Woman dubbed 'Hannibal Lecter wife' stabs lover then cooks him for his kids

Irish Daily Mirror

07-07-2025

One woman, infamously known as Australia's "Hannibal Lecter" was labelled a "horror movie in the making" after displaying chilling signs of violence prior to stabbing her husband 37 times, beheading him and cooking his body parts with potatoes.
Katherine Knight became notorious as the first woman in Australia to receive a life sentence without parole for her heinous actions. In a macabre incident that stunned the small town of Aberdeen, New South Wales, the mother-of-four carried out a barbaric crime.
She murdered her partner John Price by stabbing him 37 times, decapitating him, boiling his head, and suspending his carcass from a meat hook.
On February 29, 2000, following the murder, Knight concocted a gruesome meal using Price's cooked remains, which she plated with cabbage and gravy, intending to feed it to his children as they came home from school.
The atrocity, however, was not unforeseen. Ex-detective Luke Taylor spoke to news.com.au about her inclination towards "violent" behaviour due to "an abusive childhood", reports the Mirror US.
"There were so many warning signs yet none were heeded," remarked Taylor. "She was a horror movie in the making," he added.
Knight's terrifying narrative didn't just appear out of nowhere; she had a violent past. She had once stabbed Price during a dispute, leading him to file a restraining order against her.
Despite this, the couple reconciled before the tragic day. Knight alleges she suffered severe sexual abuse during her childhood by various men.
She claimed she was sexually abused by different family members throughout her youth, which set the stage for her turbulent relationships with men later in life.
In Peter Lalor's book Blood Stains, Knight's early years are unveiled. She was known among her peers as a bully who once attacked a boy at school.
Knight even attempted to strangle her first husband, David Kellett, on their wedding night and is reported to have fractured his skull with a frying pan. She also killed another partner's dog and assaulted him with scissors.
Frighteningly, Knight, a former abattoir worker, was recognised by neighbour Rick Banyard as "a very proficient meatworker."
It was their final argument before Price's death that made the father suspect he might be in grave danger. After an especially heated dispute, Price allegedly told his colleagues that if he didn't show up for work the next day, they should alert the police and come looking for him.
Then, blood stains were spotted on Knight's front door. On the morning of March 1, 2000, neighbours called the police after noticing the horrifying signs of violence.
Arrested after police found her unconscious next to Price's body, her conviction came in 2001, and her appeal was denied in 2006, according to the Australian Broadcasting Company (ABC).
"By the time I got to the scene, Katherine was leaving in an ambulance. She had taken some pills. Not enough to kill her, but they made her sleepy," former Sergeant Robert Wells shared with ABC.
"I walked inside and saw the human skin pelt hanging up, completely intact in one piece. John Price's decapitated and skinned body was lying on the floor in the lounge room. We found his head, it had been boiled and cooked in a pot on the stove. There were a number of slices of rump, taken off his human rump, baked in the oven with some vegetables and put on plates, with the name of two of his children on them.
"The last minutes of [Price's] life must have been a time of abject terror for him, as they were a time of utter enjoyment for her," Supreme Court Justice Barry O'Keefe stated during Knight's sentencing.
Yet to those familiar with the couple, their relationship appeared utterly ordinary. "I think, basically, nobody sort of expected any significant drama at all, let alone the crime that became recorded as one of the worst pieces of history in Australia," he said.