Hey weirdos, it's Ash here, ready to share a little secret.
Have you heard of Wondery Plus? With ad-free episodes and one week early access, it's like having an all-access pass to our lighthearted nightmare.
So come join us on the dark side and try Wondery Plus today.
You can join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or in Apple Podcasts or Spotify.
You're listening to a Morbid Network podcast.
Listening on Audible helps your imagination soar.
Whether you listen to stories, motivation, expert advice, any genre you love, you can be inspired to imagine new worlds, new possibilities, and new ways of thinking.
Listening can lead to positive changes in your mood, your habits, and ultimately your overall well-being.
Audible has an incredible selection of over 1 million audiobooks, podcasts, and Audible Originals all in one easy app.
Find the genres you love and discover new ones.
Explore bestsellers like my sister's title. new releases, plus thousands of included audiobooks, podcasts, and originals that members can listen to all they want with more added all the time.
I have been listening to the Martha's Vineyard Beach and Book Club, which actually Elena recommended to me.
She did not listen to it, but she said, girl, this title sounds so you.
And let me tell you, it did. I've been listening to it while I walk, and I am absolutely loving it.
I I love Audible. There's more to imagine when you listen.
Sign up for a free 30-day Audible trial and your first audiobook is free.
Visit audible.com slash morbid. Think about the most disturbing government secrets you've learned from history.
Now imagine discovering one that begins in a hospital room and leads straight to classified military operations that were buried for decades.
Listen to a redacted medical mystery a special episode from Redacted and Mr. Ballin's Medical Mysteries, available now wherever you get your podcasts.
Hey weirdos, I'm Ash. And I'm Elena. And this is Morbid.
So that was that. So we're here. Here we are.
And... we have some business to catch up on and i have a little correction to make before we start anything whoa so let's just get this out of the way fucking correct i want to make sure that everybody knows I'm correcting this right away.
I want to make sure that everybody knows that I do the right amount of research.
Whatever. So, last week... We were doing...
What one were we doing last week? We did The Vampire Killers.
I was like, what were we talking about? We did The Vampire Killer, Rod Ferrell.
And I said that this happened in Murray, Kentucky, which it did.
But I also incorrectly said that that was the same place that Ted Bundy tried to kidnap.
Carol DeRange. Wrong. The thing is... He tried to kidnap her in Murray, Utah.
So I just didn't look correctly. I wrote it down wrong.
Stupid me. But one of our listeners corrected me on that and I appreciate it because it makes me very upset that I got any element of the Ted Bundy case wrong.
Yeah, that's your favorite case. I know.
So, yeah. So we just wanted to correct that.
It was Murray, Utah, not Murray, Kentucky.
So thank you to... I don't have your name because I just have your user, your handle on Instagram.
Joakadada. Yeah. where are we j-o-a-c-o-t-d is your username but you're also writing a book on the ted bundy case So we'll plug that shit for you when you write it.
So get to writing. But thank you for that.
J-O-A-C-O-T-D. I appreciate it. Thank you.
So that's our correction for today. If you have any more, yell at us.
Send them our way. Other than that, some updates.
We're gonna be getting a website up and running soon.
I almost dropped my iPad. Don't do that.
We're going to have a website getting up and running soon because right now we kind of have just like a...
Very simple WordPress website, but I'm going to jump on Squarespace.
Ooh. Who are not... sponsoring us yet well somebody fucking sponsor us we're just gonna keep begging people to sponsor I'm going to get that up and running and let you guys know where that is because that'll be a good place. where we can kind of have all our information all in one spot, because we are also getting merch. going.
Merchity merch merch. Talking to my friend Vasco.
Vasco Vaz. Who is an amazing artist. and he's gonna be helping us design some stuff, so that's gonna be exciting.
We'll keep you updated on that. And other than that, we have some new...
Patreons. We've got two of them. We have two of them.
Did you write them down for me to say or was I just supposed to remember?
No, you were supposed to do that. Well, let me get up my Gmail machine here.
So we have a custom Patreon. She gave us a custom amount of money.
It was $500 million. Thank you so much for that.
Just kidding. That's pretty rad. It was Grace Stewart.
Thanks. Thank you, Grace. You're the best.
You're the best. I'm gonna name something wonderful after you.
Yeah. And then Ren Marks, which is a cool name, right?
That is a cool name. Is an evil onion. Yeah, evil onion.
We have like a huge band. Yeah, Evil Onion is like our biggest one, I think.
It's like that, what was that huge band where they all were like hippies and wearing like flowy robes?
Charles Manson's family? No, there's like an actual band.
I'm going to come up with that band name after a while.
I promise it's a real thing. But, yeah.
Thanks, Ren. Also, I love your name. And that is actually the character in the book that I'm writing.
The main character. Elena's writing a book. plug yeah i'm gonna plug the book that is actually really good that isn't done yet i haven't read it in a while i know And other news.
I have to add more to it. I haven't had time to write in a while, but I'm gonna get back on it.
Why are you so busy? I know. I feel like our listeners would actually like this book.
Yeah, they definitely would. Because Ren is the medical examiner.
You're going to be rich as fuck someday.
That's right. I'm just going to be like Oliver Twisting at your house.
Like, please, sir, may I have some more?
Someday I'll finish the book. Someday. We're like two years into it, so it's not done yet.
It's like halfway done. I'll get on it. But yeah, so thank you so much to our new Patreons.
You guys are rad as fuck. And we are actually going to be recording the bonus episodes for you guys. tonight so those are going to be out soon and by the time you hear this it'll probably already be out I don't know how this shit works.
Either way. If you feel like throwing a couple bucks our way and seeing some bonus eppies, go for it.
If you don't, we still love you. We still love your ass. guts.
Yes. And entrails. All your guts. Yes. Eyeballs to entrails, my sweet.
I love when you say that. It's so gross.
It's from Buffy. Oh. It's a Drusilla quote.
I just dropped the hampa. Wait, no. It's a Spike quote.
I think Spike said it to Drusilla. Yeah.
I'm going to name my first kid Drusilla.
I love that name. That's a rad name. I'm not going to name my first kid Drusilla.
She'd be crazy because Drusilla was crazy.
So, we're taking a trip to Australia again.
To the outback. We're going down under. Again.
I come from a land down under. We already hit Ivan Milat.
So yeah, we're taking a trip to Australia again.
And I know we have a lot of Australian listeners, which is kind of cool.
That is cool. So, hey, guys. I want to go to Australia.
I want to go to Australia Wicked Bad. I want to see a kangaroo.
A kangaroo. With a joey. Joey. I don't know if that was Australian or if that was British.
I don't know. They are. I feel like people might get mad at me for saying this, but I think they're sort of similar.
They're similar, but like not at all. But yeah, exactly.
They're like the same, but completely fucking different.
They really are. It's a very... Actually, I was listening to last podcast on the left, one of their...
Australian episodes and Henry has been trying to perfect his Australian accent.
Is he going to get on it? He's really good at accents, I will say that.
Oh, I wish I was good at accents. And I know, me too.
And they were talking about how, and I agreed completely, especially being from Boston.
That the Australian accident. The Australian accident.
Has a lot of like Bostonian elements to it.
Like there's a lot of like. you care you know what i mean like it's like it's almost like the jfk accent i'm not good at accents but i'm good at like doing other voices yeah Like the party goblin.
Like the party goblin. Let's go to a party.
And a ballet girl. That's just my fucking voice.
God damn you. I have to bring it up. I'm gonna talk like this so that no one thinks I'm a valley girl.
Are you serious? So let's just get right into it.
Today's case is the case of Catherine Knight.
Why did I think it was Christina? Bye. I think it was like... Catherine.
Catherine Knight. Also known by some as the Black Knight.
Because she's intense. Yeah, she is fucking intense.
So, fair warning. It's fucking brutal. This is...
Brutal. Brutality to the maxality. Like, this is wild.
And when I first got into this case, instead of like diving into it, I knew the big crescendo of this case.
But there's so many little crescendos. Which it ends in a murder.
Let's just say that. Murder. But there's so much leading up to this, too.
It's... She was such... A bad person. She's still alive.
I shouldn't say she was. She's a real bad gal.
She is a real bad gal. She's a bad broad. bad and it's and so many things just failed in this like like the police failed the mental health system failed her family failed everyone's a big old failure so much failure so let's just kick it right off So in Aberdeen, Australia, 49-year-old Catherine Knight brutally killed her common-law husband, John Price, on February 29th, Leap Day.
In the year 2000. We had another Leap Day murder, didn't we?
We had somebody who was born on a Leap Day.
Someone was born on a Leap Day. It wasn't the Night Stalker, was it?
I think it was, actually. Because we were like, oh, it's supposed to be good luck, but it's not.
It was bad fucking luck. So apparently it's not good luck.
Um, so the details of how she committed this murder, we will get to... In the end.
In a little while, but it's gonna blow your fucking mind, so...
Now let me blow your mind. Hold on to your butts.
We should put that on a shirt. We really should.
Hold on to your butts. So the crime scene where this happened was apparently so bad.
I'm giving you some things to hold on to for the rest of this whole thing.
It was apparently so bad that a lot of police officers straight up quit.
They were like, you know what? I don't think this is for me.
They were like, you know what? Nope, not going to do it.
And the police officers who actually were the first responders there... have complained years later of still being affected by what they saw.
I would be. A few officers had to go through years of therapy to try to wipe this vision away.
That's the thing. I don't know how police officers see what they see and don't go to like, they have to. yeah go to therapy well it's the same as like um medical examiners and shit well yeah you're just bananas it's you just have to separate Yeah.
You have to look at it. You have to be, like, good at it.
Yeah, you just have to be like, this is a job.
You can't think too far into, like, this is a person with a family and this is... Yeah, that's how I feel about blow-drying people's hair.
That's what you... When you start thinking of those people having families, you're like, oh.
Oh, shit. A lot of pressure here. What if your mom doesn't like your haircut?
Fuck. You're going to come back next week.
You're going to come back next week and I can't deal with that.
We're getting too close. We have very similar careers.
Same thing. Same exact thing. Totally. So Detective Sergeant Bob Wells, who was called to the crime scene, one of the first responders, said, quote, It's an image that I'm still trying to come to grips with today.
And that's a detective. Like a sergeant. video footage of this crime scene is actually locked away.
Oh, I heard that. And it's so bad that they believed...
Anybody who views these tapes would be forever damaged.
Oh, I would never want to. But they had to show it to the jury pool.
And a lot of the jury pool had to have therapy afterwards.
Jesus. And she's not a household name in Australia.
Really? Which is crazy, because you would think she would be, because in the end, she ends up being the first woman in Australian history to be sentenced to life in prison without parole.
Now, the reason she is not a household name is because journalists literally thought that it wasn't right for the public to hear these gruesome details.
Like they were literally like, this is too much.
It's like taboo. So according to the Daily Telegraph, it was left out of a lot of newspapers and off news because it was just so bad.
Shit. Now, a journalist with The Australian named Peter Lalore said quote we had to make a decision whether the story was palatable for people to read with their breakfast in the morning a decision was made this couldn't be reported it was too horrific So how did people ever find out about it?
Well, some people did report on it. Report on it.
But it just wasn't as widely reported as I think, or maybe they just didn't report the details as much.
And the details are really what makes this just a legendary case.
So, Catherine Knight was born October 24th, 1955 in Tenterfield, New South Wales, Australia.
She was definitely raised in a dysfunctional and unconventional family, to say the fucking least.
Well, here is the thing with all of the fucking people that we're covering lately.
This one is really bad. Me too. She was in it real bad.
So before her birth, her mother, Barbara, I can't, it's R-O-U-G-H-A-N, Rowan?
Oh, yeah. Rowan? Barbara Rowan. Quick English class.
Her mother, Barbara Rowan, was married to a man named Jack Rowan, who was a pig farmer.
And they live together in a small town of Aberdeen in New South Wales, Hunter Valley, which is a small town of only like 2,000 people.
And it's well known for its slaughterhouse industry.
Do you know what that reminds me of? What?
Sharp objects, which you should fucking watch.
I know, I need to get on it. But we've been trying to finish The Good Place.
Season two. Just fucking watch Sharp Objects instead.
The Good Place is very easy to binge, though.
So sharp objects. I'm going to get on some of them.
And all of you should too. Sorry. Goodbye.
Yeah. And I'm also trying to finish Dark Tourist.
Or I'm just trying to savor Dark Tourist.
Yeah, I savor it because I sprinkle it in here and there.
I want a season two. Kind of hoping. Season two for sure.
Sponsor us, Netflix. I already know what you're doing.
Go watch it. So Aberdeen was known for its slaughterhouse industry.
Like the whole town. A lot of families, that was their family business, basically.
A lot of pork. Barbara and Jack had four sons together.
And after these four sons were born, Barbara began having an affair with a man named Ken Knight, citing Jack's drinking and gambling as a problem for her.
Uh oh. Ken was a co-worker at the Aberdeen Meatworks, a slaughterhouse, and a friend of her husband, Jack, so she was like a fucking peach, clearly.
So she ends up having four more children with Ken.
Holy shit. Yeah. As you're going to see, kids are popping out everywhere in this case.
She was fertile myrtle. They have twin girls, Catherine and Joy, who were born in 1955.
Yes. Catherine was the younger one her sister's name was Joy which is really funny it would be funny if her name was Joy When Catherine was four, her stepfather Jack passed away, and the two boys who had lived with him moved in with Barbara and Ken.
Mm-hmm. The other two kids, from what I read, because they had four kids, Jack and Barbara.
The other two kids I read in a couple places, they went to live with an aunt in Sydney.
Jack and Barbara or Ken and Barbara? Okay, so Jack passed away.
Yeah. So Barbara and Jack's kids. Two of them went to live with an aunt in Sydney and two of them went to live with Ken and Barbara.
Oh, okay. Got it. Sorry. No, don't worry.
What a family tree. Yeah. So now... It all just kind of seems, like, dysfunctional, but, like, the kind of dysfunction that's, like, whatever, right?
Like, you're just like, okay, whatever. Yeah, like, who cares?
No, it's not that at all. You're like, you're gonna care.
Yeah, like, get ready. So Ken was a piece of actual shit.
He was a big pile of dung. He literally was.
He was an alcoholic and he openly used violence and intimidation on Barbara.
Oh, good. She had black eyes all the time.
Wasn't it fair to have, Barbara? Like, wasn't everything good with Jack other than the gambling?
Was it worth it? And... Eventually the kids saw these black eyes and bruises as just normal.
Like she would walk around battered and bruised and they just didn't even ask. school they were like oh that's her mom and they didn't ask because this was always in full view of the kids where he would be they didn't ask because they knew they knew Um, he would also rape her sometimes 10 times a day in front of their children.
Ew. What the fuck? Fuck. So not only did he abuse her in front of the children all the time, but he also raped her in front of the children.
Jesus. So these kids are getting... Some unbelievable messages.
Dysfunction here. And this is completely desensitizing kids to violence.
Right. Completely. It's putting it hand in hand with sex.
Exactly. Because now we're going to do the same thing that happened with Richard Rivera's and with a lot of these. yeah they're fusing sex and violence and that's gonna them up for later in life So this obviously messed up Catherine's mother, Barbara, as well, and she ended up making a habit of telling her children the intimate details of her sex life and how much she hated That's probably not the best thing to do.
That's compounding on top of already shitty things.
You're like, if you hate men so much, why don't you leave Ken?
Yeah, like, just be alone, man. And like just to like put this in further, at one point later in life, Catherine complained to her mother that one of her partners wanted her to take part in an affair. act that she was not comfortable with okay she was like mom what the fuck do i do here and her mom was like just put up with it and stop fucking complaining Oh, okay, Mom.
Thanks for your motherly advice. I was just going to say motherly advice.
Like what? Yeah, so that's good. Now, Catherine claims she was frequently sexually assaulted by her half-brothers.
But not her father. Pretty believable. She never claimed by her father.
Now, she says this continued until she was like 11 years old.
People have minor doubts about the details, but psychiatrists do accept these claims because family members have confirmed that they have them.
That's really sad. So... She's being sexually abused by her own brothers.
Which is super fucked up. Her father is abusing her mother in every way imaginable in front of her.
And then on top of that, her parents took turns in beating the kids all the time.
With anything from an electrical cord to a dog lead.
What? And there was a big wooden plank that they left hanging above the kitchen door as a warning to the kids.
Oh, okay. Now, when she attended Muswellbrook High School... I might have gotten that name wrong.
Muswellbrook? You tried. High School, um...
Catherine was kind of a loner, and she's remembered by classmates as a legit bully who, like, stood over smaller kids and, like, intimidated them.
Was rude to them. Well, that's what she fucking knew how to do.
Exactly. So she was a huge asshole, and her sister Joy was basically the same.
Oh. So the two twins were dicks and actually they would fight each other a lot.
Like they would end up beating the shit out of each other.
But then if one person stepped to one of the twins, the other one would come to their defense in like a second.
To like kick someone's ass for their twin.
Huh. Yeah. So it's like kind of crazy. So.
Oh, God. Yeah. That's when you know it's bad if your teacher is using self-defense.
Yikes. So around town, everyone knew she had these dark moods, and that's when you would keep away from her.
But they also claimed that she could be really sweet and polite. and like happy and wonderful interesting now there's a reason for this and i'm going to get into it in a minute Now, she dropped out of school at the age of 16.
She hadn't learned to read or write and she was basically considered illiterate.
This wasn't super weird at the time because in this town, a lot of kids were kind of just... in school to be in school until they could go into the meat industry.
Oh, wow. in a too weird of a thing. They weren't learning a lot.
They weren't really there to learn. They were there just to pass the time.
It was like daycare sort of. Yeah. So after failing her first audition into the abattoir, which is a slaughterhouse job, She finally nailed it and got what she referred to as her, quote, dream job.
Well, that's like fucking you. In 1974 at the age of 18.
I would not want a slaughterhouse job. She has to kill animals.
Well, no, I'm saying, like, you have a slaughterhouse job.
I have a slaughterhouse job. Can I say something, though?
This is gonna be really sad, but, like, just, like, for your knowledge...
Pigs are even smarter than dogs and they know what's happening to them before they get slaughtered.
Yeah. And this is going to suck to hear once you know that.
So, you're welcome. So just get ready. Maybe don't eat pork.
Yeah. I still do. I was gonna say, you say that like, maybe don't eat pork.
But I still do. Let me go eat some pork.
But just so you're educated. But you know what?
It's good to know where it comes from. Yeah.
And like sometimes I actually. Because sometimes you need to have that moment of like shit.
What am I doing? I mean, I eat meat, but I'd really like to not eat meat.
Me too. It's difficult. I need to get some willpower.
So she did finally get that dream job. She was put in the awful room, it's called.
The awful room? Awful is the entrails and internal organs of an animal used as food.
Oh, good. Now, she was in there scraping blood and bone marrow from the dead animal carcasses.
This was at the Aberdeen Meatworks Company and her co-workers claimed that Knight would like to go over to the front of the production line and watch the pigs have their throats slit.
Jesus. Yeah. They assumed at first that she was just trying to learn...
But then she got weird enjoyment out of it.
But some were like, she spent a lot of time watching these animals die.
Ugh. Ugh. And then she was, once she started to be able to get promoted in the slaughterhouse, she was doing it herself.
Yeah. Yeah. But there's a way to do it.
I mean, it's all awful. But it's like a less awful way to do it.
Like, usually they get cut quick to not let them suffer.
The whole point of this is not to, you know, torture, you know, you know what I mean?
Yeah. But instead of doing that though...
She wouldn't quickly slice their throat.
Instead, she would, like, nick an artery and watch them bleed out slowly.
What? Which is so fucked. That's crazy and they're like squeal.
Because you're literally watching an animal just bleed out slowly.
Oh my god, that makes my heart hurt. Yeah.
Now, she was quickly promoted to boning and given her own set of butcher knives.
At home, she hung the knives over her bed.
As one does. So they would always be handy if she needed them.
So listen, I'm all for having a weapon next to your bed.
At night, because I have a weapon next to my bed at night.
But, like, hanging a whole set of butchered knives over your bed seems like it's a little much.
Like, a little excessive. I normally just have food next to my bed at night.
I also have food next to my bed. I have food and weapons next to my bed at night.
And soy milk. Gross. I always am soymilk.
Oh, I know. Vanilla soymilk. I bring a seltzer up to bed these days.
Yeah, there you go. I'm starting to get heartburn in my old age.
Oh, man. You are getting old. So she was obsessed with knives.
Like obsessed. Knives. She was obsessed with them.
She loved them. And she was really good at using them.
She knew how to bone a bitch. There's something called picarism, and it's a clinical term for someone who is aroused by the notion of cutting, slicing, or stabbing skin.
A person with pickerism fantasizes about using a knife to pierce skin.
Awesome. So she definitely had that. Okay.
Her strength was also known all over town.
Like she was a pretty big woman. Hefty lady.
Like she wasn't fat. She was just... Big boned.
Big. I think she was like over six feet tall.
So she was tall. Wow. And she wasn't lanky.
You know what I mean? Like, she wasn't noodley.
She was like, she was a big broad. She could take you out.
Was she, like, big? She was just, like, meaty.
Like, she had big... That's how I would really want someone to describe me.
Meaty. She had, like a lot of people said she had very masculine hands, very big masculine hands, and she was just very strong.
Like, very strong. And you'll hear later of things that she did with her strength, and it's like, she was clearly... Strong.
Scary strong. So that's also really scary that she was that strong.
Yeah. Now, we're going to get into her marriages and relationships now.
Which is the best fucking part. She had four major relationships.
And earlier I told you that people around town said that she could go into these dark moods and you'd fucking stay away from her because she's in those dark moods with those rages and shit.
But then when she's nice, she's hella nice.
But then when she could be super gentle.
Now the reason for this is she was believed to have had borderline personality disorder.
Oh. So this illness manifests itself in kind of scary ways, and it's exceedingly difficult to treat.
Mm-hmm. So because of this mental illness, she was able to show a soft, probably warm side that could draw people in.
But then she would unleash. She'd have like episodes.
And she would only unleash for a short period of time.
So once that happened, she could draw the people back in with the sweet, you know, charismatic way about it.
Right. And that's why she was always able to bring them back in with the quote, good Catherine, because it would always come back.
Now, I'm just going to give you a little information about, I'm going to call it BPD, borderline personality disorder, just so you know what we're working with here.
The characteristics of it are a fear of abandonment.
They're often terrified of being abandoned or left alone.
Something as innocuous as a loved one getting home late makes these people go and, like... into a frenzy of like they get so scared that this person is abandoning them There's a lot of jealousy there.
The next thing is they have unstable relationships.
They tend to be intense, but very short-lived.
They're going to fall in love quickly. They're going to think every new person is the one, but then that's going to quickly dissipate as fast as it came. and they're either gonna be horrible or amazing and nothing in between.
The next thing is an unclear or unstable self-image.
So your sense of self is completely unstable.
Sometimes you feel great about yourself.
Sometimes you hate yourself. And you don't have a clear idea of who you are or what you want in life.
Oh. As a result... These people frequently change jobs, friends, lovers, religion, values, goals, and even sexual identity.
So the next thing is impulsive, self-destructive behaviors.
These people engage in harmful, sensation-seeking behaviors.
It's usually when they get upset. They go, they will impulsively spend money.
They'll binge eat. They'll drive recklessly.
They'll steal. They'll be promiscuous and overdo it with drugs and alcohol.
They'll sabotage success by suddenly quitting a good job or ending a relationship.
Then there's self-harm, suicidal behavior and deliberate self-harm, extreme emotional mood swings, so unstable emotions and moods are common. you may feel happy one second and then completely despondent the next.
Little things that usually people can brush off will literally send these people into just Jupiter.
And... Very intense, but they pass very quickly.
So they get very angry or very upset, but it can be gone.
So it's almost, it's like manic. Very manic, yeah.
And then there's chronic feelings of emptiness.
So they feel like a nobody and they try to fill this nothingness with, you know, drinking, drugs, sex. you know, anything.
New things. Yeah, just anything in excess.
Okay. They have explosive anger. So they have a really short temper and they just explode.
They have trouble controlling it once the fuse is lit.
It's like... They'll yell, they'll throw things, completely consumed by rage.
And then the last thing is they have a lot of feelings of suspiciousness.
So they struggle with a lot of paranoia, a lot of suspicious thoughts about others.
And when they're under stress, they almost like disassociate and they kind of feel like foggy and spaced out and like outside of themselves.
Huh. So this is what she was... What was going on here.
She had a lot going on. To be clear... Borderline personality disorder does not cause you to kill people.
You have to already have that. thought in your mind in you but borderline personality disorder can also can help it along i think it doesn't help it at least you know what i mean like right it adds to the it just compounds on top of it exactly And as we'll see later, like experts said that borderline personality disorder is not the reason for this.
It's just there as well. So her first relationship was with a man named David Stanford Kellett.
Now, Catherine met David at work. He was a co-worker in 1973.
He was known as a hard-drinking... and a fighter and just but like a good guy like he would he would get in like a fist fight with someone when he's drunk but he's like a good guy in general you know what i mean yeah And the two quickly fell for each other because they were young.
They were like 18 years old. Oh, wow. So this was a long time ago, but she completely dominated him.
And if David got into a fight, which was like a lot, she would step in and literally like fight alongside him with fists.
That's terrifying. She would literally fight with him.
Now, in Aberdeen, she had already become well-known for physically fighting anyone that pissed her off.
So now she was just with someone that she could do it next to.
Now, they did get married in 1974 when they were both 18, but she literally forced him into it.
She's like, we're fucking getting married.
Basically. Literally, one day during their lunch break, she literally told them we're getting married.
What? So she essentially did do that. And on the actual wedding day, they arrived at the service on her motorcycle in a...
David was shit-faced. That's fucking amazing.
And on that day, Catherine's mother, Barbara, gave David some advice.
Because, you know, it's their wedding. Don't marry her.
And she was like, let me tell you a little something about my daughter.
This is what David said that Barbara told him.
He said, the old girl said to me, 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. She'll fucking kill you.
And that was her mother talking. She got me.
She told me she's got something loose. She's got a screw loose somewhere.
That was her own mother telling her new husband that.
That's wild. Now, on their wedding night, as you can imagine, their wedding night was beautiful, romantic.
Was it? Just everything you've ever thought a wedding night should be.
Now, on their wedding night, David woke up to Catherine strangling him and punching him in the face i mean that's romantic af now You might be thinking, why?
I would say that's a first thought. Why is she doing that?
Well, she later explained it was because he fell asleep after only having intercourse with her three times.
That's it? And she knew her parents had consummated their marriage five times on their wedding night.
Why did she know that? I don't fucking know.
Like, Barbara, chill. Why did it matter?
I don't fucking know. Like, I have to beat my mom.
Literally. Like, gross. Yeah. Also. Three times.
Also five times? Chill, girl. Chill. One and done.
Chill. Calm your titties. Damn. So she figured she would just kill his ass on the wedding night.
She's like, you know what? I can do better.
Bananas. Now, apparently he let that go.
And they just went on with their life. And he also... David said their marriage in the beginning was like...
Okay. Which I don't know what he considers okay after that.
Like getting punched in the face and strangled?
Yeah. Yeah. Their marriage eventually did get very violent, but it was Catherine as the aggressor.
Shocking. One time, when she was super pregnant, because they did have kids together.
Yikesies. He was super pregnant. Catherine lit all of David's clothing and shoes on fire.
And then hit him... Across the back of the head with a frying pan.
What? Why? Because he had arrived home late from a darts competition after reaching the finals at a local pub.
A darts competition. Yeah. Now, so literally he went out for the night to do this darts competition at a pub.
The pub closed at like 10 or whatever. And she called him and was like, you need to get home now.
It's closed. And he was like, okay, but we're not done.
We're just finishing up. And she was like, okay.
And when he showed up, she was like, oh, I've lit all your shit on fire.
So get home by curfew, bitch. And bang, here's a firing pan to the head.
Now, obviously he was terrified and figured she was going to kill him and somehow staggered to the neighbor's house and collapsed when he got there.
Oh my god. He was taken to the hospital and he was diagnosed with a very severe fracture to his skull.
Oh wow, he's lucky he didn't die. This is not a fucking cartoon, and you can't just hit someone in the head with a frying pan.
Like, that's insane. Do you know what I'm about to say?
No. It's time for hillbilly moment. Does anybody remember that from the Amanda show?
For a hillbilly moment. I'm gonna hit you in the head with a frog pound.
Hillbilly moment. Whoa. True hillbilly moment.
Yikes. Now, police wanted to charge her, obviously.
Why? So many whys. But she was now on her best behavior and she talked David into dropping the charges.
And then did they continue to be married?
Never drop the charges, guys. If someone has brought you to the point of having to debate charges, don't drop them.
Don't do that. Just go through with them.
Now, when he came home from the hospital, that's when she had hung all of the knives over the bed.
Oh, that's when she did it? Like a special hook.
Yeah. And she was like fuck with me. He came home and was like yeah we'll keep going with this.
That makes sense right? Okay. Now, one morning, he woke up to see her like straddling him. and was holding a knife at his throat, grazing it.
And she laughed and told him how easy it would be to kill him.
I'd be like, I actually moved out yesterday.
Bye. Now, David said I never raised a finger against her, not even in self-defense.
I would just walk away. In these situations.
And people said he was not a violent guy to her.
None of these dudes were. Now, in May 1976, shortly after the birth of their first child, Melissa...
David had enough of the constant abuse because he was, obviously shit was bad.
Right. He left her for another woman and moved to Queensland.
Now... Is that still in Australia? Yes. Now, Catherine, this was abandonment.
And she lost her mind. So this is real bad for her.
Now, it was said that after this, she threatened to slice up the baby.
Oh my god. And also swung her newborn daughter around by the ankles at one point.
Jesus. The next day after he left, she was seen pushing the new baby, Melissa, in a carriage down the street. violently throwing the carriage from side to side and slamming it into fences and poles.
Oh my god, this poor baby. With the baby inside.
Now, after this, she was admitted to St.
Elmo's Hospital in Tamworth, like a psychiatric ward.
But she was quickly released. Because she's probably good at tricking people when she's switched her good thing on.
This is where the system fails big time.
After being released, she then went and placed her two-month-old Melissa on some train tracks shortly before a train was due.
Now while her infant lay on the train tracks, she went and stole an axe, went into town, and started swinging it around at people and threatening to kill everybody.
Like girl. People were literally running around and hiding from her.
That's so scary. And luckily, a man known around town as Old Ted... Old Ted!
...was foraging for, like, food near the train tracks.
Aww! found melissa rescued her minutes before a train passed oh my god that's So scary.
And this time she was arrested and again taken to St.
Elmo's Hospital, but signed herself out the following day.
And her child was given back to her. What?
Yeah. Like what? Can you imagine finding out that like when you were two months old, your mom put you on train tracks?
Oh, and Melissa still to this day defends her mother.
All her kids do. Interesting. And she, like, beat the shit out of them their whole lives.
And they still are, like... Are they just afraid of her?
Yeah. Yeah. and they've just been so conditioned conditioned that's scary So a few days later, obviously recovered, right?
Oh, for sure. This is so bananas. She was living at her parents' now for the time being.
At one point, she took her infant child, Melissa, and went to, and she told her parents, I'm going to go home to pick up a few things to bring back to your house.
Mm-hmm. The things she picked up at her home were knives, including a giant curved slaughterhouse blade, scissors, and bandages.
Normal. She took these things along with her infant baby to the home of a young teenager that had worked with her at the slaughterhouse.
When she got there, the boy's mother answered the door and she told her that my baby's sick and she needs a ride to Queenland to the hospital.
So the woman is like, oh shit, sure. Like, of course I'm going to help you and an infant.
And Catherine was like, I'm going to go back to my house right down the street.
You can pick me up. I just got to grab a couple. was she just walking yeah so the woman packed up a bunch of her kids because she had a ton of kids and got in the car and went to Catherine's house.
When Catherine saw that there were a bunch of kids in the car, she got super pissed. pulled out the curved blade and said something to the effect of like, this is too many of you.
I'm going to have to get rid of a couple of you.
What? Yeah. She then went batshit and started swinging the knife at everyone and cut one of the girl's cheeks.
Oh my god. Yeah. And so then they said that she seemed like she was searching for something in her front yard while she was holding them hostage.
What? And they were like, what the fuck?
They found out later that that's where she kept her gun in the front yard and that her father had come days earlier and removed it.
Probably fearing she was going to kill her baby or try to kill her baby again.
So if he hadn't have done that, she would have definitely murdered an entire fucking family.
What the fuck? Now eventually she holds them all hostage and tells them to drive her to Queensland because they're going to find her husband.
Because she's going to find David now. Oh shit.
So fuck. Now, they convince the family, this woman and her kids convince her, that they need to stop at the gas station for gas or petrol.
But true. And she agrees. She's like, yeah, totally.
And then she's like, oh, good. I can go inside and cash my check that I have.
Like she's like, actually, this all works out.
Like, you know what? This is great. This is super convenient.
Thanks for being so compliant. Like you guys are great.
Now, while she's doing this, the entire family escapes and locks themselves in the office of the gas station because it's the only place they can get to.
So, of course, Catherine gets super pissed about this.
Of course she does. And in a show of incredible strength, like I was saying before.
Does she break the door down? She's real fucking strong.
She used her bare fucking hands to rip the blade off of a giant lawnmower that was attached to the back of a tractor.
What? Yeah. I looked one of these things up.
It's like a big, flat lawnmower that attaches to the back of a tractor.
The blades are gigantic. oh my god she must have cut her hand who knows she's a beast Now, she took this blade because she wanted to hack the door down to get to the family.
And she needed a thicker blade than What the fuck is wrong with this lady?
So she takes this blade and is hacking away at the door.
Like... There's an entire screaming family behind this door while she is hacking at the door, all while she is holding her own infant.
Like, girl, seek help. Yeah. Finally. It's time.
She got into the office. She broke down the door.
She grabbed one of the little boys, held a knife to his throat, and was only stopped because the police showed up.
She was disarmed when the police attacked her with brooms.
Because, you know, oh my god, one time there was... Why do you have a story about this?
I do, because I worked at an Irish pub. So I used to work at an Irish pub and there was like this, I forget what the circumstance was, but I'll never forget what ensued.
There was, like, a super drunk guy, and we, like, had to, he was trying to drive his car home, I think.
Oh, yeah, I remember this story, yeah. From it and my boss who is straight off the boat from Ireland, he was like hiding in the bushes.
The guy was hiding in the bushes near like the outside of the restaurant and my boss went out there with a broom. and we were all just hostesses so we were like what the fuck is he gonna do with a broom and we like went out and he was just like hitting the bushes with the broom and he got the guy with the broom With a broom.
So apparently brooms are effective. They are.
I think, hey. And like, you're not really going to hurt anyone too badly.
I love it. It's a good use of. I love that the first thing people do is grab a broom.
You're like, wow. How do you have a story about a broom?
I was like what's happening? How do you have a story about disarming someone with a broom?
I do. I love it. Well, she was admitted to Morissette Psychiatric Hospital.
Did she stay a little longer? She had no charges put against her.
The family didn't charge her? She kidnapped an entire family and no charges were put against her.
No idea how that happens, but whatever. I think she's just slipping through the cracks somehow.
Well, Catherine told the nurses that she had actually intended to kill the mechanic at that gas station. because he had repaired David's car, which allowed him to leave her. know that makes perfect sense her plan was then to kill both her husband and her his mother when she arrived in queensland Like, you want him, though, so why are you trying to murder him?
When police told David of this whole incident...
He left his girlfriend and moved to Aberdeen with his mother to support Catherine.
Good. Like, what kind of black ass magic does this woman have?
That she is able to suck these dudes back in after attempting to murder an entire family for them.
Like... That's wild. It's bananas. It's bananas.
So did he move back to be with her or just to support her?
Yeah, to be with her. Now, Catherine was released on August 9th, 1976 from the psychiatric ward.
How long did she stay? I'm not really sure.
It wasn't that long. But she was released into the care of her mother-in-law and David.
Okay. Who she planned to kill. They now moved to Woodridge, which is a suburb of Brisbane, where she obtained a job at the Dinmore Meatworks.
Now, her family, as we know, is also, like...
Cuckoo crazy. Cuckoo nuts. Cuckoo nut man.
And so they all thought it was David's fault that she was going crazy.
I mean, yeah, fuck David, right? So they just blamed him because that's the easiest thing to do.
And they just wanted to keep her away from him.
Because they all enabled their own shady ass behaviors.
Like, they enabled each other to be dicks.
Oh, yeah. So now remember, this is the same mother who on their wedding day told this guy that Catherine was probably going to kill him.
You know, she's probably like, bitch, I warned you.
Well, now she's blaming David for it. Well, yeah, she warned him.
So they are literal manipulative... I'm totally kidding.
Crazy people that they're like, it's insane.
Now, at one point, David came to pick her up at her mother's house.
And her mother, Barbara, stormed out to the car and started giving him the business.
Oh no. You know, like, stay away from my daughter, get the fuck out of here.
She got pissed, reached in the car, and started strangling David in his car.
The mom? Yeah. David just sat there, did not fight back at all.
He was like, I love my life. This is my life now.
Catherine saw this happening out the window, ran out there.
Spun her elderly mother around and punched her square in the face and knocked her the fuck out on the ground.
No. Knocked her out cold. Her elderly mother.
What is happening? So they all moved back away to Queensland.
And on March 6, 1980, they had another daughter.
Oh, good. Yeah. So there's like multiple fucking train tracks.
Like, what the fuck, dude? Why? What are you doing creating more life with this crazy broad?
You already don't want one. What are you doing?
And in 1984, after more craziness and more abuse, Catherine left David.
She's like, you know what? I think I'm over it.
Like, let that sink in. After all of this, she left him.
What? So first she moved in with her parents in Aberdeen, then to a rented house in nearby Muswellbrook.
And she returned back to work at the slaughterhouse.
That's a hard word to say. You know what?
She just fucking went to the slaughterhouse.
But then she intentionally injured her back the following year and went on a disability pension.
Like, why wouldn't you just lie about hurting your back instead of... actually doing it because she could prove it I guess so she didn't need the rent accommodation close to work anymore obviously so Because she was on disability, the government gave her a housing commission residence in Aberdeen.
Damn. Later, David would say about her, quote, she was the most wonderful wife you could wish for.
What? Perfect mother, perfect housewife.
Sometimes she'd just snap like a biscuit.
Do biscuits snap? Well, when you snap them.
Biscuits are soft. Oh, well. Crocker? Yeah, in Australia, biscuit.
And also in Europe. We're like the only people who call biscuits like those fluffy things.
Oh, really? Yeah, biscuits everywhere else are crunchy.
Oh, shit. Yeah. So she snaps like a biscuit.
Well, in other news, she probably wasn't a great wife or a mother.
But that's the thing. She manipulated and these are abused husbands.
They're literally spouting what she wants them to say.
The town of Agde in France is famous for sun, sand, sea and sex.
But lately, life on the coast has taken a strange turn.
The town's mayor, a respected pillar of the community, has been arrested for corruption.
His wife claims he's been bewitched by a beautiful clairvoyant.
Then there's the mysterious phone calls that local people have been getting.
I am the Archangel Michael. The whole town has been thrown into chaos.
As the mayor is unable to carry out his duties, I would like to address you all.
Legal proceedings have been initiated. Join me, Anna Richardson, and journalist Leo Schick for The Mystic and the Mayor as we investigate a story of power, corruption, and magic.
Binge all episodes of The Mystic and the Mare exclusively and ad-free right now on Wondery+.
Start your free trial in Apple Podcasts, Spotify or the Wondery app.
Now, after she left David, after torturing him for a few years, she met David Saunders. a 38-year-old miner.
They met in 1986. According to people who knew Saunders, they called him a gentle, polite man who loved dogs.
Oh! And he was not prone to violence. Aww.
So a few months later after they met... He moved in with her and her two daughters, Melissa and Natasha.
Uh-huh. How these kind of people get like 400 people to move in and propose to them...
Is beyond me. Is beyond my comprehension.
So although he moved in, he also kept his old apartment in Scone.
Just in case. This did not sit well with Catherine.
She was super jealous and wondering what the fuck he was doing in that apartment.
Meanwhile, he was just, like, keeping it because he was like, I don't know if this will work out.
I just fucking met you. Yeah. Now, she would often throw him out.
Because she'd get pissed and just throw him out of the house.
So he needed somewhere to go. Exactly. So he would move back to his apartment and then she would go back and beg him to come back.
And that was it. Now, from what I've read and heard, she had very specific methods of getting men back, and all of them involved around sex.
Oh, yeah. apparently and like all of them are like she's the greatest ever and apparently that's how she gets around apparently but she used it for evil In May 1987, Saunders, now he testified in court later. that she did the worst thing she could do to him in May 1987.
Oh, and I know. They had an argument. And she stormed outside and he was like, whatever, I'm going to let her cool off outside.
But then he realized, wait, my puppy is outside.
No. When he went out there, she had cut the throat of his eight week old dingo pup in front of him.
For no more reason than as an example of what would happen if he ever stepped out on her.
I legitimately hope that she dies. Yeah.
Like an eight-week-old puppy. Like, fuck you.
And just to get to this guy because she knows he loves dogs.
Like... That's so evil. How do you ever go back to somebody that does that?
I would literally murder her right then.
Well and then she knocked him unconscious with a frying pan.
Oh, so he didn't have a fucking chance to murder her.
What a bummer. Is she a very, like, malevolent cartoon character?
I don't know what she is, but fuck her for killing a dog.
I feel like she is like, this whole thing is like, just like one of those Russian nesting dolls of just...
Oh, shit. Like, it's just like a rusted nesting doll.
Like, she's bad. Oh, shit, she's real bad.
Of malevolence. Oh, she killed the dog. That's her whole life.
It's just like, you keep... Pulling out one and you're like, oh, there's another one.
There's more. There's more. Literally. She's a Russian nesting doll of malevolence.
That's what she is. Yikes. Now, you know, this is all pretty standard and really healthy, right?
That's so sad. I would never concern here.
I don't... Like, how could you ever be with somebody that killed your dog?
I'm not over it. Because she literally bullies and...
No, I'd just murder her instead. I can't.
Well, his friends said it wasn't unusual for Saunders to turn up at work with cuts and bruises on his face. his face oh good uh catherine had even broken a couple of his ribs and inflicted such deep cuts on one of his wrists that he needs stitches Jeez, that's scary because there's a lot going on in your wrist.
Oh, yeah. Now, in June 1988, she gave birth to her third daughter.
But like, was that necessary? Like, can we...
I don't think it was necessary, to be honest.
She named this daughter Barbara after her wonderful mother.
Beloved mother whom she punched in the face. yeah because this relationship definitely needs to continue and this woman definitely needs to keep having children Apparently there was a breaking point for him.
And it wasn't his fucking dog? Yeah, apparently not. after an argument where she hit saunders in the face with an iron and then stabbed him in the stomach with a pair of scissors what he moved back to his apartment But then later, he returned back to the house.
Why? Because he was like, oh, I gotta get my clothes.
But she had cut up all his clothes. Which, like, dude, just buy more clothes.
Leave. Yeah, you don't need your clothes.
Like, it's fine. Nothing you have is that sacred.
Now, before the relationship ended... Catherine vandalized his car and took an overdose of sleeping pills to try to pretend to commit suicide.
It was like a half-hearted attempt. What?
She ended up in the psych ward again. And he did.
Chica, you gotta stay there. He left. He then took a long service leave from work and literally went into hiding.
Yeah, don't blame him. This man had to go into hiding.
Don't blame him. These men couldn't leave her.
Like, when they left her, she would fucking find them.
How do you go into hiding? And she was so fucking scary. and gigantic that they were like, I'm lit.
It's like, I'll die. It's like when battered women have to escape their awful abusive husbands.
It was the reverse. These poor men were trying to escape her, but they couldn't.
They got a movie with Julia Roberts. And then that other movie with Jennifer Lopez.
I don't know either one of those. One is called Enough.
Oh, that's the Jennifer Lopez one. Yeah, and then one is The Stranger That Sleeps Beside Me, I think.
I don't know. I didn't see that one. It's with Julia Roberts.
The one with Julia Roberts is wicked good.
Really? You would maybe like it. Maybe? Maybe.
I love Julia Roberts. I don't. I know, I heard she's actually a huge bitch in real life.
Yeah, she's a big bitch, I think. Well, like, I think a lot of people are.
Yeah, I'm sure. I'm a bitch sometimes. I love you.
I have my days. Well, so he, Catherine tried to find him, but no one would tell her where he was.
Why? And several months later, he returned to see his daughter.
Oh, yeah. Fuck, she has this kid. And she found that Catherine had gone to the police in February. faked that she was afraid of him oh god they issued her an apprehended violence order against him which is like a restraining order in Right.
In the United States. So she's a real piece of shit.
She literally took out a restraining order on him because she was like, oh, he's scary.
Meanwhile, she stabbed him in the stomach and killed his dog and hit him with a frying pan multiple times.
No big deal. I'd, like, kidnap my kid back.
I hope the iron wasn't on. I mean, who knows?
Well, she wasn't just showing violent behavior to the men in her life either.
Did she hit her kids too? She was hurting her kids.
There was one story that I heard, I believe it was on the last podcast on the left episode about this.
Where her daughter, Melissa, was, like, the one where she left on the train track, swung around by her ankles, and, like, shoved her into, yeah.
She was like 12 years old and Catherine was talking to her friend in one room.
And Melissa came in and was like saying something.
Like being an annoying kid, I think. Yeah.
Instead of just being a parent and being like, hey, give me a second.
She just walked over to Melissa and punched her in the face.
And then walked back over to her friend like, like nothing happened.
So what were you saying? Yeah, literally.
Like, girl. Also, how did she have friends that weren't like, hey, I don't think that you should punch your friend.
Are you kidding? I know. Apparently she surrounded herself with assholes too.
So one night when Melissa was an adult and could go out and drink with her friends...
For why? Yeah. Others at the bar saw this, like, there's witnesses that were like, what the fuck?
When she collapsed on the floor, Melissa, and Catherine dragged her by her hair, took her to the car park, the garage.
Where she smashed her daughter's head into the side of the car before throwing her into the passenger seat.
What did she do that for? Apparently to take her home.
What? Isn't that how you would get your kid home?
Probably not. I would say no. Now the people at the bar were too scared to intervene, which is fucked up.
Bystander effect. That's fucked up. yeah that is really fucked up someone is literally beating the shit out of her child like I don't care if she's an adult or not like that's crazy no it's not okay to beat the shit out of anyone These days, though, Melissa supports her mother.
Good luck with that. But witnesses said they saw this happen.
Maybe it's easier to, like... defend her than it would be to go out against her.
They're abused children. That's really sad.
It's like abused spouses. They'll come to her aid.
Because that's what they're taught. They're like bullied into it, basically.
That's really fucked up. It's really fucked up.
So, say goodbye, you know, Saunders, peace out.
Now the next guy she got into a relationship with was in 1990. she met a man named John Chillingworth.
He's a 43-year-old former slaughterhouse co-worker.
So she was really just like... snagging them at the slaughterhouse for real like a singles mixer oh my god speed dating at the slaughterhouse at the slaughterhouse Instead of the ding, you just hear an oink.
They, like, caught eyes across the, you know, dying pig.
It was love at first slaughter. It's like... So...
Within weeks of their meeting, she was pregnant.
Oh, good. Yeah. Damn, fucking fertile myrtle over here.
She gave birth the following year. in 1991 to a boy they named Eric.
So someone give this fucking woman birth control.
Literally. For real. Please. If this is not a...
Perfect ad for contraception. I don't know what it is.
Girl. So she refused to let him move into her house.
Because her mother had just recently died, RIP Barbara.
RIP Barbara. And she inherited her house, which she decorated pretty specifically.
Oh, I know. You see, she was a very skilled hunter and was actually really good at killing and skinning rabbits.
Good. Foreshadowing. And to show this off, she decorated the house with animal skins, skulls, horns, rusty animal traps. leather things, old boots, machetes, rakes, pitchforks, old farm equipment.
Like, And it was literally like floor to ceiling.
Yeah, exactly. Like the ceiling was covered in shit.
Literally the ceilings, yes. Nothing was left uncovered.
That's probably why that crime scene was also so fucking damaging.
Like, why do you have fucking rabbits on your ceiling?
Well, that was, I think... That was in...
His house. Oh, a different house? Yeah, so this is in a different house.
But that would be even more... But still, yeah.
But I have a weird flavor of decor in my space... but no yours is like tasteful well in my past does not include slashing puppies throats and banging my ex-boyfriends on the head with frying pans like a fucking I'm glad to hear that it doesn't include that.
So, I feel like it's like, that's okay. Okay, yeah.
I'd say so. Because I'm sure a lot of people listening probably... like, skulls, like, bones, like, you know, weird shit in their house.
I do. I have skulls. I have bones. I have weird shit in my house.
So it doesn't make it weird. It's just, I don't know.
It's also in addition to her behavior. Yeah.
It's like if she was just like living her life.
She also, like, sleeps with knives above her bed.
Even if you're just living your life, it's a little questionable to sleep with knives over your bed.
It's just dangerous. Yeah, like there could be an earthquake.
And actually a German psychiatrist said that this particular behavior along with like this particular penchant for like dead things in your house, along with her violent behavior is consistent with something called necrophilias. which is not necrophilia, but kind of a branch of it.
So necrophilias die. doesn't they don't want to have sex with dead people but they like to possess and have power over dead people Oh.
Or dead things, even. Dead things. Dead everything.
The dead. Dead. Just, yeah. So it's like...
She liked to display a lot of taxidermy and bones and skulls and all that.
Because she liked... That they were hers.
And she liked killing animals because they were hers.
Like, she could possess them. Horrible. Yeah.
So their relationship, John Chillingworth and hers, this lasted three years, until 1993. and ended when she smashed his false teeth into bits.
In his mouth or out of his mouth? I don't know.
It didn't say, but either way, that's a rough... situation oh but uh this is when she met john price at a club oh no that's Now, all of these men were victims of her.
Can you picture her at a club? At a club.
Like, getting her dance on. Every picture I saw of her, she was wearing, like, Tweety Bird shirts and shit.
So that's what I'm picturing. Oh lordy lordy.
And she had a very red face all the time.
It was just like, she was a lot. Yeah. Yikes.
So I'm just picturing this red-faced, like, angry beast of a woman with a Tweety Bird shirt on just being like...
Love me. Holla at me in the club. Holla at your girl.
Now John Price, whose nickname was Pricey.
Oh. His name was John Charles Thomas Price.
He was born on January 6th, 1985. 1985. 1955.
Um... He was the father of three children who he shared with his ex-wife Colleen, with whom he'd had a very amicable separation in 1988.
His daughter at the time had stayed living with his ex-wife, but his two older children lived with him.
Now, at the time he began dating Knight, his eldest child was an adult and his two youngest children were like teenagers.
He was referred to as a, quote, terrific bloke, and liked by everyone who knew him.
He was said to have been a kind and loving man.
His ex-wife even insisted that he keep the home they shared while married.
So she... Like she was like, you keep the home.
Wow. Yeah. So she obviously like respected him.
Then later she said he was one of the kindest, gentlest dudes out there.
Aww. She was like, I know he never put a hand on her.
Wow. And he... was clearly still in love with his ex-wife.
Like, he was not over it. They never got officially divorced.
They were just separated. So why? And he was I think they just because I don't think they wanted to get divorced.
I think they were trying out this separation and he got involved.
I just wonder why they got separated if they were like so oh I don't know they said it was amicable so it just might have been some people just don't It's not like a knockdown drag out thing.
It's like... Yeah, no, I know. It's just not working, you know?
Yeah. So that must have been it. Now... When he was well aware of Catherine's violent reputation when she moved into his house in 1995.
Oh, he knew? Yeah. But I think he kind of thought, like, I think these guys think... I can change her.
I can change her. Just like battered women.
Exactly. At first, his children were kind of weirded out by her and weren't really fans, but she was trying to be nice.
She was psyched because he was making a ton of money working in the local mines and they did have violent arguments.
But at first, life was a bunch of roses.
As always. According to, you know. Aside from violent arguments.
Other than the arguments. Pro tip. It's not normal or healthy.
To have violent arguments. You know, every rose has its thorn, Elena.
Yeah, totally. But, like, this is not okay.
So he consistently refused to marry her.
He was like, yeah, fuck that. Probably because she was insane.
Well, and he wasn't unmarried. Well, and she got pissed because he hadn't officially divorced his ex-wife, Colleen.
And she was getting more, and again, jealousy is a big thing with her.
For her. Eventually, she stole some of his money and bought herself an engagement ring.
Which really pissed off his kids. Well, yeah.
His kids were like, yeah, you're a nut job.
I'd be really angry. Or, as they say in Australia, you're a nutter.
Oh. And even when she bought herself an engagement ring, he was like, yeah.
Nice ring. We're not getting married. We're not engaged.
Like, glad you just bought yourself a ring.
So, in 1998... Catherine and Price fought over this particular subject, his refusal to marry her, and also over the fact that Price had put the home and all his stuff. in his children's name and his will.
So she's pissed that he won't marry her.
She's pissed that he's pretty much still, that his life revolves around his ex-wife and his children.
Right. So he's just a good father. And she's pissed about it.
And she's pissed that all of his shit and his house are in his children's name.
So they're gonna get it when he kicks. Now, in retaliation for this one night.
Oh no. She went out of the crescendo yet.
But this is really bad. She videotapes items in his garden shed that he had allegedly stolen from his work and sent the tape to his boss.
Now these things, before we start thinking he's a thief here...
He was not. The items were out of date medical kits that had been thrown away.
And he had literally taken them out of the company's rubbish to take home.
Why? He just, he was thrifty. Oh. Yeah.
He was just like, oh, these are perfectly good.
They're just out of date. Oh, okay. So he was like, I'm going to take them home.
They're just for like medical kits. Oh, okay.
I get it. And when, so she filmed these and sent them to his boss.
He was fired from a job he held for 17 years.
Oh my god. And he lost his pension. Why would they even fire him for that?
Because it was theft, apparently, according to them.
But... 17 years and he had a pension that he lost.
That's so fucked up. So the same day, he kicked her the fuck out of his house.
Yeah, he was like, you can leave. And she returned to her own house, and the news of what she did spread everywhere.
Now a few months later, Price restarted the relationship with her.
No! But now he refused to allow her to move in with him.
He was like, which I don't even know why you even do this.
Why do you even want to be with her? Yeah.
So the fighting became even more frequent.
And it became even more violent. And most of his friends would no longer even have anything to do with him.
They're probably afraid. Well, they're like, we know something bad is going to happen here and we're trying to tell you and it's not happening.
You're not listening. She was talking in front of his friend Trevor once, and she said, quote, you'll never get me out of this house.
I'll do you in first. Then, Catherine's brother Kenneth told the police that five months before the murder, Catherine said, quote, I'm going to kill Pricey and I'm gonna get away with it.
I'll get away with it because I'll make out that I'm mad. what now after one fight with now after one fight with Catherine in which he ran to a neighbor's house he said quote she's gone for the butcher knife so I had to get out of there oh my god can you imagine living your life like that like on edge she literally she stabbed him i believe in the chest oh he's a lot more arguments He was lucky in that moment.
So this is when you should probably end things.
Yeah, like, you've stabbed me now. Like, there's a lot of fish in the sea. you know maybe like go back to Colleen like I don't right it's like never stabbed you and this this anybody else Literally.
Anyone else. There's so many fish in the sea and most of them are not like bottom dwelling evolved for the darkness prehistoric anglerfish type fish.
There are. They're like pretty rainbow fish.
Plenty of fish. Plenty of fish. Sponsor us.
I mean, sure. Hey, a sponsor's a sponsor.
So... This is just so sad. So now David Kellett, the first husband.
Yes. Actually caught up with Pricey. It was like, get the fuck out.
And they discussed her crazy ass behavior.
And Price said he wanted to get out of the relationship, but he was scared.
And David Kellett said, quote, he was so scared he was almost shaking.
He was really scared. Oh, my God. Yeah. Go into hiding like the other dude now.
We are going to get into the crescendo. A.K.A.
She goes bananas. I say one more time, hold on to your butts.
Hold on to your everything. Because it is gonna get real.
Just wait, honeys. So, the day before Price's murder, Catherine's behavior was very strange, according to her children.
First she dropped by her sister's house, her sister Joy, to get a video camera that she had left there like several months earlier.
And her sister Joy was like, okay, you can take the video.
Like, what? So she went straight to her daughter Natasha's house and weirdly recorded a video of herself playing with Natasha's baby.
In the video footage, she looks at the camera and says, I love all my children.
I hope to see you all again. Oh, okay. And also make sure to be videotaped playing with them all.
Just doing weird shit. Like she was opening her shirt and like letting them play with her chest.
The babies? On camera. Why were her kids letting her do that?
I have no idea. That's weird. Like, why are you letting kids play with your chesticles?
Your chesticles. Not even just on camera.
Why are you letting that happen? Period.
And it's like, I don't even know. I just got super uncomfortable.
That's not good grandma stuff. Ew, alright, I'm uncomfortable.
Like, that's okay. I wanna go somewhere else.
I know, I'm very uncomfortable, but this is...
This is it. I'm just trying to, I'm hammering in the point of how weird she is.
Alright, so they played with her chesticles next.
And on camera, she also made a lot of comments, like, in kind of pushing their kids into saying things that are later interpreted. as kind of a makeshift will.
Like, she was trying to get them to, like... So I think she was thinking... Was she pretending she was gonna kill herself?
I think so. I think she was kind of planning on doing that or maybe planning on doing that.
Or do you think that she was doing that to be like, make it seem like she killed her exactly that's the other thing i think she was also she i think she was covering all her bases here To make sure she had a lot of things.
What a smart asshole bitch. I know, she's a dick.
Also very out of character. Catherine decided to take her daughter Natasha out to a local Chinese restaurant for dinner.
And she said, quote, I want it to be special.
Why, though? And Tasha was like, what is happening?
I'd be like, are you going to drag me home by my hair?
Well, they kind of clued into something.
That was going on because so she asked, she then asked Natasha if she could leave her two youngest children with her for the night. even though they had no clean clothes and were without their school uniforms and other things they would need.
Okay. Now, of course, this was because she needed to be alone that night in the house with Price.
So she could murder him. So Natasha said in a statement to police that she clearly sensed something. weird was going on so she told her quote i hope you're not going to kill pricey and yourself Oh, I just... So she literally knew what was happening.
She was like, um... Why wouldn't you call authorities beforehand?
Exactly. Because all these kids are brainwashed.
I know. It's insane. So on February 29th, Price stopped at the Scone Magistrates Court on his way to work and took out a restraining order. in an attempt to keep her away from both him and mostly away from his children.
He was, that afternoon, he told his co-workers that if he did not come into work the next day because he got a new job, it would be because Knight had killed him.
Oh, no. Like, he literally told them this.
Why did he know that she was going to kill him that night?
I don't know. Oh. He just had a feeling.
Yeah. Now, they apparently pleaded with him not to go home, but he said he believed that she would kill his children if he didn't.
So he had to go. Oh, because the kids were there?
Yeah. So he arrived home and she wasn't there.
And neither were the children because she had sent her... her children to stay with Natasha and she'd sent his children to the friend's house with their mother.
Oh, with their mother. Okay. Yeah. So he spent the evening with his neighbors at his neighbor's house and then returned home and went to bed at 11 p.m.
Where was she? She... was doing some stuff.
She stopped at a thrift store and bought a piece of black lingerie.
Oh, God. That's thrift store yeah that's gross that's real janky Is it like used?
Likely. Ew. Isn't it like against the law?
You could donate your underwear. What the fuck?
I'm just saying. So she arrived at Price's house later while he was sleeping.
She sat and watched TV for a few minutes before having a shower.
Then she woke Price up. They had sex. In her thrifty lingerie.
In her thrifty ass lingerie. It's fucking nasty.
And then he fell asleep. And she was probably pissed.
This is when she pulled out her just in case butcher knives and stabbed him 37 fucking times.
What? According to the blood evidence, he awoke during this.
Oh my god. Oh, my God. which was confirmed by blood evidence on the handle, and he tried to get outside.
Now judging by the blood on the front doorstep, he did manage to get outside.
But then, according to more blood evidence, he was dragged back into the house.
Now this whole time, Catherine was still stabbing him in a frenzy.
Oh my god. Until he collapsed in a pool of blood.
In the end, he was stabbed 37 times. Obviously, there was an insane amount of blood at this crime scene.
It was found splattered and smeared throughout the house.
There was a pool of blood that measured one meter by two meters in the hallway, which is three feet by six feet in diameter.
Oh my god. Yes. By the time police arrived the next morning, the blood hadn't even fully congealed.
So it was still wet. That's how much blood there was.
Ew. Now, Price's autopsy revealed, and there's much more, but I'm just giving you ahead of time, the Price's autopsy revealed that he had been stabbed in both the front and back of his body, and many of the wounds extended into his vital organs, including the stomach,
Both lungs, the aorta, the liver, the left kidney, the descending colon, and the pancreas.
What's an aorta? Your aorta is the biggest vessel in your body.
Oh my god. Yeah, if you hit the aorta, it's like... You're already dead.
Fuck. Now, after she did this, he was dead.
I know what she did. She then showered. She went into and she stole his ATM card out of his wallet.
And then she went into a nearby town and withdrew $1,000 from his ATM account.
This showed that she was in control of her actions and aware of what she was doing, which fucked her later. good i'm so fucking glad she did that because if you have the wherewithal to steal money for his card from him drive somewhere take a thousand dollars out and then drive back home you know what you're doing.
Right. And you're showing that there's motive here.
You're stealing from him. So several hours after he had died, Catherine literally skinned his body.
In one whole piece. Including his face, ears, scalp, and neck like a fucking suit.
In one whole fucking piece. She literally took it off in one piece.
Now, she'd done this with a bunch of animals before.
She knew what she was doing. She used a variety of knives.
And she even left a small square of skin on his body that featured the scar from where she stabbed him previously.
Wow, what a cunt. Yeah. So... And she was so expertly doing this that at his post-mortem examination, the mortician was able to resew the skin Onto Price's body.
Oh my god. That's how, like, meticulously this was done.
Thank God, though, that they were able to do that and, like, make him human again.
It couldn't have looked that great. No, but, ugh.
One skin is gone, man. That's horrible. Now she wasn't dumb.
I know. The skin was then hung up on a hook in the entrance of the house where it remained.
Until it was removed by horrified police officers.
Can you imagine being the poor son of a bitch that had to remove that?
Well, when they first saw it, when they came to the crime scene the next day.
They think it was fake. They were confused.
We're like, what the fuck is that? And then they recognized facial features, hair, arms and legs.
And we're like, that's a fucking human skin.
That's a human pelt. So after she skinned him and hung his pelt up on a hook.
She then decapitated Price and placed his head into a pot with vegetables on the stove.
Oh, girl. She then sliced off pieces of his buttocks and cooked them, serving them up with a baked potato. pumpkin, beetroot, zucchini, cabbage, yellow squash, and she made a special gravy.
Now where did she serve this and to whom?
I know. Well, despite it being the morning, she set up two full plates with his meat and the rest of the stew at the table.
On these plates was a note card and little notes that have never been released.
Which is so scary. To each of his two children.
So she was preparing his body parts for his children to eat.
And she left a literal name card on both.
Oh. Now, she had also left a handwritten note on top of a photograph of Price in the middle of the table.
And did she spell a bunch of shit wrong in it?
Yeah, she did. It read, time got you back, Jonathan, for rapping.
She meant raping. My doter. She meant daughter.
You to Beck, which is Price's daughter. For Ross.
For little John. which is his son. Now play with little John's dick, John Price.
Now, the accusations in the note were found to be completely false and groundless.
Of course they were. She's a stupid meme.
So she's literally the most evil human on planet Earth. a third piece of meat was thrown on the back lawn for unknown reasons and some have speculated she was throwing it to the dogs And Price's head was found simmering in a pot with vegetables.
The pot was still warm when they found it.
And... Can you imagine how fucking bad that house smelled?
Now, sometime later, Catherine had arranged the body... the flayed body, flayed and headless body, in an armchair. with the left arm draped over an empty two-liter soft drink bottle with the legs crossed.
And they claimed in court that this was just defilement.
Just demonstrating her clean contempt for him.
At 6am the next day, the neighbor became concerned that his car was still in the driveway.
Because they all liked him. Right, and they knew that he already said.
Yeah, and when he didn't go to work, his employer sent a worker to see what was going on.
So both the neighbor and the worker tried knocking on the windows and were trying to look in the windows.
And then they saw blood on the front door and on the front doorstep, and they called the police.
The police arrived at 8 a.m.? ? They broke down the back door and they found the scene with Knight comatose in bed from taking a large number of pills.
So... Her initial offer to plead guilty to manslaughter was rejected, obviously. of course and she was arraigned on march 2nd 2001 on the charge of murdering price She entered a plea of not guilty.
Now, when the trial started, Justice Barry O'Keefe offered the 60 jury members the option of being excused due to the nature of the photographic evidence.
Wow. Five accepted and left. When the witness list, when it started, when the whole thing started, several more started dropping out and the jury ended up having to be like redone.
Oh, wow. Now, her attorneys then spoke to the judge and they returned, they adjourned for the following day because things were just going crazy.
Crazy. She changed, in that day, she changed her plea to guilty and the jury was dismissed.
Oh, that's good. So she was, they were going to go through a whole big, long trial.
And then finally she was like, I'm guilty.
And they were like, okay, good. So it's now been made public that Justice O'Keefe was the one who had advised the plea change the day before.
He was like, you should really do this. He adjourned the trial and then ordered a psychiatric assessment overnight to determine if she understood the consequences of a guilty plea and was fit to make.
Her legal team had planned to defend her by claiming amnesia and disassociation.
Yeah, I don't think so. But psychiatrists considered her sane.
Two psychiatrists concluded that she had borderline personality disorder.
But forensic psychiatrist Dr. Robert De La Force said he wanted to make it very clear that, quote, What she did on that night was part of her personality, her nature, herself.
But it is not a feature of borderline personality disorder.
It is not even slightly connected. so basically he was just trying to say she was not insane when this happened yeah this was her which is technically true So no reason has really been given for the guilty plea for that change. that she did overnight well she was fucking guilty yeah maybe she like maybe she calmed down and realized what she did and was like maybe I don't know, though.
But despite giving it, she still refused to accept responsibility.
Oh, okay. So she didn't. So she was kind of just...
Her lawyer is even requested at the sentencing hearing that she be excused to avoid hearing some of the terrible facts.
Oh, I would be like, no. Like, are you fucking kidding me?
It was refused. Oh, good. I'm glad. You did it.
Yeah, right? Are you kidding me? Fucking monster.
So forensic pathologist Dr. Tim Lyons said that there were no marks on his bones.
Which means she was so meticulous. Oh my god.
And so her knife had to cut through muscles. tendons, ligaments, and neurovascular bundles.
Not only did the knife have to be super sharp, But she had to be so steady and so skilled.
And on the subject of the whole skinning thing, Lyons told the court, quote, Knowing how long it takes to carry out certain dissection techniques, which I do, I mean, I can say to you, I think it would not have taken just a few minutes. but is something that probably could have been completed within 30 minutes to an hour.
But beyond that, I would not like to say.
Now, when Dr. Timothy Lyons took the stand and was talking about all this and the decapitation technique, Catherine became hysterical.
She was rocking back and forth, clicking her teeth loudly, kicking the partition and screaming, no, no, no.
And you're like, but you did that. She had to be removed and sedated.
Jesus. She's a fucking maniac. On November 8th, Justice O'Keefe pointed out that her lack of remorse and how fucked up. up this crime was required the most severe penalty he could think of.
So he sentenced her to life imprisonment and refused to fix a non-parole period. and ordered that her papers be marked, quote, never to be released.
Wow. So this really goes for like the worst of the worst.
So this makes her the first woman in Australian history to get this sentence of life without parole.
That's crazy. Now, Justice O'Keefe said, quote, Indeed, they go far beyond the experience of any of the professional people, including psychiatrists that were involved in the case.
A number of police officers who were highly experienced in examining crime scenes found the need to take stress leave because of the situation with which they were confronted with. when examining the crime scene at Mr. Price's house.
The circumstances mark the killing and its accompanying incidents as being the most gruesome kind. the murder as being the most serious category of that crime.
He also stated, quote, the last minutes of Mr. John Price's life must have been a time of abject terror for him.
Thank you. In June 2006, she appealed the life sentence, claiming that this life penalty without parole was way too severe.
Like, so skinning a human alive. Yeah, and decapitating and eating them.
Why don't you leave? And trying to serve them to their children.
Like, really? Justices Peter McClellan, Michael Adams, and Megan Latham.
Latham, I think it's Latham, dismissed this appeal in the New South Wales Court of Criminal Appeals in September of the same year.
And Justice McClellan wrote in his judgment, quote, this was an appalling crime almost beyond contemplation in a civilized society.
Now, John Price's brother, Bob, attended all of these awful court hearings.
And he had to listen to awful... That's horrible.
...tales about his... brother's murder.
He committed suicide shortly after Catherine's sentencing.
That's horrible. And his and John Price's children still suffer with this.
Of course they do. Like, they're still deeply, deeply affected.
Now, as for Catherine, she spends her time at Silverwater Women's Correctional Center.
And she is known to basically rule the prison.
Not shocked. Uh... So there's a Sydney author named James Phelps, and he has a book on women in Australian prisons called Green is the New Black.
That's funny. And it's like an inside look at this.
He says, a typical day for night starts at 7am every morning and she wakes to go to one of the most tedious jobs in prison, which is making headphones, I guess.
Her cell is the same size as everybody else's.
Inmates describe her cell as kind of like a hoarder cell.
It's full of knitting, knickknacks and art.
Why does she get knickknacks in knitting things?
But she's known in the prison as the Nana.
That's what they call her. Why? She's the most popular inmate in the prison and she's also a peacemaker.
They must have put her on some kind of fucking medication.
She sorts out problems and she pulls girls in and tries to get them to like fix their issues before fighting.
So she doesn't have a record of violence in jail.
Wow. They said even the guards respect her a little bit.
She's just the boss. But she is a category four inmate, which is the highest and worst category a prisoner can be assigned.
And she'll always be that. Oh, wow. She's always going to be classified as high risk and she'll never go to a place that allows her to walk outside in any way.
So she can never go outside again. She'll always have a job where she's in a factory, and when she's in that factory, there's four guards on her at all times.
Holy shit. So that's the story of Catherine Knight.
That was a doozy. So Catherine Knight. All right, it's time to go record our bonus episode, which will be a lot chiller than this.
I need a, I don't know. I need a minute.
I need a minute. I don't need an Anna anymore.
All right. Well, so I think next week's episode, I'm not going to tell you right now.
I'm going to hint it on that. Instagram because it's fun to make you wait.
Yeah. We know what it is though. It's going to be another unsolved.
Brutal murder So stay tuned for that And if you feel like hearing our bonus episode that we're going to record right now, then feel free to give us a little...
Donation. Cash money money. On our Patreon, which is www.patreon.com slash morbidpodcast.
You can also find us on Instagram. At Morbid Podcast.
You can find us on the Twitter. At Amorbid Podcast.
You can send us mail. No. Emails, I mean.
Morbidpodcast at gmail.com. And you can find us on Facebook, however you do that.
Because I don't remember how. And also, we're going to try to make it so that you can send us mail, but it's a process.
We're going to make it happen. We love you.
I swear to you. I guarantee. You know what?
Next week we will have an address for you.
That's a big promise. I'm making a deadline.
I gotta make deadlines. Well, she does everything, so I have no fucking worries.
So we'll make this happen. And we're going to let you guys know about the website, about merch coming up.
All that good stuff. I got all your addresses, so we're gonna start sending you some fun shit.
Our Patreons and... Rate and review. Subscribe.
Tell your friends about us. Call your grandma and tell her to... Did you see the comment about the girl?
Call your grandma and tell her to close her shirt and not...
Okay, don't let people think about their grandmas that way, you fucked up individual.
God. Anyways. Ew, I can't believe you just said that.
Sorry, I'm just saying. You're so weird.
I'm just putting out a PSA. Alright, so we hope you enjoyed.
Yeah, so we hope you enjoyed that awful, awful fucked up story.
And thank you, Australia, for all your madness.
Thank you guys for listening. And we hope you keep it weird.
Good night, mate. Peace. Bye. She's a nutter.
Farewell. That's all I got. See ya when wanna be ya.
Thank you. If you like Morbid, you can listen early and ad free right now by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts.
Prime members can listen ad free on Amazon Music.
Before you go, tell us about yourself by filling out a short survey at wondery.com slash survey.