Katherine Knight: Australia's Most Disturbing Killer Pt. 1

In February 2000, Katherine Knight committed one of the most disturbing murders in Australian history... but the path to that night began decades earlier in a rural New South Wales household defined by violence, neglect, and sexual abuse. As Katherine moved through a series of volatile relationships, her fear of abandonment grew into a pattern of escalating intimidation and brutality that left a trail of traumatized partners and a community living in terror. If you’re new here, don’t forget to follow Serial Killers & Murderous Minds to never miss a case! Want all 2 parts of every case all at once? Join Crime House+ and get both parts of each case dropped together on Monday ad-free. Join at crimehouseplus.com http://crimehouseplus.com or if you’re listening on Apple Podcasts, tap “Try Free” at the top of this show’s page. Serial Killers & Murderous Minds is a Crime House Original Podcast, powered by PAVE Studios. 🎧 Need More to Binge? Listen to other Crime House Originals Clues, Crimes Of Reddit, Murder True Crime Stories, Crime House 24/7, and more wherever you get your podcasts! Follow me on Social Instagram: @Crimehouse https://www.instagram.com/crimehouse/TikTok: @Crimehouse https://www.tiktok.com/@crimehouseFacebook: @crimehousestudios https://www.facebook.com/crimehousestudiosYouTube: @crimehousestudios https://www.youtube.com/@crimehousestudios

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:01Vanessa Richardson?

  Hi, everyone. Before today's episode, there's another show I want to tell you about. It's called What the Fact with Connor Tomlinson from Netflix's Love on the Spectrum and Carter Roy. Every week, they take three unbelievable true facts from history and tell you the full story behind them. Plus Connor's infectious energy that'll make you realize history is the most fascinating thing on earth. Follow What the Fact wherever you listen or subscribe on YouTube at What the Fact Pod.

• 0:36Speaker 01

  This is Crime House.

• 0:41Vanessa Richardson?

  Every relationship teaches us something. Sometimes those lessons help us flourish in future relationships. They might teach us when to trust others, how to show affection, or how to listen to our intuition. But some relationships can become the blueprint for something far more destructive. By the early 1970s, Catherine Mary Knight was entering adulthood after a childhood surrounded by violence. And as she began forming relationships of her own, she increasingly turned to violence whenever she feared losing the people she loved. Over the years, that pattern only became more dangerous until it culminated in one of the most shocking murders in Australian history.

• 1:40Vanessa Richardson?

  The human mind is powerful. It shapes how we think, feel, love, and hate. But sometimes it drives people to commit the unthinkable. This is Serial Killers and Murderous Minds, a Crime House original. I'm Vanessa Richardson.

• 1:55Tristin Engels?

  And I'm forensic psychologist Dr. Tristin Engels. Every Monday and Thursday, we uncover the darkest minds in history, analyzing what makes a killer.

• 2:04Vanessa Richardson?

  Crime House exists because of listeners like you. Want even more? Join Crime House Plus and get both parts of every story dropped on the same Monday, completely ad-free. No waiting three days for part two, plus Crime House bonus episodes every month. To join, go to crimehouseplus.com. Or if you listen on Apple Podcasts, tap "try free" at the top of the Serial Killers and Murderous Minds page. Before we get started, be advised, this episode contains descriptions of domestic violence, sexual abuse, violence against animals, and references to suicide. So please, listen with care. Today, we begin our deep dive into Katherine Knight, one of Australia's most infamous murderers.

• 2:48Vanessa Richardson?

  Catherine's life was marked by violence from an early age. As she grew older, childhood trauma, unstable relationships, and an intense fear of abandonment turned into a pattern she couldn't break.

• 3:01Tristin Engels?

  As Vanessa goes through the story, I'll be talking about things like how repeated childhood trauma can shape someone's understanding of relationships, why fear of abandonment can become one of the strongest emotional drivers in a person's life, and how violent patterns can become increasingly entrenched over time if they're never interrupted.

• 3:21Vanessa Richardson?

  And as always, we'll be asking the question, what makes a killer?

• 3:31Vanessa Richardson?

  Katherine Knight's story began years before she was born with her mother, Barbara. Barbara was married to a man named Jack, who worked at the local slaughterhouse in Aberdeen. It's a rural town in New South Wales. Jack was a heavy drinker and gambler. Together, the couple had four children. Eventually, Barbara began an affair with one of Jack's coworkers, Ken Knight. The relationship caused a scandal in their small community, and Barbara ultimately left Jack to be with Ken. Her four children stayed behind with their father and other relatives. Hoping for a fresh start, Barbara and Ken moved about two hours north to the rural town of Gunada. There, they welcomed a son named Charlie. Then, on October 24, 1955,

• 4:16Vanessa Richardson?

  Barbara gave birth to twin girls, Joy and Catherine. A few years later, Barbara and Ken had one final child together, Shane. Over time, some of Barbara's older children also returned to live with her after her first husband's death. The house was crowded, creating a large and complicated household made up of full and half siblings. And family life with Ken wasn't easy. He was a heavy drinker, too. And Catherine and her siblings frequently witnessed their parents fight, sometimes physically. As for Barbara, she was strict. The kids were expected to follow instructions immediately, complete their chores, and keep their belongings in order. Barbara demanded that the beds be made so tightly

• 5:00Vanessa Richardson?

  that a coin could bounce off the covers. And if it didn't, she'd strip the bed and have them make it again. She was cold with her kids, and Catherine yearned for her mother's love and affection. Instead, she experienced verbal and physical abuse, like getting beaten with a belt. Catherine did have someone to turn to, though. She and her twin sister Joy were best friends growing up. But beyond her immediate family, Catherine didn't have any close relationships. And like her mother, she had a temper. Sometimes, when she got angry, Catherine had a hard time stopping herself from lashing out violently.

• 5:38Tristin Engels?

  That's largely because children learn how to deal with emotions by watching the adults around them. When they're angry, or frustrated, hurt, or even rejected, they need to learn what to do with those feelings. Ideally, they learn how to self-soothe, communicate what they're feeling, tolerate any disappointment, solve problems, or even walk away, rather than react. Catherine doesn't seem to have any reliable models for much of that. So what she did seem to have modeled for her instead is aggression. And the caregivers in her life, as you described, have been abusive and emotionally cold or even absent. And her only reliable outlet is her sister, who is also experiencing the same environment. So she has no real safe space or outlet,

• 6:23Tristin Engels?

  which is critical, because without healthier ways of coping and no one to model them, intense emotions still have to go somewhere. And where that distress goes depends, really, on the child. Some internalize it, but some externalize it through aggression, destruction, or even violence. And Catherine already appears to be moving toward that last pattern when she's angry. So it may have also been associated, for her, with a form of self-soothing or even regulation, too.

• 6:52Vanessa Richardson?

  There are definitely many children who survive violent homes without becoming violent adults. What are the factors that help determine whether someone repeats those patterns or rejects them?

• 7:02Tristin Engels?

  One of the biggest is whether or not they have protective relationships outside of the home, ones that help establish resilience. And that can be another family member. It can be a teacher, a mentor, a friend, or someone who can model what a healthy relationship looks like. A lack of coping skills is another one, because those help regulate anger or manage rejection and conflict. Temperament is something to consider as well. Children differ in their impulsivity or their emotional reactivity and their ability to self-regulate. Also, how they respond to consequences matter, too, because in her home, aggressive behavior may be inadvertently reinforced, which can impact how consequences are taught or not taught.

• 7:46Tristin Engels?

  How they perceive violence is also important. If they use what they're seeing as a framework for how relationships work, like this is what you do when you're angry, this is how you resolve conflict, this is how you keep someone from leaving you, then that's how the cycle of violence is reinforced, too. So when we consider Catherine, we can see that this is especially difficult for her and why she's so prone to repeating aggressive behaviors.

• 8:12Vanessa Richardson?

  While violence was an open part of life inside the Knight household, other, even darker, experiences remained largely hidden. By Catherine's account, which her twin sister and one of her brothers later supported, she was sexually abused by two of her older brothers throughout much of her childhood. The abuse began when she was just six years old, after the family had moved into a rundown home in the town of Moray, a few hours north of Gunada. There weren't enough bedrooms for everyone, and Catherine lived in constant fear of what might happen after nightfall. She carried a doll with her because she believed it would protect her. And until she was around 11 years old, roughly when the abuse ended, she wet the bed almost every night.

• 8:57Vanessa Richardson?

  Besides facing abuse herself, she also witnessed her mother experience it. Despite only being a child, she came to understand that her father was pressuring and physically intimidating her mother into having sex. Meanwhile, Barbara spoke openly to her daughters about her resentment toward men and offered little reassurance that relationships could ever be safe or loving. By then, the family had returned to Aberdeen. Catherine and Joy became known for fighting at school, rarely backing down once a confrontation began. Catherine also argued with teachers and resisted their instructions, although at other times, she could be helpful and eager to please. Eventually, Catherine left school in the early 1970s, when she was 15.

• 9:41Vanessa Richardson?

  By then, she had few qualifications and a growing reputation for her temper. And before long, Catherine would enter adulthood, where those same behaviors carried far greater consequences.

• 9:54Tristin Engels?

  There are a lot of signs here that indicate significant trauma was occurring. Ordinarily, a child carrying a doll or stuffed animal for protection isn't alarming at all. That's developmentally normal. Children use comfort objects to self-soothe, feel secure, or even manage separation from their caregivers. But Catherine wasn't carrying this doll because her parents weren't there to protect her. She was carrying it because she was being abused by the very people meant to protect her and by multiple people in her environment. She didn't really have a safe space. And the bedwetting at age 11, which we clinically refer to as enuresis, is also notable. Enuresis by itself doesn't tell us a child has experienced trauma because there are a

• 10:38Tristin Engels?

  number of possible causes for it, especially medical. But in a child experiencing chronic abuse and instability, stress and trauma would absolutely be something to consider. And I think we have to look at all of this cumulatively. She's had prolonged exposure to abuse and unsafe conditions. When that happens repeatedly during development, it can affect emotional regulation, it can affect attachment, and the ability to manage frustration and stress, and how sensitive someone becomes to potential threats. We even see differences at the neurological level. Research on childhood maltreatment has found heightened amygdala reactivity to emotional and threatening information, along with differences in other brain systems that are involved in

• 11:23Tristin Engels?

  regulating emotion and responding to stress. So if Catherine is already highly emotionally reactive, has difficulty regulating those emotions, has been repeatedly exposed to aggression and abuse, and has learned that aggression is a response to conflict, that can all start interacting with one another, which would add to what we talked about earlier with regard to why she in particular would be more prone to aggressive behaviors when you consider all of these factors and her lack of support or intervention.

• 11:56Vanessa Richardson?

  Are certain combinations of childhood adversity especially difficult for children to process, particularly when they don't have a safe environment to help them recover?

• 12:06Tristin Engels?

  Yes, and it's often chronic abuse within a caregiving relationship. When the person or people you're supposed to go to when you need protection or nurturance is the person you need protection from, that's significant. That is a resource that children are reliant and dependent on for coping and stress relief. But instead, it's what's causing them stress. And when it's multiple caregivers in one environment, that's even more significant. And that's the environment that they should feel the most safe in. That's why having even just one stable, supportive adult can be so protective. It doesn't erase what's happening or has happened, but it allows for the possibility of resilience.

• 12:48Vanessa Richardson?

  Catherine's childhood had been marked by repeated trauma, instability, and violence. Whether those experiences would define the rest of her life remained to be seen. But in the early 1970s, the 15-year-old was focused on finding work and earning a living for herself. In Aberdeen, it was common to work at the local slaughterhouse. Her father, older brothers, and twin sister all worked there. Catherine wanted to be the latest to join them, although she was knocked back the first time she applied and spent about a year at a clothing factory before a spot opened up. When she was 16, she started working in the awful room near the end of the slaughtering and processing line. Each day, Catherine was tasked with removing blood and marrow from dead animals.

• 13:32Vanessa Richardson?

  And there, amid the blood and guts, Catherine was elated. Before long, she moved into more skilled work as a boner, using a knife to separate meat from bone with speed and precision. By her late teens, Catherine had built an identity around being tough. She could fight, and she could handle a knife. She could tolerate things that made other people wince.

• 13:55Tristin Engels?

  So I'm interested in why she was elated in this work. Because I don't get the sense that it was specific to the fact that she was killing animals, at least not right away, because she's not doing the killing herself. I think it's more that she's in an environment where violence was normalized and socially accepted. And I think there's some potential for desensitization that can happen here just through more repeated exposure to that violence. If you're surrounded by blood and dead animal carcasses and knives and dismemberment every day, those things are going to affect you emotionally less and less after a while. And that's called habituation. That doesn't always transition from animals to humans, though.

• 14:37Tristin Engels?

  This is a lucrative industry with millions of employees worldwide who don't transfer those skills into crime against humans. And like you said, her family works there, and her twin sister works there. So it might feel like a familiar or expected place to work. What I find more interesting is that Catherine seems to be developing an identity around her comfort with it. One where she's this tough individual who's not squeamish, and she can tolerate what many other people can't tolerate. And then she gets to become very skilled with a knife. And that's something that distinguishes her from other people, or that she's trying to distinguish herself from other people. And it's also something she's being rewarded for, and she's therefore becoming proud of.

• 15:22Tristin Engels?

  And because of that, I wonder if there's some overcompensation happening, too. Catherine grew up around violence when she was powerless, and now she's in an environment where she's feeling powerful, she's feeling competent and in control, and apparently thriving in that environment. This is not uncommon to see. Some children from abusive environments overcompensate by becoming more powerful or trying to feel more powerful or more dominant in certain parts of their life to avoid feelings of vulnerability again.

• 15:56Vanessa Richardson?

  Around 1972, Catherine's brother Charlie introduced her to a friend and colleague who worked with them at the slaughterhouse, David Kellett. David was charismatic, outgoing, and known around town for drinking heavily and getting into trouble. Before long, he was spending more and more time with Catherine and her siblings. They'd go out dancing or to play darts or pool. Everyone drank, except Catherine, who wasn't big on alcohol. But even though David was a big drinker, Catherine was immediately drawn to him. David had the same rough edges she did. The two started dating, and it was Catherine's first serious relationship. And before long, the violence Catherine had grown up surrounded by would become part

• 16:40Vanessa Richardson?

  of her own relationship.

• 16:49Speaker 03

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• 16:51Speaker 04

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• 16:55Speaker 03

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• 16:57Speaker 05

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• 16:59Speaker 04

  Two grisly homicides. I know I didn't tell anyone. But solving these murders is just the beginning. That can't be his first rodeo. This is season six of American Nightmares: The Canal Murders. Out now, wherever you get your podcasts.

• 17:20Vanessa Richardson?

  By the time she was 17, Katherine Knight was earning her own money and, for the first time, had a serious boyfriend. She and David would go fishing and shooting together, and Catherine had no problem skinning the rabbits they brought home. When David got into trouble at the pub, she was quick to defend him, stepping between him and anyone who challenged him. David could be gentle with her in a way she'd rarely witnessed between men and women growing up. But Catherine also worried that he might leave her for his ex. By David's own account, years later, that was a real possibility. That made Catherine anxious. She didn't want to be left waiting for David to make his choice.

• 18:01Vanessa Richardson?

  So during a lunch break at the slaughterhouse, Catherine asked David to marry her. He said yes. And so in 1974, when Catherine was 18 years old, the couple arrived at the courthouse in nearby Muswell Brook for their wedding. But David had spent the previous night drinking and had continued into the morning. He swayed drunkenly beside her during the ceremony. And afterward, Catherine had to hold him up as they made their way to the pub across the road. But still, Katherine Knight became Catherine Kellett. That night, Catherine was looking forward to being intimate with her new husband. She and David had already had sex, but her mom had told her that on her own wedding night, she and Ken had been intimate five times.

• 18:46Vanessa Richardson?

  To Catherine, that was the standard. David only made it to three before he passed out from his long day of drinking. To Catherine, it felt like a flat-out rejection, and that made her furious.

• 19:00Vanessa Richardson?

  David suddenly woke up to Catherine on top of him with her hands wrapped around his throat. She shook and choked him, demanding to know why he couldn't match what her parents had done. The attack ended almost as quickly as it started. David managed to calm her, and the following day, the couple returned to work as if nothing had happened. But Catherine's first night of marriage had already revealed something troubling. When reality failed to match her expectations, her disappointment turned violent.

• 19:31Tristin Engels?

  Choking is intimate partner violence, and strangulation in particular is concerning because of how dangerous it is. It can cause injury or death without always leaving any obvious signs of external injuries. And notably, she's choking him in a very vulnerable state and in response to a perceived rejection that didn't even happen. She only felt that way after comparing to what her mother said, someone who is not a model of a healthy relationship. He was able to calm her, and then they returned as if nothing had happened. This is also not an uncommon thing that occurs when there's intimate partner violence. And I think we need to talk about the power dynamic.

• 20:14Tristin Engels?

  Violence by women can sometimes be minimized because it doesn't fit some of our expectations about gender. We tend to perceive men as physically stronger and women as less physically threatening, and that can affect how seriously men interpret the same behavior or society interprets the same behavior. A man may also have difficulty identifying himself as a victim because we're socialized to think he should be able to protect himself, or being afraid of a female partner somehow reflects poorly on him, especially when statistically, women are overwhelmingly victims of intimate partner violence. So in this dynamic, Catherine is putting her hands on her husband in a very alarming

• 20:56Tristin Engels?

  way, and it's not something that ever should be minimized, but it unfortunately commonly is.

• 21:04Vanessa Richardson?

  What does it tell us about someone's state of mind when their first response is to turn to physical violence?

• 21:09Tristin Engels?

  When someone's first response is physical violence, I start thinking about impulse control and poor emotional regulation. Most people can experience intense anger, or rejection, or just feeling hurt without ever immediately translating that feeling into, I need to physically be aggressive. Generally, there's a lot of space between that, between feeling something and then feeling like I need to physically hurt someone. We try talking about it. We try processing our feelings. We use conflict resolution, ideally. We don't just jump to violence. With Catherine, she feels rejected, and then she becomes emotionally activated, and then she moves very quickly toward aggression, which is why I'm saying impulse control, poor emotional regulation.

• 21:54Tristin Engels?

  And if violence has accomplished something for her before, like it ended an argument, or it intimidated someone, or it gave her control back, then resorting to that behavior again would make sense, especially in light of what we know about her childhood, where violence was repeatedly modeled to her as an effective communication tool of some kind. And we also have to consider her age. She's 18 years old. The prefrontal systems involved in impulse control and judgment, planning, and emotional regulation are still developing into early adulthood, so she already has the developmental vulnerabilities we see at that age layered on top of prolonged exposure to violence and trauma. But that does not explain this level of violence.

• 22:37Tristin Engels?

  Most 18-year-olds don't strangle their partners in their sleep. It's just one factor to consider, along with her behavioral history that we've been talking about.

• 22:49Vanessa Richardson?

  Catherine's attack on David was serious, but because he managed to calm her and the incident ended without police or medical intervention, the newlyweds just decided to move past the bad moment. And for a time, Catherine believed the marriage was working. When things were calm, Catherine and David seemed genuinely happy. They went camping, socialized with friends, and spent their free time together. But that stability would disappear quickly. Catherine expected their home to operate according to strict rules, and even small disagreements could send her into a rage. David was expected to hang out the laundry and arrange the clothes in a specific way. If Dave had hung something upside down or in a way Catherine didn't like, she would

• 23:34Vanessa Richardson?

  yell at him. Her mood could change instantly. She'd smash objects around the home, anything within reach. And once the fury was over, she'd act as if nothing had happened, or she'd overcompensate, buying David a gift or becoming intensely affectionate. David came to know this cycle well, and he held out hope she might eventually grow out of the behavior. At the same time, he was getting nervous about Catherine's attachment to her butcher knives. She treated them as prized possessions and refused to let David use them. Not only that, but she didn't just use them for work. One day, the hunting dogs next door wouldn't stop barking. Their barks sent Catherine into a rage.

• 24:18Vanessa Richardson?

  She grabbed her knives and confronted the dog's owner. She said if the dogs didn't stop barking, she'd slit their throats. It was deeply unsettling, but still, their life plans as a couple moved forward. After a year of marriage, 19-year-old Catherine became pregnant. Around the same time, David started spending less time at home. Catherine didn't know the full truth, but she became increasingly suspicious of where he was spending his time and who he was spending it with. On May 11, 1976, Catherine gave birth to a daughter named Melissa Ann. But the baby didn't do anything to calm her fears about David.

• 25:00Vanessa Richardson?

  When Melissa was around seven weeks old, another confrontation turned violent. Catherine was furious at David's secrecy, and her paranoia had reached new heights. And in the middle of the argument, Catherine came at David with a broken beer bottle. David said he'd had enough. He sent Catherine to stay with her parents. Then, he went to the slaughterhouse and handed in his notice. He was leaving. Catherine's paranoia had in fact been warranted. He was having an affair, and he had been since Catherine was four months pregnant. He was scared that if he told her, she'd try to kill him.

• 25:39Vanessa Richardson?

  And so, he quit his job and left town with his lover, leaving only a note for his 20-year-old wife and two-month-old baby before driving away.

• 25:51Tristin Engels?

  We saw how Catherine responded when she thought David rejected her on their wedding day, when he actually had not. But this is an actual rejection and abandonment. So this definitely would have been difficult for Catherine, because he leaves her for another woman via a note and a two-month-old baby, which unfortunately just reinforces her mistrust, because Catherine was suspicious of David. She was paranoid about him being unfaithful from the beginning of their relationship, which, from the sounds of it, is why she proposed to begin with. She worried he would get back together with his ex-girlfriend if she didn't. And in this particular case, she was right, even if her suspicions may have started prematurely.

• 26:33Tristin Engels?

  So Catherine can now look back on all of that jealousy and suspicion and conclude that she was right not to trust him. And the problem is, instead of recognizing that David made a choice to be unfaithful and leave their marriage, this may reinforce a core belief that's been developing since childhood, one that her own mother had been reinforcing with regard to men and love and not trusting them, that the people she loves will eventually hurt, reject, or betray her. And if that's what she's taking away from this, then she may feel even more justified being suspicious, controlling, or even hypervigilant in her next relationship, because from her perspective, look what just happened the last time.

• 27:18Tristin Engels?

  Look what happened in her childhood. Look what always happens. People aren't safe. And there's probably a lot of anger mixed into that abandonment as well. Catherine has spent much of her life wanting closeness from people who also hurt or rejected her, only to experience it again with someone she chose for herself. And rejection seems to activate anger, threats, and aggression very quickly for her.

• 27:45Vanessa Richardson?

  David's decision may have protected him from an immediate confrontation, but for Catherine, his disappearance confirmed one of her deepest fears. She had absolutely been abandoned. She oscillated between rage and sadness. She carried her knives with her everywhere, threatening to kill herself and even her own baby. Catherine's parents tried to help her, but they couldn't get their daughter under control. Eventually, they had to involve the authorities. Catherine was admitted to St. Elmo's psychiatric hospital under an involuntary order because she was considered a danger to others. She was treated with antidepressants there and stayed under watch for two weeks. Although she was a bit calmer when she was released, the crisis clearly wasn't over.

• 28:30Vanessa Richardson?

  With David far away, Catherine spiraled. And on August 3, 1976, the residents of Aberdeen were horrified to see Catherine walking around the town center violently pushing Melissa's baby carriage from side to side. The details of what happened next aren't totally clear, but at some point Catherine apparently became separated from Melissa. She seemed to be a woman gone mad, and although people wanted to help, they were too frightened to approach her. Then Catherine spotted an axe on a pile of wood and picked it up. She waved it around, scaring the onlookers even more. A lot of locals closed and locked their doors. Then a local war veteran appeared, carrying baby Melissa in his arms.

• 29:14Vanessa Richardson?

  He said he'd found her over by the railway tracks. Police showed up at the scene and returned Catherine to the psychiatric hospital, but she signed herself out that same night. The next morning, she was waiting outside the home of a young woman she worked with at the slaughterhouse. Catherine pulled a knife from her baby's bassinet, slashed the woman's cheek, and held her and her family hostage for close to an hour before police talked her down at a service station on the highway. This time, she was committed to a different psychiatric hospital. Through it all, Catherine still wanted David to come back. And eventually, he did. David's new relationship had already fallen apart.

• 29:58Vanessa Richardson?

  He missed Melissa and wanted to try to keep their family together. When he learned Catherine had been hospitalized, he came back with his mom in tow. Catherine was released into her mother-in-law's care, relieved above all that David had come back. Once they collected Melissa, the reunited family left Aberdeen. After three weeks with David's mother on the New South Wales coast, they moved north to Woodridge, Queensland, hoping that a little distance from Aberdeen might give them a fresh start. Catherine found a job at a slaughterhouse, and David worked as a truck driver. For a little while, Catherine appeared transformed. She was affectionate and attentive. David saw her as the perfect wife and mother. But underneath the surface,

• 30:43Vanessa Richardson?

  Catherine continued to live in fear that David would leave her again. Whenever he came home late, spoke to another woman, or failed to answer her quickly enough, she suspected another betrayal. And so she started carrying her butcher knives beneath the seat of the car everywhere she went. Inside their home, Catherine installed hooks above the couple's bed and hung two knives and a sharpening steel from them. When David's mother asked why the knives were there, Catherine said she wanted them nearby in case she needed to kill someone. The blades were no longer simply tools of Catherine's profession. They were a warning to her husband and anyone else in her way.

• 31:25Tristin Engels?

  This makes these knives even more concerning because Catherine was already carrying them while they were separated. She was threatening herself, her baby, and then she eventually started attacking another person. So weapons have started becoming part of how Catherine responds when she's emotionally overwhelmed or feels like she's losing control. And then David comes back, and on the surface, she seems much better. She's affectionate, attentive, everything seems okay. But the knives haven't gone away. They're underneath the car seat, and they're hanging above their bed. So I don't think we're looking at only impulsivity concerns anymore. She's not just grabbing whatever happens to be available when she becomes enraged.

• 32:07Tristin Engels?

  She's making sure a weapon is available before anything happens. And that's intimidation. He already knows what Catherine is capable of. The knives are a threat simply by existing now. They're visual cues. There's also something happening with control. We have seen that Catherine is vulnerable to rejection or abandonment. And when she feels powerless in a relationship, she engages in behaviors that make her feel powerful. And in the past, it's been threatening herself, threatening someone else. I mean, just look how she was behaving when he was gone. Becoming violent, or now in this case, making violence available and noticeable. This may make her feel less vulnerable, but she's creating an unsafe environment as a whole,

• 32:52Tristin Engels?

  which is, in a sense, the environment she's also used to as well. And it's a paradox because she's creating an environment that generates the very thing she fears the most, and that's abandonment.

• 33:04Vanessa Richardson?

  Despite everything that had happened, Catherine and David still weren't ready to give up on their marriage. The couple convinced themselves that another new chapter might finally leave the past behind. On March 26, 1980, 24-year-old Catherine gave birth to her second daughter, Natasha Marie. But the fears that had followed Catherine throughout her marriage had never truly disappeared. And the worst of what happened in Queensland came before Natasha arrived. Catherine remained convinced that David might leave her again. And one evening, while she was pregnant, he stayed out later than she expected. He was playing in a darts competition at the local club. She did not like that. When David finally walked through the front door,

• 33:49Vanessa Richardson?

  Catherine struck him from behind with a heavy object. David wasn't sure whether it was a pan or an iron. All he knew was that blood was gushing from his head, ears, and nose. He made it to a neighbor's house before collapsing and was rushed to the hospital, where doctors kept him for about a week while they monitored him for potentially life-threatening head injuries. While David recovered in the hospital, Catherine gathered a lot of his belongings and burned his clothes inside the family home. The police considered charging her with attempted murder, but David refused to cooperate. Despite everything that had happened, he still hoped the marriage could somehow be saved. And by the time he returned home, Catherine had replaced the clothes she had destroyed

• 34:33Vanessa Richardson?

  and promised him that things would be different. They wouldn't be. The couple separated and reconciled again. And one night after Natasha's birth, David woke up in the middle of the night to find Catherine sitting on top of him with one of her butcher knives pressed firmly against his throat. As she questioned him about other women, Catherine calmly explained how easily she could kill him. David remained completely still, knowing that even the slightest movement could prove fatal. Although the marriage continued for a bit longer after that, whatever hope either of them still held that their relationship could recover was rapidly disappearing. Eventually, while David was away working,

• 35:17Vanessa Richardson?

  Catherine hired a truck. She loaded nearly all of the family's belongings into it, took Melissa and Natasha, and left. When David returned home, the house was empty. For years, Catherine had lived with the overwhelming fear that David would abandon her. Instead, she was ultimately the one who walked away. And soon Catherine would begin another serious relationship, but her most disturbing act of violence was still to come.

• 35:52Speaker 06

  Can't switch off at night? Give your curious mind somewhere peaceful to wander. I'm Simon Mettacks, host of Sleepy History. Join me for lost cities and ancient mysteries, told slowly and calmly, to help you drift off. And if you missed the ending, that's rather the idea. Find Sleepy History in your podcast app and try an episode tonight.

• 36:25Vanessa Richardson?

  By 1986, Katherine Knight, now 30, was back in Aberdeen and working at the slaughterhouse again. She was raising Melissa and Natasha while trying to rebuild her life after the end of her first marriage. Around this time, she met a guy named Dave Saunders. Dave worked in the local coal mines, and like many of the men Catherine had been interested in, he drank a lot. He had three children from an earlier marriage, while Catherine had two daughters of her own. They met playing cards at the local bowling club, and the relationship took off from there. It wasn't long before Dave and his dingo pup moved into Catherine's home. Catherine was optimistic she could create a stable home with him. But almost as quickly as that feeling came, it left.

• 37:09Vanessa Richardson?

  Dave's long hours at the pub were upsetting her. However, those frustrations fell by the wayside in December of 1986, when Catherine's mother suddenly collapsed. By the time Catherine was able to reach her, Barbara was already dead. Catherine was devastated. She'd spent years yearning for her mother's affection, and now that chance was gone forever. At the same time, Catherine also became furious with Barbara for leaving her behind, and spoke about wanting to die so she could be with her mother again. In the weeks that followed, Catherine became increasingly unstable, treating even short periods apart from Dave as yet another form of abandonment.

• 37:52Vanessa Richardson?

  A month after Barbara died, he left the house, and Catherine went after him that same day. She tracked Dave down, and while he was out, she vandalized his car. When he got home, she was at the door, calm, asking him to come back to Aberdeen so they could talk. Once they were there, she told him she believed she was pregnant, and accused him of having an affair with a former girlfriend. The argument escalated, and turned physical. Catherine started pushing him and throwing punches at his head. Dave pushed her away to protect himself. Catherine began screaming that he'd kicked her in the stomach. Then Catherine ran into the kitchen and grabbed a knife.

• 38:33Vanessa Richardson?

  Dave thought she was about to stab him, but instead, she ran outside. When Dave followed, he found her holding his puppy in her arms. Catherine appeared eerily calm. Then, he saw the blood covering her, the knife, and the dog. She'd cut the animal's throat. Dave was terrified and fled to a friend's house. Later that night, Catherine went to a hospital and reported that Dave had attacked her. Medical staff found a swollen lip and a small bump on her head, but no injuries consistent with a serious assault. Catherine also learned that she wasn't pregnant.

• 39:13Vanessa Richardson?

  Still, Dave forgave her, feeling sorry for her after the loss of her mother. But the puppy's death marked a frightening escalation. She'd killed an animal to punish him, and the violence would only continue.

• 39:28Tristin Engels?

  As we've outlined, Catherine's violence seems to repeatedly occur in response to feelings of abandonment or rejection. And her mother, arguably her biggest attachment wound, the woman whose affection she repeatedly spent her entire life trying to win, has just died. So Catherine is grieving a relationship that she will never get to have. And any possibility that her mother might someday give her the love or approval that she wanted is permanently gone. This abandonment feeling can actually make her more paranoid about her current attachments. And before her passing, she was already afraid Dave was going to betray her or leave her.

• 40:11Tristin Engels?

  So it's plausible that she's now hyper-focused on whether she's about to experience another loss with him. So Catherine does what she's historically done, and responds to that perceived threat with aggression. But what happens with the puppy takes this somewhere different. Instead of directing the violence onto Dave, she's directing it towards something that Dave loves. That makes the violence seem like punishment. And killing his puppy can punish him for the betrayal she believes has occurred, frighten him, and demonstrate exactly what she's capable of doing if he does leave her. But this is unfortunately something that's documented in intimate partner violence as a coercive tactic as well.

• 40:54Tristin Engels?

  And I also wonder if, because she's just experienced the loss of something she loved, that she wanted him to feel that too. Because the timing of this is interesting, and she might actually have had some level of jealousy with regard to his attachment to his puppy.

• 41:12Vanessa Richardson?

  Catherine previously attacked partners and destroyed their possessions, smashing things and breaking. But killing Dave's puppy represented a new level of violence. She took it up a notch. What does that escalation tell us?

• 41:24Tristin Engels?

  Her violence is becoming more purposeful. She's not just reacting anymore, because before, she attacked the person she believed was rejecting or abandoning her, and she's not doing that here. She's attacking something innocent, something that the person loves. This isn't just a loss of control anymore, because she's demonstrating that she can be emotionally dysregulated and still be selective on who she harms or how she expresses her aggression. And here, the violence, it's punitive. She feels hurt, so she wants him to feel hurt too. She's showing him what she's willing to do when she feels betrayed, and that makes her dangerousness more serious, especially going forward.

• 42:05Vanessa Richardson?

  Well, by killing Dave's puppy, Catherine had found a devastating new way to punish him for what she believed was an attempt to leave her. And over the next few years, Catherine continued attacking Dave whenever she believed he'd ignored, embarrassed, or betrayed her. Yet, the relationship continued, and before long, Catherine became pregnant with their child. In June 1988, she gave birth to their daughter. Her first name has been kept anonymous, but they gave her the middle name Barbara, in honor of the mother Catherine was still grieving. But another baby didn't fix Catherine and Dave's relationship. The arguments and violence continued, and by May of 1990, Dave had decided he needed

• 42:49Vanessa Richardson?

  to leave permanently. He secretly moved to Newcastle, more than 70 miles away, and told almost no one where he was staying. He thought disappearing was the only way he could safely end the relationship, but Catherine kept looking for him, even as she told their two-year-old daughter that her father was dead. While Dave was hiding, Catherine expected him to return. But one afternoon, as she looked for him at a local bar, she met a guy named John Chillingworth. John worked at a slaughterhouse too, and he and Catherine were both emerging from failed relationships. Their connection developed quickly. Within weeks, Catherine was pregnant with John's baby.

• 43:33Vanessa Richardson?

  Almost immediately, Catherine began telling him the baby wasn't his, a claim she returned to again and again, and one that tormented him throughout the pregnancy. But on March 3, 1991, Catherine gave birth to a son. Once he arrived, both Catherine and John were thrilled. And after raising three daughters, Catherine finally had the boy she'd always wanted. John never moved permanently into Catherine's home, but he stayed there a lot. And before long, familiar conflicts returned. Catherine accused John of drinking too much and being unfaithful, while she kept dangling the question of whether the boy was really his. One night, driving him home after a long day of drinking, the argument turned into

• 44:17Vanessa Richardson?

  a fistfight in the car, the one time John admits he hit her. Catherine drove straight to the police station, had him charged, and took out a restraining order against him. Catherine's daughters would later describe years of beatings at his hands, although hospital records don't bear that out. Hoping to start over, John suggested they move to Queensland together. Catherine agreed, and the family relocated to a caravan park on the Sunshine Coast. But the move lasted only around 10 days. One afternoon, John returned to their RV and found Catherine inside with another man. The following morning, Catherine packed the children into her van and drove back to Aberdeen

• 45:02Vanessa Richardson?

  without him. By the time John followed her home, Catherine was in another relationship. The new man was another John, John Price. Catherine had known him around Aberdeen for years. He was a minor and heavy machine operator. Most people called Pricey. He was outgoing, generous, and in touch with his emotions. He was also a heavy drinker. John had three children from his former marriage. Although he and his ex-wife Colleen were no longer together, they had remained friendly, and John's children were still the center of his life. This time, Catherine believed she'd found the man she would grow old with. At first, she tried to make herself indispensable.

• 45:45Vanessa Richardson?

  She cooked John's meals, cleaned his house, and fixed his clothing. She and her younger children spent most nights at his home on St. Andrews Street. But the house never fully felt like hers. The furniture, curtains, and dishes had all been picked by Colleen, and John resisted Catherine's attempts to change anything. On top of this, his older kids made it clear that the property belonged to their family, not Catherine. But Catherine wanted to make the house hers, and she wanted to marry John. He wasn't interested in either, though. Before long, Catherine's disappointment grew into jealousy and resentment. She became suspicious of John's ex, his children, and any woman who spoke to him.

• 46:30Vanessa Richardson?

  She threatened to mutilate or kill him if she ever caught him being unfaithful. Sometimes the two would separate, but it was always temporary. This went on for years. Then, after an argument about the house, John told her to go for good. Catherine had recently learned he'd willed the property to his children, so she demanded $10,000 for the years she'd invested in him and his home. And when John refused, she found another way to punish him. Catherine had secretly filmed equipment and supplies John had taken from the mine. She sent copies of the recording to his employer and the police. John was suspended and eventually fired, losing a well-paying job

• 47:15Vanessa Richardson?

  and the retirement benefits he'd spent decades working for. Once again, when Catherine believed a partner was rejecting her, she'd attacked something central to his identity and security.

• 47:28Tristin Engels?

  Catherine has a pattern of being calculated and prepared. We've seen it. Because remember, with her first husband, David, she would keep knives available, hanging them above the bed or under car seats. She made sure she was never vulnerable and always in control by using implied threats and coercion. And in this case, though, instead of planning ahead with planting knives, she gathered evidence. It's part of her punitive pattern. But what's changing, obviously, is the weapon of choice. Reporting misconduct isn't inherently abusive. John apparently did take property from his employer, and that is a crime. But in this context, Catherine secretly recorded it. She kept the evidence, and she held on to it as leverage.

• 48:10Tristin Engels?

  She deployed it only after she felt rejected. This pattern of hers reverses the power dynamic. It helps her go from feeling rejected and vulnerable to powerful and in control. It's as if to say, again, you can't reject me because I was prepared to reject you first, only with a very antisocial and retaliatory component to it.

• 48:33Vanessa Richardson?

  How can punishment become another way for an abusive partner to maintain power or maybe a connection after a breakup?

• 48:41Tristin Engels?

  That's a great question. Punishment can extend control even after the relationship ends, especially with something like this. She damaged his livelihood and took away his retirement benefits. So for the rest of his life, she's somehow affecting him or occupying space in it, even if she's not physically a part of it. And also, this has been effective for her in reconnecting with partners, too. She's been able to revive relationships with her punitive or violent behavior in the past. So she may have learned that conflict itself doesn't always end the relationship. Like this, for example. It gets a reaction, a response. It causes them to deal with something that she's done. It may require them to maintain dialogue with her,

• 49:24Tristin Engels?

  and it keeps her relevant in their life. And in some instances, it causes them to come back to her.

• 49:32Vanessa Richardson?

  By exposing John's theft from the mine, Catherine had ensured that rejecting her would carry a devastating cost. And yet, John allowed her to return to his home, but he was getting scared. Late in 1999, he called a friend and broke down crying. John told him that Catherine had stabbed him. He refused to report the attack or show anyone the wound. He believed that if Catherine couldn't reach him, she might retaliate against his children instead. And by then, other friends were also openly warning him that Catherine might kill him. By February of 2000, Catherine was 44 years old and increasingly convinced that her last chance at a lasting relationship was slipping away.

• 50:16Vanessa Richardson?

  On February 27, another violent argument erupted. John admitted to the police that he'd grabbed Catherine by the throat. He also said she'd pulled a knife, which Catherine denied. Police suggested that she take her children and spend the night at her own home, but Catherine insisted that John's house belonged to her, too. And so the following night, police came to the house and served John with an application for an apprehended violence order, commonly known in Australia as an AVO. Catherine had refused to press charges. Police had applied for the order themselves to protect her from John. But John asked to speak to the officers privately. And while Catherine waited in the kitchen,

• 50:59Vanessa Richardson?

  he told them he wanted Catherine out of his house. The officer said that in that case, he would need to appear at the courthouse the next day and request his own protective order. Back in the kitchen, Catherine was seething. She suspected John was starting a legal process of his own against her. For John, separation had become unavoidable. For Catherine, it was another betrayal.

• 51:25Tristin Engels?

  There are a lot of warning signs with John that I wouldn't minimize. He's reportedly been stabbed badly enough that there's a wound, but he doesn't report it. And now he's afraid Catherine might go after his children. And when someone living with intimate partner violence starts changing their behavior because they're afraid of what their partner might do, that tells us something about how credible the threat has become to them. So the relationship is very volatile and high-risk as it is. But separation makes it even more so. Separation can be one of the most dangerous periods in an abusive relationship because leaving changes the power dynamic. The abusive partner is losing access to the person

• 52:08Tristin Engels?

  and with that, their ability to control what that person does. So attempts to regain control can actually intensify when the relationship is ending. And that explains a lot as to why some of her partners end up coming back because to them, it might feel safer. And separation itself is a recognized risk factor in intimate partner homicide research. If John is seeking a separation that is legally mandated, then that really affects Catherine's control. He would be the first person to include law enforcement action that we know of. Catherine may experience that as a very big betrayal, like you said, something that he's done to her. And if law enforcement mandates that she stay away from him,

• 52:53Tristin Engels?

  her control and her tactics are really threatened. Not to say that it's going to stop her, but it definitely is going to threaten her. Given the punitive pattern we've already seen, that definitely concerns me.

• 53:05Vanessa Richardson?

  Catherine had previously used threats to pull partners back into her life, and it kept working before. So what might change psychologically when those methods stop working?

• 53:16Tristin Engels?

  That's when I become even more concerned about escalation. When a reliable behavior suddenly stops working, the behavior can intensify before it gets extinguished. In behavioral psychology, we call that an extinction burst. You essentially try harder because what worked before isn't working anymore. But with Catherine, if threats have also given her a sense of power when she feels someone is pulling away, their ineffectiveness means she's losing both the relationship and her ability to influence the person leaving. So she may become increasingly desperate to find something else that will get a response or regain her power and control. And when her behaviors already include threats, weapons, violence, retaliation, punishment,

• 54:01Tristin Engels?

  that escalation becomes very concerning because where does it go next? You're going to have to stick around for part two.

• 54:10Vanessa Richardson?

  By the morning of February 29, 2000, Catherine understood that John was preparing to remove her from his life. And so she sharpened her butcher knives, figuratively and literally. Catherine spent most of the day driving around town. She went to see her attorney and asked whether John could legally force her from the house. She showed friends and relatives a bruise from their recent fight, repeated her account to police, and visited a doctor so the injury could be formally documented. She also picked up her video camera. Catherine was a grandmother by now, and she filmed herself with her children and granddaughter, telling them over and over that she loved them.

• 54:52Vanessa Richardson?

  When they left the room for a moment, she repeated the sentiment on camera, quietly adding that she hoped to see them again. That night, Catherine took the family out for dinner and asked Natasha, her second-oldest, to keep the two younger children overnight. That made Natasha suspicious. Before Catherine left, Natasha asked her directly, was she planning to kill John and then herself? Catherine denied it. She promised that if John started another argument, she would simply return to her own home. Then she hugged Natasha goodbye and drove back to John's place. John was already in bed when Catherine got back to the house late that night. She let herself inside, lit a cigarette, and watched TV.

• 55:37Vanessa Richardson?

  Then she showered and changed into a short, black nightgown she'd bought earlier that day. The two climbed into bed and had sex. For a brief moment, the hostility between them seemed to fade. John was gentle and kind with her. Then John got out of bed and walked toward the bathroom. When he came back, Catherine was waiting. She had one of her freshly sharpened butcher knives in her hand, and before John had a chance to react, she lunged at him.

• 56:23Vanessa Richardson?

  Thanks so much for listening. Come back next time for the conclusion of our deep dive on Katherine Knight.

• 56:29Tristin Engels?

  Serial Killers and Murderous Minds is a Crime House original powered by Pave Studios. Here at Crime House, we want to thank each and every one of you for your support. If you like what you heard today, reach out on all social media at Crime House. Don't forget to rate, review, and follow Serial Killers and Murderous Minds wherever you get your podcasts. Your feedback truly makes a difference.

• 56:52Vanessa Richardson?

  And to enhance your listening experience, join Crime House Plus and get both parts of every story dropped on the same Monday, completely ad-free. No waiting three days for part two, plus Crime House bonus episodes every month. To join, go to crimehouseplus.com. Or if you listen on Apple Podcasts, tap "Try Free" at the top of the Serial Killers and Murderous Minds page. Serial Killers and Murderous Minds is hosted by me, Vanessa Richardson, and forensic psychologist Dr. Tristin Engels, and is a Crime House original powered by Pave Studios. This episode was brought to life by the Serial Killers and Murderous Minds team,

• 57:33Vanessa Richardson?

  Max Cutler, Ron Shapiro, Alex Benedon, Lori Marinelli, Natalie Pritzowski, Sarah Camp, Alyssa Fox, Mara De La Rosa, Claire Swartzlander, Sarah Bachelor, and Carrie Murphy. Thank you for listening.

• 57:53Vanessa Richardson?

  If you're looking for your next podcast, check out What the Fact with Connor Tomlinson from Netflix's Love on the Spectrum and Carter Roy. Every week, they take three unbelievable true facts from history and tell you the full story behind them. Follow What the Fact wherever you listen or subscribe on YouTube at What the Fact Pod.