THE MEN WHO RAN
THE MEN WHO RAN BEFORE JOHN PRICE
There is a temptation, when telling the story of Katherine Knight, to begin at the end.
With John Price.
With Aberdeen.
With the crime that made her name infamous.
But by the time Price entered Knight's life, there was already a long history behind her.
Three men, in particular, occupied important places in that history.
David Kellett.
David Saunders.
John Chillingworth.
Their stories are not interchangeable.
Their experiences were different.
And the court records make something very clear:
not every allegation surrounding these relationships can be treated as an established fact.
That distinction is essential.
DAVID KELLETT
Knight met David Stanford Kellett in 1973.
He was working at the Aberdeen abattoir, where Knight also worked.
Kellett had previously worked for the railways.
His life had already been marked by traumatic experiences, including witnessing a fatal railway accident and being involved in the aftermath of a train collision involving a school bus.
According to the biographical material cited in accounts of Knight's life, Kellett subsequently developed serious problems with alcohol.
Knight and Kellett married in 1974.
The marriage did not become the stable beginning either of them might have imagined.
Instead, it became increasingly violent.
In 1976, Kellett left the relationship and moved to Queensland.
And that is where a pattern begins to emerge.
When a relationship ended, Knight did not always accept the ending.
The behaviour surrounding the breakdown of the marriage became increasingly concerning, and Kellett eventually moved away.
But leaving did not necessarily mean escaping the relationship.
DAVID SAUNDERS
In 1986, Knight met David Saunders.
Saunders was a miner.
He became involved in Knight's household and lived with her and her daughters for a period.
Again, the relationship became troubled.
Again, there were allegations of violence.
And again, Saunders eventually left.
The surviving accounts describe a relationship marked by jealousy, arguments and violent incidents.
But this is where the court record becomes particularly important.
The sentencing judge considered evidence about the relationship and could not satisfactorily determine who had been the aggressor throughout it.
That doesn't erase the violence that was described.
But it does prevent us from simplifying the relationship into a story where every allegation automatically becomes fact.
That is an important distinction when examining Knight's history.
The court was dealing with evidence.
Not mythology.
WHEN LEAVING WASN'T THE END
Saunders eventually moved away from Knight.
He also took steps to distance himself from her.
At one point, according to the accounts considered in later biographies and judicial material, he went into hiding.
Knight attempted to locate him.
The relationship had ended.
But the conflict had not necessarily ended with it.
For Saunders, distance became a form of protection.
And that phrase — the men who ran — begins to make sense.
Kellett left.
Saunders withdrew.
Both relationships had reached points where the men involved sought distance.
Then came another man.
JOHN CHILLINGWORTH
In 1991, Knight became pregnant by John Chillingworth, a former co-worker from the abattoir.
Their son, Eric, was born the following year.
The relationship lasted approximately three years.
Eventually, Knight left Chillingworth for another man.
That man was John Price.
But Chillingworth's relationship with Knight is important because it forms part of the chain of relationships that preceded the murder.
The sentencing material also contained allegations concerning violence within that relationship.
Again, the legal record matters.
Chillingworth was described as having significant problems with alcohol at the time.
There was also an allegation that he had struck one of Knight's daughters, which he denied.
The evidence did not simply produce one clean narrative.
It produced competing accounts.
And that is precisely why these relationships should be treated carefully.
THEN CAME JOHN PRICE
By the time Knight became involved with John Price, there was already a history of failed relationships behind her.
Kellett.
Saunders.
Chillingworth.
Then Price.
The difference was what happened when Price tried to leave.
The relationship had begun in the mid-1990s.
Price was a father.
He had a job.
He had a home.
He had a life outside Knight.
And eventually, he tried to create distance.
But unlike the earlier relationships, this one ended in murder.
THE PATTERN
There is something uncomfortable about looking back through these relationships.
Not because every incident can be neatly connected.
They can't.
Not because every allegation was proven.
They weren't.
And not because the earlier relationships somehow make the murder inevitable.
Nothing makes murder inevitable.
But there was a history.
Relationships became volatile.
Men left.
Knight sometimes pursued them after they had left.
There were allegations of violence and, in some instances, evidence of violent conduct.
And yet the relationships continued.
That is part of what makes the story so difficult.
There were opportunities for separation.
There were opportunities for intervention.
There were people who knew relationships had become dangerous.
But there was no single moment when everyone suddenly understood where the story was heading.
THE MEN WHO RAN
David Kellett eventually left.
David Saunders eventually withdrew.
John Chillingworth's relationship with Knight ended.
And then there was John Price.
He tried to create legal distance.
He warned his colleagues.
He understood enough about Knight's behaviour to fear what might happen.
But he went home.
The previous men had managed to get away.
John Price did not.
And perhaps that is the darkest way to look at the years before Aberdeen.
Not as a straight line leading inevitably to murder.
But as a series of relationships in which the warning signs kept appearing—
and the endings kept becoming more dangerous.
Until, finally, there was nowhere left to run.
SOURCES
R v Katherine Mary Knight [2001] NSWSC 1011 — Supreme Court of NSW
Peter Lalor, Blood Stain: The True Story of Katherine Knight
Sandra Lee, Beyond Bad: The Life and Times of Katherine Knight
Griffith Law Review research — Monstrous Wickedness and the Judgment of Knight
