Katherine Knight

Katherine Mary Knight (born 24 October 1955) is an Australian murderer and the first woman in the country's history to be sentenced to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole.

Barbara had four additional children with Ken, including twin girls born in 1955 in Tenterfield; Katherine was one of these twin daughters.

In 1959, when Knight was four, Jack Roughan died and his two older sons, who had been living with him, moved in with Barbara and Ken.

Ken was a violent alcoholic who would rape Barbara up to ten times per day.

Barbara, in turn, often told her daughters intimate details of her sex life and how much she hated sex and men.

Later, when Katherine complained to her mother that one of her partners wanted her to take part in a sex act she did not want to perform, Barbara told her to "put up with it and stop complaining."

Katherine claims she was frequently sexually assaulted by several members of her family (though not by her father), which continued until she was aged 11.

Although there are doubts about the details, psychiatrists accept her claims and the events have been largely confirmed by other members of the family.

Barbara's great-grandmother was an Indigenous Australian from the Moree area who had married an Irishman.

Barbara was proud of this fact and identified as Aboriginal.

This was kept a family secret as there was considerable racism in the area at the time, and Barbara's descent was a source of tension for the children.

Apart from her twin sister, the only person whom Katherine was close to was her uncle, Oscar Knight, a champion horseman.

She was devastated when he committed suicide in 1969 and continues to maintain that his ghost visits her.

The family moved back to Aberdeen the same year.

When she attended Muswellbrook high school, Katherine became a loner and is remembered by classmates as a bully who stood over smaller children.

She assaulted at least one boy at school with a weapon and was once injured by a teacher, who was subsequently found to have acted in self-defence.

By contrast, when not in a rage, Knight was a model student and often earned awards for her good behaviour.

Upon leaving school at age 15, without having learned to read or write, she gained employment as a cutter in a clothing factory.

Twelve months later, she left to start what she referred to as her "dream job": cutting up offal at the local abattoir.

There, she was quickly promoted to boning and was given her own set of butchers' knives.

At home, the knives were hung over her bed so, as Knight said, that they "would always be handy if I needed them", a habit she continued—until her incarceration—everywhere she lived.

Katherine Knight first met co-worker David Stanford Kellett in 1973.

Kellett engaged in heavy drinking which stemmed from two traumatic incidents from his previous railway job in Coffs Harbour: first when his best friend was killed in front of him in a shunting accident, and later when he rescued injured occupants of a school bus in Kempsey which had been struck by a train, killing six children.

He eventually lost the job due to deteriorating behaviour and performance, but he soon got work at the nearby Aberdeen abattoir and became close friends with Knight's brother.

Often, if Kellett got into a fight, Knight would step in and back him up with her fists.

In Aberdeen, she was well known for physically threatening anyone who upset her.

Knight married Kellett in 1974, at her request, with the couple arriving at the service on her motorcycle with a very intoxicated Kellett on the pillion.

As soon as they arrived, Knight's mother Barbara gave Kellett some advice:"'The old girl [Knight's mother] said to me to watch out. 'You better watch this one or she'll fucking kill you. Stir her up the wrong way or do the wrong thing and you're fucked, don't ever think of playing up on her [cheating on her], she'll fuckin' kill you.' And that was her mother talking! She told me she's got something loose. She's got a screw loose somewhere.'" On their wedding night, Knight tried to strangle Kellett; she later explained it was because he fell asleep after only having intercourse three times.

The marriage proved particularly violent and, on one occasion, a heavily pregnant Knight burned all of Kellett's clothing and shoes before hitting him across the back of the head with a frying pan, simply because he had arrived home late from a darts competition after reaching the finals.

In fear for his life, Kellett fled before collapsing in a neighbour's house and was treated for a severely fractured skull.

Police wanted to charge Knight, but she changed her behaviour to ingratiating Kellett and talked him into dropping the charges.

In May 1976, shortly after the birth of their first child, Melissa Ann, Kellett left Knight for another woman and moved to Queensland, apparently unable to cope with the abuse.

She was convicted for the murder of her partner, John Charles Thomas Price, in February 2000, and is currently imprisoned at the Silverwater Women's Correctional Centre in New South Wales.

Knight stabbed Price to death, skinned him, and then put his skin on a meat hook, which she had recently installed.

She then cooked his head and parts of his body with the intention of feeding them to Price's adult children, but was stopped by police after an employee of his went to check on him after he had not been at work that day.

Katherine Knight was born and raised in an unconventional and dysfunctional family environment.

Her mother, Barbara Roughan (née Thorley), had been married to Jack Roughan and lived with him in the small town of Aberdeen in New South Wales' Hunter Valley.

They had four sons before Barbara began an adulterous relationship with Ken Knight, a friend and co-worker of her then-husband.

Local backlash forced Barbara and Ken to move to Moree.

None of her sons went with her; the two eldest boys continued to reside with their father and the two younger sons were sent to be raised by an aunt in Sydney.