Katherine Mary Knight: Australia's Hanna Lecter -- The Crime Library

Katherine Knight

And then, one day in 1984, as if in answer to David Kellett's prayers, she was gone. He came home one night from work and the house was bare. Katherine had packed up her two daughters and everything that wasn't nailed down and moved back to live with her parents on their farm outside of Aberdeen.

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Back working at the Aberdeen abattoir and having resumed her maiden name, Katherine Knight didn't last long down on the farm with the folks and soon moved out with the children to a rented property in nearby Mussellbrook. A year later her back gave out due to constantly bending over the carcasses at the abattoir and she had to give up working altogether.

The government found her a Housing Commission house in Aberdeen, which suited her because it was closer to the kids' school and they could walk instead of having to be driven every day. With a pension as income, all the tall, thin, attractive 30-year-old Katherine needed was a man.

After several unsuccessful relationships since the breakup with her husband, Katherine clicked with Dave Saunders in a local hotel in 1986. Saunders, a 38-year-old miner from nearby Scone was considered a good bloke whose only problem was that he liked a drink and spent most of his time at the hotel getting a skinful.

For all of her clandestine shortcomings such as attacking people with knives, fists and kitchen appliances, Katherine had a cheery and charming exterior and the ruggedly handsome Saunders was smitten. The fact that she had a voracious sexual appetite was the icing on the cake.

Things went along lovingly for a few months. Dave Saunders kept his apartment at Scone and moved in with Katherine and her two daughters. It didn't take long for the green-eyed monster to come out in Katherine and she was constantly falsely accusing Saunders of having affairs with other women. From then on they were always at each other's throats. Katherine would throw her man out of her house, but no sooner had he arrived back at his place in Scone then she would be knocking on the door begging his forgiveness and asking him to come back — which he always did.

It wasn't long before the fights got violent, with Kath, who was taller than Dave, attacking him with her fists and boots. In May 1987 she let him know what would happen to him if he ever played up with another woman by slitting his two-month-old pup's throat from ear to ear with a boning knife before taking to him with a frying pan and bashing him into unconsciousness.

But despite all of this and Katherine's continuing bizarre behavior, which included a suicide attempt, Dave's love proved unfailing and in June the following year Kath gave birth to her third child, a girl they named Sarah.

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