Aussie wife skinned, cooked husband, fed him to kids
Pastor Dale Morgan
Aussie wife skinned, cooked husband, fed to kids*
September 11, 2006 09:47am
Article from: AAP
AUSTRALIA - A WOMAN who stabbed her husband to death before skinning him
and making a meal for his children out of his body parts has lost an
appeal against the severity of her life sentence.
The NSW Court of Criminal Appeal today dismissed the appeal by former
abattoir worker Katherine Knight against her life sentence for the
February 2000 murder of John Price.
In 2001, the NSW Supreme Court sentenced Knight to life in jail after
she pleaded guilty to murdering Mr Price at the home they shared at
Aberdeen in the NSW Hunter Valley.
Knight, 50, is the first woman in Australia's history to be sentenced to
life in prison.
She had appealed against the sentence claiming the killing was not in
the worst category of murder.
Knight stabbed 44-year-old Mr Price 37 times with a butcher's knife
before skinning him and hanging his hide from a meat hook in their
lounge room on February 29, 2000.
She then decapitated him and put his head in a pot on the stove, baked
flesh from his buttocks and cooked vegetables and gravy as side dishes
to serve to Mr Price's children.
Police found the macabre dinner before the adult children arrived home.
Justices Peter McClellan, Michael Adams and Megan Latham today dismissed
the appeal.
In his judgment, Justice McClellan said he agreed with Supreme Court
Justice Barry O'Keefe, who sentenced Knight.
"This was an appalling crime, almost beyond contemplation in a civilised
society," Justice McClellan said in his written judgment.
"The crime was the product of a violent personality intent upon claiming
the life of her de facto (husband) in a relationship which was plainly
failing."
He said Knight had expressed no remorse for the killing.
"The psychiatric evidence indicates that her personality is unlikely to
change in the future and if released, she would be likely to inflict
serious injury, perhaps death, on others.
"The deceased's family may be at particular risk."