredictability when a guy calls a woman crazy. Catherine Knight is who I envision, and I have to start this story at the beginning, because it starts as a slow progression that ends in insanity. Catherine Knight was born in October of 1955 in Aberdeen, new South Wales, hunter Valley, to Barbara Ruffin. Aberdeen is a small mining community about 300 miles from Sydney, australia. It was an industrial town that was transformed into a country town.
Tiffany:Once the Industrial Revolution had seen its day, aberdeen went from a prosperous industrial town to a dilapidated podunk town. This rundown rural town had only two pubs. One was at the top of Aberdeen and the other at the bottom. Nature has since grown over some of the abandoned buildings that still stand and the people of the town have intense economic struggles to now contend with. Barbara and her husband, jack, had four boys between the two of them. The illusion of a large, happy family dissipated into an apparition Once Barbara decided to get down with Jack's best friend. Barbara started having an affair with Ken, who was Jack's best friend and co-worker, barbie and Ken. I know, isn't it?
Wendy:I knew you were going to say that.
Tiffany:The entire town soon found out through the game of telephone about Barbara's spicy affair. Because of the local backlash and embarrassment, the couple decided to move to More. Barbara's two oldest sons stayed with their father, jack, and her two youngest sons went to stay with their aunt in Sydney. Ken and Barbara's affair continued producing four more children, including Catherine and Ken, and Barbie had a set of twin girls in 1955. Catherine was one of the two twins.
Tiffany:In 1959, barbara's ex-husband, jack Ruffin, died. This left the two older boys to fend for themselves. Barbara and Ken felt bad for the boys and moved them in with their four children. So now they have six kids in the home and the two of them. The family was described as extremely dysfunctional and it was said that Ken was a severe alcoholic. He would rape Barbara while he was intoxicated up to ten times a day. All of the children knew about the violence against their mother because Barbara would talk about it openly with the children, shaping her children's minds into believing that it was normal to put up with rape. Ken managed to instill in her daughter's minds that when men take what they want, it's the woman's job to just put up with it and give it to them.
Wendy:I wonder how much of that rape they were hearing through the walls too.
Tiffany:Oh yeah.
Wendy:Or if her intention was to let them know. This is what's happening to me.
Tiffany:Well, I couldn't find anything to say yay or nay as to if Ken had raped Barbara. I want to say Barbie, I keep wanting to say Barbie, barbara in front of the children, but I would assume that it's very likely.
Wendy:Yeah, it takes a really big house to separate those two things from each other.
Tiffany:Somebody's going to hear something if they didn't see it Right exactly.
Wendy:And not only that. With that many kids, one person hears it, they all talking about it.
Tiffany:Oh yeah, during Catherine's childhood she was raped and molested by several members of her family. Funny enough, none of those family members were her father. Her claims about her childhood sexual abuse were doubted by many, but psychologists have said that they believe her to be telling the truth about most of the details. Catherine was extremely close to her uncle, oscar, who was a champion horseman. The family was so toxic that he was the only family member that Catherine could relate to, aside from her twin sister, of course. Unfortunately, he committed suicide in 1969 and the death left Catherine completely devastated. Catherine's sanity started pivoting off of this tragedy, so much so that she claimed her uncle's ghost continued to visit her for many years after his death. Maybe she seen it, maybe she didn't, but with all the psychological trauma she endured, I believe that it could have been all in her head, or maybe it wasn't, but that's because I also believe in ghosts.
Wendy:You know, what I've learned too and this makes a believable it seems believable to me is that if somebody goes through an extreme amount of trauma, their sensors are on high alert, and when said sensors are on high alert, they tend to pick up more things.
Tiffany:Yeah, I think so too.
Wendy:It's more of a sixth sense, and a lot of people who've been traumatized too, they can sense things about other people. So I don't just mean like living people, but there's a little bit of clairvoyance that comes along with having a certain aspect of yourself opened. You know what I mean.
Tiffany:Oh yeah, that's what they say. Empaths are, you know, people who have been through some shit that are more open energetically.
Wendy:Yeah, I heard that too, and they're kind of one and the same they are.
Tiffany:The family decided that enough time had passed and moved back to Aberdeen. Catherine enrolled in and attended Moosewell Brook High School. While in school, everyone could see her mental health steadily declining. Catherine was bullying the smaller kids and acting out violently with the faculty. In fact, one teacher was injured while trying to defend themselves from Catherine's tirades, and another boy was assaulted with a weapon. Catherine was described by her peers as quiet and a lunar, in contrast with her violence and rage. She had also gotten multiple awards for being a good student, which I found to be completely contradictory.
Wendy:Unless she was a good student most of the time and then occasionally triggered and had these outbursts where she'd just hold it in until that moment and then be like wha Maybe I know people like that?
Tiffany:Oh, I do too. I went to school with a couple of them. One of them ended up going to prison for murder.
Wendy:They're like timid ticking time bombs, and then they go off.
Tiffany:That's why I'm nice to the ones that are like volatile, because I'm afraid, like if I'm mean to them, that they're gonna blast me or something.
Wendy:It's the quiet ones, motherfucker, until they're not Still, waters run deep.
Tiffany:That's what my mom always told me. She eventually dropped out of school at age 15, without ever learning to read or write. She did this to get a job as a cutter for a clothing factory. Catherine worked at the clothing factory for a little over a year before she found her dream job. She wanted to work at an abattoir, which is a slaughterhouse. She wanted to climb the ropes and hone her craft so that she could become a butcher. When she landed the job at the local abattoir, she started as a general laborer and worked her way up from there.
Tiffany:Catherine was introduced to the awful room where she learned to cut up animal carcasses using various different types of knives and cutting techniques. She was so excited that she went out and had purchased her own set of beautiful butcher knives to help her with her work. However, it took Catherine a little over a decade to fully learn the trade. Catherine had a fascination with knives. I'm lying, it was more than a fascination, it was an obsession. So much so that Catherine decided to hang them all along the wall at the head of the bed. She kept the knives hanging above her bed because they made her feel safe and were a reminder that if she needed them, they would always be there.
Wendy:I can appreciate the fascination with knives, as you know.
Tiffany:Oh, I know you can because you collect knives. I do.
Wendy:You know, I started with coins and then it became a knife collection by seven and now my knife collection is substantial. In fact I did a TikTok about my knife collection the other day and I had so many knives that I used a whole plethora of displays and I still ran out of time so I couldn't even show them all. But yeah, I think knives in and of themselves are fascinating, but not behind the, not when they're yielded by a psychopath.
Tiffany:No, and especially when you're hanging them over the bed like that you're banging. I'd be afraid that like they would fall down and like decapitate me.
Wendy:Like that Bride of Chuckie scene.
Tiffany:Oh, I didn't even realize there was a Bride of Chuckie scene. It's like that I've seen a movie, but I've watched so many, I can't remember.
Wendy:Well, it wasn't knives that fell, it was glass they had hanging over their head. Oh, it's same things. You have to imagine those things falling on you. Yeah, sick fuck, it's like the Adams family cradle.
Tiffany:Exactly, yeah, that's what it kind of reminded me of. David Collette eventually crossed paths with Catherine in 1973. After he was let go from his previous job, david had a bit of a drinking problem that resulted in bad performance and bad behavior at work. This all stemmed from trauma that David endured when his best friend was killed in front of him in a shunting accident. And if that wasn't bad enough, david also had to save children from a school bus after it was struck by a train. Unfortunately, there were six children that died in this accident and the events never left David's mind. These tragic events fueled his alcoholism.
Tiffany:It was a delight for David to get a fresh new job. This job gave him a do-over, and that's where he met his Bride-to-Be, catherine. Their relationship was wild. Whenever David would get into a fight, catherine had no problem backing him up with closed fist punches. She was rough, tough and didn't put up with any shit.
Tiffany:At the time, she had a bit of a reputation for having a huge chip on her shoulder. If anyone pissed her off or annoyed her, she would threaten every one of them with extreme violence. With his drinking problem and her violent demeanor, they were the perfect couple from hell. Catherine pushed David to be married because she had serious abandonment issues and by 1974, the couple was Catherine drove drunk David to the altar on her motorcycle with him and the pillion. I think David was so drunk that he didn't even know what the fuck he was getting himself into. But he had gotten a fair warning from Catherine's mother at the surface. She said watch out for Catherine or she'll fucking kill you. Stir her up the wrong way or do the wrong thing and you're fucked.
Wendy:He probably just thought that it was just one of those. Oh well, yeah, I know she's a little crazy, but that's my girl.
Tiffany:No, this is way, no way, because listen to this shit. She says don't ever think of playing up on her, meaning don't cheat on her or she'll fucking kill you. She like straight up told him like she'll fucking kill you. And then she said she's got something loose. She's got a screw loose somewhere. After the ceremony the two went home to consummate the marriage With Catherine's vivacious sex drive. The couple went for about three full rounds. When Catherine wanted to go a fourth round, david was so drunk and tired from laying all that pipe that he passed out.
Wendy:Yeah he was done laying all that pipe. I can't.
Tiffany:While Catherine was so fucking mad that she climbed on top of him, grabbed his throat and started strangling him to death. He woke up fucking afraid and confused and had no idea what the fuck was going on. He managed to fight her off and barely made it out of their honeymoon alive.
Wendy:They're off to an absolutely romantic start.
Tiffany:Yeah, especially when his mother and law told him oh, like you better watch your ass, like earlier on in the night.
Tiffany:And then, the first fucking night that they're married, she tries to kill him. It's not even funny, but it's funny because, like you were warned, like it's not like a surprise, you know. Oh, man. So this was a prelude to how the marriage was about to unfold in the years to follow. If you haven't guessed already, it was very violent and an intense marriage.
Tiffany:Catherine and David would often get into physical fights, mostly instigated by Catherine. Once she was pregnant. She was so pissed off that David came home late after a darts tournament that she hit him over the head with a frying pan. She hit him so hard in the head that he was in fear for his life and decided to run like a gazelle to the neighbor's house before he collapsed on the neighbor's floor. It turned out that Catherine fractured his skull with the frying pan and that he was treated at the hospital for his injuries. The police pushed for David to press charges on Catherine, but David was a battered husband who was manipulated by Catherine. She managed to schmooze up to him and manipulated him into dropping the charges.
Tiffany:In 1976, David had enough of Catherine's shit. After only being married for two years, he took off with another woman and moved to Queensland. Their daughter, melissa, was born shortly before he left and he couldn't cope with that ongoing abuse that Catherine was inflicting on him and I don't know why he left a newborn with her, being that she was so violent, but he did. And the day after he left, catherine was seen violently slinging her newborn baby around in a stroller by witnesses. She was just winging the stroller as hard as she could back and forth like bang, bang, bang, and she's just walking down the street like a complete fucking nutcase. Holy shit, yeah it was fucking wild.
Wendy:You know, the only thing I can surmise in regards to him deciding to leave the kid there is maybe, oh, she won't do it to the baby, or, if I take the baby, she's definitely coming after me, yeah probably, and he was just completely terrified by her. Oh yeah, or he, maybe the both. Maybe because he was terrified by her and he figured well, she would never do that to the baby, maybe not.
Tiffany:Maybe he didn't think that.
Wendy:In either way, it was a wimp move on his part, yeah, but she still did so.
Tiffany:But after that alarming sight the people reported her to the police and she was hospitalized briefly at St Elmo's Hospital in Tamworth, and it was there that she was diagnosed with postnatal depression. That's what they said, and she spent several weeks in hospital care. Do you know what?
Wendy:that is. I know what postpartum depression is, but I've never heard of that before.
Tiffany:It's like the same thing I said, okay, yeah. When Catherine was released, she had another mental break, in public. This time she took the now two month old and placed her on the railroad tracks, like one of them old-timey cartoons. She timed it so that the train would be coming just minutes after placing her down, and after she placed the baby on the track she just strolled off like nothing happened.
Wendy:I know you didn't just reference that to a fucking old Warner Brothers cartoon. Oh, yes, yes, you did.
Tiffany:Okay, I didn't mean it in like a, you know, like a funny sense. I just meant like to get a visual.
Wendy:That's what I pictured, oh no, I got the visual and it went.
Tiffany:Warner Brothers, yeah, and it's like spectacle imprinted well done, yeah but instead she went and grabbed an axe and she went into town and when she was in town she was threatening to kill random ass people. Why they let her out of the hospital when it was obvious that she was having a psychotic break was beyond me, but they did. A homeless man known as Old Ted was looking for things to collect near railroad tracks when he spotted Melissa the baby all alone, just laying there. So he rushed to pick her up and carry her off the train tracks. This is why I made the Warner Brothers joke, because she was fine. I wouldn't make a victim joke because that would be fucked up. The baby was okay. That's why I made the joke. Thank, goodness.
Tiffany:Surprise, but literally two minutes before the train was supposed to come, barreling down the tracks, he just carries the baby off and saves the baby's life. Catherine was arrested again and taken back to the hospital for evaluation, but was then released the next day after she recovered and signed herself out. And when I say recovered, I actually put that in like air quotations, because she wasn't recovered, she signed herself out and she I was just gonna say the fucking key word is that she signed herself out.
Wendy:Keyed words Exactly. Well, okay, I'm not crazy here. Let me sign right on the bottom line. I'm not crazy. Signed Catherine.
Tiffany:Yeah, yeah, catherine tonight. Wait, wait, let me lick the tip of that pen. A couple days later, catherine was off the hook again. This time she was pissed off at her ex-husband and went out looking for him. She spotted a woman who had a vehicle and while she was on her tirade, she took one of her precious knives and slashed the woman's face wide open. Then Catherine demanded that the woman drive her to Queensland you know where her husband lived and with his new girlfriend. Oh no, oh yes. The woman stopped at Catherine's request at the service station, which is like a for us here, it's basically just a gas station. As Catherine was getting out of the vehicle, the woman saw that as her opportunity to escape.
Tiffany:Witnesses informed police about the insanity taking place before their eyes, but police didn't get to the service station until after Catherine had taken a young boy hostage and was threatening him with a knife. What was wild was that police didn't shoot Catherine, but instead attacked her with brooms to disarm her. How, why were they attacking her with brooms? Like they just started? They ran up on her and they just started hitting her with literal ass brooms, as if you were scolding like a dog. Like, get back, get back and eventually she was arrested and taken to the Mortisette Psychiatric Hospital. At the hospital, catherine wasn't shy about telling the nurses on staff about why she had committed such heinous crimes. She told them that she wanted to kill the mechanic at the service station for fixing her husband's car, because without a working car her husband wouldn't have been able to leave her. Can you imagine?
Wendy:the look on this on their faces while she's doing this. Oh no Like.
Tiffany:And you know, if that son of a bitch didn't fix his car, he could have never gotten away, actually, she then tells the nurses that her plan was to kill her husband and then kill his mother once she arrived in Queensland. So not only she wanted to kill him, but she wanted to kill her mother-in-law. I don't know why, but she did.
Wendy:I hear that a lot, though that one's pretty cliche, yeah, yeah right.
Tiffany:But once the police informed David of Catherine's plans to kill him, he decided to leave his girlfriend, move in with his mother and then return to Aberdeen to support his estranged wife. What You've got to be shitting me right. They're like, hey, sonny, you know your wife is going to kill you. And he's like, oh really, well, let me go take her in and break up with my girlfriend.
Wendy:Yeah, and she wanted to kill her too. Yeah, that's wild, I know. Talk about avoiding red flags.
Tiffany:Oh yeah, that's like you just like, you're just like blind to them, you're just putting them glasses on them, them, them, them flag, those hater blockers, those, those flag blockers.
Wendy:Red flags. But well, what do you mean? I thought I was out of circus.
Tiffany:Catherine was released on August 9th 1976 into the care of her mother-in-law, the one that she had threatened to kill.
Wendy:All right, this is fucking getting so. This is so bizarre. I know, I know.
Tiffany:And see, she never killed her mother-in-law during that stay, so so she was fine and I guess that was because David didn't leave her. Catherine had another baby with David in 1980, so they would have been back together for four years at this point, and he knows that she swung the baby around in all of that. Oh yeah, okay, all right, yeah, I ain't charging a man bump. Drink of my tea over here a little bit.
Wendy:Yes, you are, yes, you are.
Tiffany:But Catherine eventually left David in 1984 and moved in with her own mother shortly after she moved into a rented house. By 1986, catherine was back in the dating scene. This time she met a 38-year-old minor named David Saunders. A few months after the two had met, david moved in with her and her two daughters. The happiness of this budding relationship was very short-lived, because Catherine started to become increasingly jealous. Whenever David wasn't around, she would accuse him of flandering, doing things that he wasn't doing or going places that he wasn't going. Her tirades were so out of control that Catherine would repeatedly throw him out of the house. Thank God he kept his apartment in scone because that's where he would find solace when things were getting a little too tense at home. To get David back, good old Catherine would often show up at his apartment, beg plead and stalk him into coming back to her. In 1987, david adopted a cute little dingo pup and decided to raise it as his own, and I gotta tell you it's a trigger warning for all you animal lovers.
Wendy:I'm out.
Tiffany:No, you can't leave, I keep going.
Wendy:God damn it no.
Tiffany:Just go. La la, la, la, la la la. Catherine was in a bad mood and wanted to assert her dominance. She walked up to that pup, she took out a knife and she slit the dog's throat right in front of David Upset. He and Catherine had gotten into an altercation and she whacked him unconscious with a frying pan. Clear, knocked him out. And the reason for this, for this whole thing, for the dog and everything she wanted to make an example out of the pup to show David what she would do if he ever left her. Talk about fucking abandonment issues. Talk about no remorse.
Wendy:Yeah, that too I can deal with abandonment issues as it resonates with me a little bit.
Tiffany:But that's sick and what you would expect to happen just didn't happen. David didn't leave, even after she killed his precious dog, and in 1988, catherine gives birth to another daughter. David put down a deposit on a home for the family and Catherine paid it off with her workers' compensation money. David gave Catherine free reign to decorate the shared family home. Catherine wanted to put a woman's touch on the home, because what's a home without a space decorated with love?
Tiffany:The house was decorated with taxidermized animal corpses, knives, pitchforks, rusty old animal traps, machetes and rakes From floor to ceiling. She left no space without decor, screw, baby-proofing. She made it a death trap for small children. The stylish Texas Chainsaw Massacre style home wasn't enough to scare David Saunders away yet, but what happened next was the two had gotten into another verbal altercation that resulted in Catherine hitting David in the face with an iron, then stabbing him with a pair of scissors and the abdomen Almost getting gutted by his wife was the last straw, and he moved back to scone Again. When David came back to get his belongings, he found that all of his clothes were shredded with scissors.
Wendy:By belongings. Are children incorporated into this?
Tiffany:No, no, Just so you can come back to get his clothes and stuff. So he left the kids there again.
Tiffany:Yeah, the kids aren't referenced a lot in this. I'm guessing because you know they were minors at the time some of them because she had a lot of kids and I didn't keep track of him because they really didn't play a part in the story. But I don't think he did, because he went into hiding shortly after this incident and he didn't tell anyone where he was for like a long time. He did return to Aberdeen to visit with his daughter later but found out that Catherine had reported him to the police, so I'm assuming he left his daughter with her.
Wendy:He is terrified of this woman. I mean, he has no paternal instincts in regards to protecting his children from her. He is so terrified from her, it seems.
Tiffany:Oh yeah, she's like the alpha dog. Now, right after that, after Catherine had reported him to the police, david was promptly served with a protection order. In 1991, catherine had another baby with a man named John Chillingworth, but shortly after cheated on him with John Price. John Price was a father of three children when he started going out with Catherine. He was well liked by his co-workers and peers. John was recently divorced. He and his ex finalized the divorce in 1988. Two of his children decided to reside with him and one child stayed with his ex-wife. Strangely enough, the two children who resided with John liked Catherine, despite her violent nature. Also, john was well aware of Catherine's reputation for being violent. When he had entered into the relationship, john had decided to take a swan dive off of a cliff into a basin of red flags, as if it was a cool crisp pool on a hot summer's day. That was beautifully terrible.
Wendy:Well, well worth it.
Tiffany:Thank you. Thank you very much. John was considered a functional alcoholic. He was always on time. He never called off of work and was responsible. His co-workers, friends and family all loved him because he was loyal, reliable and a likable guy. The couple hung out with people of like mind, like tempered and rough around the edges. Their inner circle was mainly described as fast-talking, swearing and rough and tough kind of people. Their friends described Catherine as a revenge and entitled kind of woman. As we have discussed before, she was jealous, vindictive, high-strung and violent. Friends of John could see her erratic behavior worsening as their relationship progressed.
Wendy:Isn't it always so when the friends can see it before we can, of course, they always know better. Tiffany's like yes, wendy, we've been here before.
Tiffany:In 1998, John refused to marry Catherine because she was kind of pushing for it at this point. So Catherine videotaped a first-aid kit that she thought he had stolen from the mind that he worked at and took the video to John's manager. John was promptly fired over this supposed quote-unquote stolen first-aid kit. The first-aid kit was actually fucking expired and was going to be thrown out anyway, which is why John had taken it in the first place. But Catherine was willing to sabotage their money and their livelihood just to get revenge.
Wendy:What kind of fucking first-aid kit is this? Mine have been.
Tiffany:It's just like a basic ass first-aid kit, like one of them boxed first-aid kits. He just wanted to take it home because it was expired and he didn't think that it was bad.
Wendy:Right, probably because it wasn't. No, it wasn't, but they were going to throw it out anyway, so I did not know until this moment that first-aid kits had expiration dates on it, because I can't think of a perishable in mine.
Tiffany:Well, maybe the solution and stuff that they put inside, like the Potentially, yeah, maybe it dries up. That's what I'm thinking, yeah.
Wendy:Yeah, okay, I guess that's possible but still.
Tiffany:But all the other materials you could still salvage, which is why he was taking it. And I'm like that's fucked up. If I was his boss and I knew that the first-aid kit was expired and they were going to throw it out anyway, I wouldn't have fired them.
Wendy:Yeah, some companies are really weird about things like that, particularly in the restaurant industry.
Tiffany:They'll throw away food that can be eaten just because it's regulations, yeah, but it's like you shouldn't fire somebody for taking it. It's ridiculous.
Wendy:No.
Tiffany:You're going to throw it out anyway.
Wendy:Exactly.
Tiffany:The logic is that yeah, it's illogical for sure, At one point John threw Catherine out for like three months, but with Catherine's track record she was keen to manipulate her way back into his heart and his home and of course he took her back, like he always did, and of course that was the biggest mistake of his life.
Wendy:I have to say this, and I know you're probably thinking it too.
Tiffany:Catherine is probably wild in this sack. That's what I was thinking. She's got to be squirrelly in there.
Wendy:Yeah, I knew that you were thinking that too. Because she's, I guarantee she weaponizes sex and usually I hate to say it, but the crazy ones you know?
Tiffany:Oh yeah, they're freaky. I'm going to tell you what, catherine. I saw pictures of this woman. She looks like it's like the nice little lady that lives next door to your house. She was like red hair and it was all kept nice. She looked like a goodie to shoe. She was dressed all cute. Yeah, like she looks like a little old mom. You know A little mom.
Wendy:So she's got the goodie to shoe. Look, but the bad girl attitude, yeah, and she's probably wild in bed. I see she's using that trifecta to get her.
Tiffany:She looks like the girl next door but has the attitude of the bitch down the street and you know she's probably a psychopath. I don't know.
Wendy:But Well, with her sex drive and her mental capacity, like I would definitely imagine, she's maybe into some BDSM.
Tiffany:I don't know John's friends lost all respect for him once he took Catherine back. It got so bad that John even had to go to a different pub in Aberdeen because nobody wanted Catherine around anymore. Things were spiraling out of control in John and Catherine's relationship. If you hadn't already noticed, john was all too aware that leaving this time was going to be extremely messy, because you know what they say, the time that it's the most dangerous is when you're leaving a relationship with an abuser. Every time Catherine would hit him, threaten him or do something off kilter. He made sure to tell a friend about the incident, just in case he turned up missing, like he knew that it was common. John tried to kick Catherine out, but she wouldn't leave, so he tried getting a court order to have her removed from the premises. Unfortunately, the court was so slow moving that John thought that this was completely unfair and it was technically John's house. He felt like he shouldn't have to go through all this just to have her removed. Waiting for due process was crazy and John tries to make the best of the situation until she's removed. But now he's in for a rude awakening because the court is literally dragging its feet here.
Tiffany:One of the following nights John wakes up to Catherine standing over him with a knife in the darkness of the bedroom, startled. He jumps out of bed, ran out of the house thinking she's going to stab him and in self-preservation, catherine calls the police and tells them that John was getting violent with her, then took out a restraining order on John. Unfortunately, john kept in contact with Catherine after the restraining order was filed. The two were completely trauma bonded. He would stay away, then contact her, stay away, then contact her. The cycle went on for a long time until John goes into work and he's completely shaken off. John's co-workers ask him what's going on and why are you so rattled? And he tells them that he was worried that she was going to quote-on-quote, do me in or, to put a, plainly kill him. The next day John goes to the court magistrate and tells them what's going on. He leaves everything out on the table. Now he's taking out a restraining order on Catherine, but of course John can't shake Catherine. So the cycle continues. They both keep in contact, completely disregarding their restraining orders, and Catherine becomes increasingly unhinged. John decided to stop over his co-workers' house to have a few beers and hang out. What John says to his co-worker is chilling. He tells them I can't do an Australian accent so I don't pardon me, I'm going to have to say it in an American accent. Mate, if you see my white van out front in the morning, that means she's done it. She's done me.
Tiffany:In March 1st 2000, police received a phone call that 45-year-old John Price hadn't shown up to work at the mines that day. Police thought maybe he overslept, but his workmates were adamant that it wasn't like John to be a no-call-no show. Two investigators do a welfare check on John at his manager's request. The investigator immediately notices blood on the door jamb. He looked through what I took was the mail slot, because it didn't really say but he said it was like a slot in the door. So I'm assuming it was a mail slot and he saw a curtain hanging in his immediate view. They knocked but no one answered the door.
Tiffany:So the two officers decide to walk around the back of the house and break in through the back door. They see the thing that they think is a curtain hanging in the door way going into the kitchen. They push past it and the one officer feels coldness like on his arm and he looks down and he realizes his arm is covered in blood that the curtain wasn't a curtain at all. It was a human pelt. In the living room was a corpse of a man's body posed with his legs crossed and his arm draped over a soda bottle. There was blood all over the house. When police make their way into the kitchen, they notice a pot on the stove. Inside the pot was John's decapitated head.
Wendy:What this is? Some cannibal lecture shit right here.
Tiffany:Oh yeah, baby, it is what. Floating aside multiple vegetables and still warm to the touch, on the counter was a variety of chopped vegetables and knives. It looked as if somebody was in the middle of cooking dinner. Then it dawned on investigators that they should check the rest of the house to make sure the person who did this wasn't still inside.
Wendy:They were like shocked and they were paying attention.
Tiffany:They're like holy shit.
Wendy:We better check the rest of the house.
Tiffany:So they went room to room listening for the perpetrator. They hear snoring coming from one of the bedrooms and they're like what the fuck is that? So they open the door and they look in the room and they find a woman sleeping on the bed and it's Catherine Knight and she's sleeping like a fucking baby and they try to wake her but she's like not waking up. She's like out cold. So they try to like wake her but she's under the influence of something, some sort of medication. The officers move her to the back lawn so they carry her out of the house, put her in the grass and now they're trying to wake her outside. They're having a hard time. They believe that she was trying to commit suicide and they called an ambulance.
Wendy:Did they put shackles on her, tie her down, make sure that she wouldn't try to kill them when she?
Tiffany:awoke. No, no, they just. I don't think they did. I think she was out cold.
Wendy:Oh, that would have been my first precautionary measure.
Tiffany:Well, yeah, I know right, if you walk into that scene I would think that you shackle somebody. But I don't know, they may have I'm not sure, but I know they called an ambulance, so I know that the ambulance probably took her from there.
Wendy:Let a sleeping monster sleep, okay.
Tiffany:Yeah, let that dragon, let that sleeping dragon lie. No one else was in the house and forensic investigators arrive on the scene to piece together the rest of the story. They instantly smelled a sweet odor, as if somebody had been cooking stew. They even said, like on the documentary, that he was actually hungry. The investigator, when he walked in, he said it smelled that good. I mean I'm not making a joke, I mean it is bizarre. Like yeah, I laughed a little bit when I watched it, but he really was hungry, so she must have seasoned it well, right. And when you find out what it was plated with, you're probably going to think the same thing, because I like, when he said he described it as a stew, I could, I in my mind I literally pictured like roast beef stew or something.
Wendy:Right, I don't know exactly what a human smells like when you cook them, of course, but I'm not privy to that information. But I could guess that, as as it is with most stews, you smell the seasoning more than you do the meat.
Tiffany:Anyway, yeah, yeah, I think so too. I mean, you do smell the meat, but usually with the seasoning it makes it smell better.
Wendy:Right, exactly, and whatever kind of meat is in there is completely altered and enhanced. You have osmosis going on, you know.
Tiffany:Yeah, exactly Peter. The forensic investigator notices that there's blood on the light switch, drips down the hallway and in the rooms. There was spatter on the walls from where John was coughing up blood, which shows that he didn't go down so easily, at least not without a fight. Investigators determine that Peter was first attacked in bed. He got up and started running for his life. He made it to the living room where there were large blood smears on the wall, and he made his way to the foyer where he subcumbed to his injuries and died there. What's really sad is that he almost made it out of the house. He was like where it looked like he had collapsed. It was right where the screen door was to get to the outside and they found blood smears on the screen door like he was trying to pull his way out. But they determined that he would have died from his injuries regardless of whether he would have made it outside. John had been stabbed 37 times as he was running through this house. There was a large blood stain in the shape of John's body where it looked like that's where he had died. Also, there was a blood stain in the shape of John's decapitated head, which showed that it must have happened where John died. But what was to come of his body was even more gruesome.
Tiffany:Catherine had taken his glutinous muscle, which was this rump, and cut it into five steaks. She seasoned and roasted them in the oven. The plates were arranged with two steaks on each plate. The plate also had baked potatoes, carrots, pumpkin, beetroot, zucchini, cabbage, yellow squash and gravy. So altogether there were two plated dinners and a loose steak.
Tiffany:Each one of the two plates had tags on them like place tags, and on the two place tags were the names of John's two children. The fifth stake was thrown in the backyard, so investigators thought that that one was either out for the dog or that Catherine herself tried to consume it but couldn't stomach it. On top of a photograph of John was a note that was very confusing, but mainly said Time got you back, jonathan, for raping my daughter, then alluded that he molested his own children and ended it by saying that he was playing with little John's dick. And if any of that is true, I doubt it. From what it seems she'll do anything to get revenge. So you just can't trust a fucking word that comes out of her mouth. But who knows, maybe In the documentaries they didn't seem to believe her, so I don't think she was telling the truth.
Wendy:I think that you are stripped of a certain percentage of your validity based on your mental capacity, and she seems she's.
Tiffany:Yeah, she's a little mentally unhinged, so Right.
Wendy:I mean, even if she believed that she still could have been so paranoid that she made that up in her head. She could have, or she could have just been being petty too, or yeah, she could have just been painting him as black as her, so that she didn't feel like the only demon. True, but we can only speculate, of course, with these matters. That's all we can ever do.
Tiffany:Yeah, I know, it's like a kind of you know, you kind of want to know what's going on in their head, but at the same time it's like, hmm, do I really want to know?
Wendy:When she's decapitating people and she's roasting their buttocks. It's really hard. Yeah, it is Seriously.
Tiffany:Exactly the items taken from the scene were a jug, a sharpening stone, cooked meat in the backyard, knives and various other bloodstained items from the kitchen and around the home. When Catherine was finally well enough to be interviewed, she told investigators that she didn't remember anything. When asked if she remembered going to bed that night, she responded faintly. She was extremely tight-lipped the whole time but eventually admitted that she did kill John Price. She talked about the violence in the relationship and claimed that he abused her almost as if she had enough of the abuse, and it resulted in his death. She never took accountability for her violence and lied during almost all of the interview and then played victim the entire time. An interesting piece of evidence was the video camera that Catherine had set up the night before at her daughter's residence. She's seen on the camera saying this is yours and that this is yours. Don't let anyone take this from you, because I want you to have this. She recorded it as if she was leaving a video will, and the police thought that that showed some type of premeditation, because this was earlier in the day, the night of the murder, catherine sent the children away to a sleepover, she bought a black teddy and John came home around 11 pm. The couple watched some TV and even had sex. Afterwards John goes to the bathroom to take a leak and when he comes back and falls asleep she violently attacks him, stabbing him 37 times as he's running through the home. After the attack she showered, washed her clothes and even left the house to run some errands, take her car back to her house. And she had taken some money out of John's bank account. Two transactions of $500 apiece were taken out at 12.15 am and were never accounted for. No one ever found out where that money went.
Tiffany:Investigators confronted Catherine about her previous relationship violence, which negated her claims of victimhood. When Catherine's house was searched, police found that she had a fascination with not only her knives but also with gory, bizarre and disturbing movies. When friends were interviewed, they revealed that Catherine pretty much all but admitted that she was going to kill John. So when her trial started a year later, the prosecution was loaded with admissions, witness testimonies and was ready to put the psychopath away. Catherine pleaded not guilty but then flips and wants to change the plea to guilty. Later on. The judge had her evaluated by two psychologists to make sure that she wasn't going to use an insanity defense. They deemed her sane but that she had borderline personality disorder, which I can totally say, because she has episodes of like severe anger and that's like a telltale sign of borderline personality disorder.
Tiffany:The jury's selection was a shit show. Out of 60 candidates, only five could handle the gruesomeness of the crime. Later on, more jurors were excused as they were shown more evidence. Eventually they had enough jurors, but it was hard to find people who could stomach the crime. The whole trial Catherine just stared ahead cold and emotionless. Only once she showed emotion, when the skinning and decapitation was being described in court, she started screaming and flailing uncontrollably and had to be sedated.
Tiffany:Catherine Mary Knight was the first female sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. What that means is that she was in prison indefinitely. It's not the same life we're given here, which is usually 23 to 25 years. She will be in prison forever. In Australia. She tried to appeal the sentence because she thought the indefinite prison sentence was too harsh, but the appeal was denied. Catherine Knight will die behind bars. Sadly, poor John Price isn't here anymore to see his friends, family and co-workers because of this piece of shit human being, and I hope that his loved ones found some peace with the verdict and that they can move on the best way that they know how.
Wendy:And thank goodness she wasn't allowed back into society.
Tiffany:Yeah, I mean, she would have kept reoffending, she would have been a serial reoffender.
Wendy:She wasn't sound of mine enough to not be a threat to society.
Tiffany:She wasn't.
Wendy:It's really sad that things weren't taken while the precautionary measures weren't taken, because she showed, displayed and got away with way too much before it got to this point.
Tiffany:Oh yeah, she totally did, and her poor kids too.
Wendy:We asked now they lost their mom forever. They did. And I wonder too if any of this is genetic Not just I know some of it's environmental and some of it's genetic but if she has borderline personality disorder or she seems like she could even be a schizo.
Tiffany:Yeah, well, it's more likely that one of her children would have it or develop it but it doesn't mean they will Poor things. I know, this is definitely a wild tragedy it is, and on that note I just want to say one little piece of information the judge could meet for three months after the trial. That's how much it affected him.
Wendy:He was probably privy to things that our listeners and myself are not, which is the pictures and the crime scenes, for that matter. The details that the prosecutors had to present must have been outrageous, graphic and really dark.
Tiffany:Yeah, because this was a very disturbing crime. I mean that poor man was skinned, decapitated, cut up, roasted Like his pelt was hanging in the kitchen, like it's fucked up. I mean I think this is probably one of the worst crimes that I've ever covered as far as like goriness goes and like the desecration of this poor man's body.
Wendy:It's definitely up there. We've covered some pretty nasty ones even as recently as last week, but yeah, it's definitely up there, yeah but yeah, that was the story of Catherine Knight. Well researched and well told, as always. Oh, thank you.
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