Extreme Evil - Taking Crime to the Next Level (True Crime)

by Ray Black

  Amid protests across the nation, Karla Homolka moved from Kingston’s Prison for Women to the medium security Joliette Institution, nicknamed Club Fed for its leniency. She engaged in a lesbian affair with a fellow convict and even acquired a degree in Psychology while inside. Examined by numerous psychiatrists prior to her incarceration the pretty blonde was diagnosed an hybristophiliac – someone sexually aroused by a partner’s violent sexual behaviour.

  On the 4 July 2005 she received her independence. Two years later, following a string of death threats, she gave birth to a baby boy and left Canada for the Antilles in the West Indies. Ontarians locked up their daughters in December 2009 when news reports suggested killer Karla was back in the area studying law and living with a new man.

  Katherine Knight

  This landmark case in Australia’s court history covered the evil acts of a demonic butcheress whose fits of overreaction and treatment of her partners have become the stuff of legend.

  BUTCHERY IN HER BLOOD

  Born the youngest of twin girls on 24 October 1955, Katherine May Knight did not receive an ideal upbringing. Her father, an alcoholic abattoir worker, used to violently rape her mother as much as ten times a day, and even she suffered a similar fate at the hands of other members of her family until she was eleven years old.

  These episodes remained hidden from public view within the small valley town of Tenterfield, New South Wales and at school she came over as a normal if slightly introverted young girl. One or two incidents of bullying were recorded as puberty struck but nothing to indicate the evil she would perpetrate in later life.

  However, there were cracks beginning to show in her personality. In 1969, her beloved uncle Oscar committed suicide leaving a distraught Katherine believing his ghost would regularly come to visit her. On leaving Muswellbrook High School at fifteen, she eventually followed in her father’s footsteps and joined him at the local abattoir. Cutting up offal and boning carcasses seemed to be her idea of heaven. She would even hang her own set of butchering knives above her bed, gazing at them before she went to sleep, to dream of death and dissection.

  OFF THE RAILS

  In 1973 the tall, wiry slaughterhouse worker met truck driver David Kellett and within a year they agreed to be married. On the day of the wedding Katherine’s own mother allegedly took the groom-to-be aside and warned him about her daughter. ‘She’ll kill you!’, she said.

  That night he would experience first-hand her fierce temper. Having fallen asleep, exhausted after three long sessions of sex, he was awoken by his bride’s hands around his throat, attempting to squeeze the life out of him.

  The violence did not stop there and it soon developed into a regular occurrence. In May 1976, following the birth of their first child Melissa Ann, Kellett chose to leave his wife for another woman, moving to Queensland. Depressed and angry at this affront, Katherine placed their two-month-old child on the tracks of the nearby railway line. Thankfully, a local old man out foraging in the woods heard the little girl crying and rescued her from certain death.

  Having abandoned her own baby, the deranged twenty-one-year-old now headed into town, wield-ing an axe and threatening to kill random members of the public. Arrested before she could do any damage Katherine was taken to St Elmo’s Hospital in Tamworth where she was diagnosed with post-natal depression.

  It took only days following her release before Katherine embarked on another wild and crazy mission. Slashing the face of a woman with one of her trusted knives, she forced her to drive to Queensland where she planned to kill both David and his mother. When her driver managed to escape at a petrol station, Katherine then took a small boy hostage, causing a stand-off with local police. Finally officers managed to disarm her using a number of brooms and, once again, she was admitted into psychiatric care.

  Deemed no longer a public threat, Katherine left Morisset Psychiatric Hospital and moved to Woodridge near Brisbane. Her husband had decided to return and care for his unhinged wife. He remained by her side, with the pair conceiving another child, until abruptly in 1984 Kellett arrived home to find Katherine had left him. Two years later this she-devil had found herself a new victim.

  GREEN-EYED MONSTER

  Following a back injury sustained while working at the abattoir, Katherine drew a disability pension and ended up in government housing in Aberdeen. It was here in 1986 where she met thirty-six-year-old David Saunders and in no time at all the pair were living together. Everything seemed perfect to begin with but it was not long before her violent nature reared its ugly head.

  She grew extremely jealous, fearing he was seeing other women, and would often give in to fits of excessive violence. In May 1987 she slit the throat of his two-month-old puppy right in front of him purely as a warning never to cheat on her. Katherine then struck Saunders over the head with a frying pan, knocking him unconscious.

  Despite this, Saunders stuck by his green-eyed girlfriend and in June 1988 the couple extended their family with the birth of daughter, Sarah. Needing more space they purchased a two-bedroomed home on MacQueen Street which quickly became Katherine’s pet project, decorating it in her own inimitable style. Rather than evoking a family feel, she opted for homicidal hunter chic, covering the walls with animal skins, rusty traps, pitchforks and skulls.

  Allowing Katherine to create her design master-piece failed to put a stop to the violence that had undeniably crept back into their relationship. Her partner took an iron in the face and was even stabbed in the stomach with a pair of scissors. This particular incident proved the final straw for poor David and he moved back to his old apartment in Scone.

  VIDEO NASTY

  With Saunders scared away into hiding, Katherine next shacked up with forty-three-year-old John Chillingworth, a former co-worker at the slaughter-house. The couple had a child together but after just three years the romance was over; the crazy Knight had found another with whom she had been having an affair for some time. This new inamorato would prove to be the unluckiest of all her companions.

  His name was John Price and known to his many friends as Pricey. Well-liked, honest and true, the divorced father of three was well aware of Katherine’s reputation. Au fait with her fiery temper he allowed her to move into his three-bedroom bungalow, simultaneously moving himself inexorably closer to his dark destiny.

  Their relationship followed a similar path to all the others. Over-the-top outbursts from Katherine would result in some form of suffering for her partner. In 1998, following his refusal to marry her, she made a videotape of some out-dated medical kits he had taken from a skip at work. She then sent the evidence to his boss who promptly fired him from a job he loved and had held for seventeen years.

  Living in constant fear of her extreme actions, John Price visited Scone Magistrate’s Court on 29 February 2000 and took out a restraining order. That afternoon at work he told his colleagues that if he failed to show up the following day it would be because she had killed him. When he arrived home he found the house empty; his children were at a sleep-over and Katherine – to his relief – was not there.

  Sometime after eleven his dangerous darling returned, climbing into bed with him where they had sex. Price soon fell asleep, sealing his fate. The next morning his neighbour spotted his vehicle still in the driveway. His employers were also concerned he had not turned up for work and quickly the hue and cry was raised. The police arrived around eight in the morning and resolved to break in via the back door. Nothing could have prepared them for the horrific sight that lay within.

  NEVER TO BE RELEASED

  Once officers entered 84 St Andrews Street their eyes focused on an odd piece of drapery that seemed out of place. On closer inspection they realized what it was: hanging by a meat hook from the door arch an entire human hide complete with nose, ears, and genitals. Further inside, the skinned body of John Price lay on its back, legs crossed; he had been decapitated.

  The missing head was discovered in a cooking pot stewing with assorted
vegetables, and on the side dinner had been prepared for the children: slices of their father’s buttocks served with baked potato, pumpkin, zucchini and gravy. A handwritten note accompanied the meal falsely accusing the victim of sexually abusing the youngsters.

  Finally, after following a trail of bloody hand-prints to a double bed at the back of the house, they came upon an unconscious Katherine Knight.

  Charged with the murder of John Price on 6 March 2000, it took well over a year for this hyperbolic butcheress to stand trial. Refusing to accept responsibility for her actions, she became hysterical when the gruesome details were mentioned in court and required sedation.

  On 8 November 2001, after being found guilty by the jury, Justice O’Keefe handed down a landmark sentence of life behind bars with no possibility for parole; a first in Australian legal history. A failed appeal in June 2006 ensures Katherine Knight still remains a prisoner at Silverwater Women’s Correctional Centre.

  Rosemary West

  Not your average Wild West story, this evil murderess along with her husband engaged in a series of violent and incestuous crimes that ultimately led to murder inside their basement torture chamber.

  A THORNY ROSE

  When Daisy Letts gave birth to a baby girl on 29 November 1953 the chances of her developing into a stable, well-adjusted child were slim. Her gene pool far from blessed, Rosemary Pauline was the product of a schizophrenic father and a mother who suffered from chronic depression. To make matters worse Daisy underwent electric shock therapy for her condition while pregnant, an aggressive treatment that ran the risk of causing significant prenatal injury.

  Life failed to get much better outside the womb for Rosemary. Her father ran their Barnstaple home like a borstal and regularly beat his children for minor indiscretions. For hours on end the youngster would sit alone, rocking her head back and forth as if in some trance-like state, possibly in reaction to her tyrant father’s late-night visits to her bedroom.

  At school it was equally tough. She was a pretty girl but not bright and languished in the lower classes. Weight problems provoked teasing and she responded by lashing out, getting a reputation as a bad-tempered loner. Finding it hard to make friends at school, she focused her attentions on older men and quickly began sleeping around, having under-age sex with truck drivers. Her keen sexual precocity had developed at an early age, having been known to climb into bed with her younger brother and touch him inappropriately.

  By 1969 Rosemary’s parents had separated and, after a brief spell living with her mother, she made the somewhat surprising decision to move in with her sexually-abusive father. At the same time she met Fred West, a simian-looking, convicted child molester with a thick West Country accent. William Letts disapproved of the man twelve years older than his daughter and made numerous attempts to break the couple up. But Rose and Fred were inseparable, and together would share a life so deviant it would shock the nation.

  BOUND BY BLOODSHED

  The following year Rose fell pregnant with Fred’s child. Not yet seventeen, the young mother was forced to care for two additional children from her boyfriend’s previous marriage in their tiny house on Midland Road. Fuelled by resentment, she became violent, hurling abuse at her charges. Then, in June 1971, while Fred was doing time for theft, Rose snapped and murdered Charmaine West, the eight-year-old daughter of Fred’s former wife.

  Informing Charmaine’s stepsister, Anne-Marie, that her mother had come to take her away, she hid the body until Fred’s release. He then dismembered his own daughter and buried her in the garden. When Rena Costello, the murdered girl’s mother, came asking questions she met a similar fate, ending up below ground.

  Enchained by a bond of bloodshed, the pair next joined in unholy matrimony, marrying at Gloucester registry office in January 1972. Rose then gave birth to another daughter six months later. The growing family moved into 25 Cromwell Street, a three-storey end-of-terrace house in the centre of town.

  The new home came equipped with a large basement which the pair swiftly transformed into a soundproofed torture chamber. The first reluctant guest was Fred’s eight-year-old daughter, Anne-Marie. Bound and gagged, the helpless child was held down by Rosemary and viciously raped by her own father. Regular trips down into the cellar were backed up with threats if she ever told a soul.

  CONSENTING TO CRUELTY

  The apparent freedom to inflict such suffering on those closest to them allowed the Wests to indulge a burgeoning lust for the sadistic. Rose turned to prostitution, allowing her voyeur husband to watch as she engaged in bondage and violent sex acts with her equally-deviant clients. Yet those that came to 25 Cromwell Street were not always consenting adults. In late 1972 Caroline Owens came to the house to serve as the couple’s nanny.

  In next to no time, the husband and wife team had the seventeen-year-old in the basement against her will with Rosemary taking the lead in a series of sexually-abusive acts. The malicious mother of two would then laugh as her husband beat the captive teenager, threatening to bury her under the paving slabs of Gloucester if she ever revealed their dirty secret.

  Despite the blackmail attempts, Caroline spoke out, informing the police of the suffering she had endured. Charges of assault were brought against the couple in January 1973 but a pregnant Rose and a persuasive Fred somehow convinced the court magistrate that Caroline was a willing participant in their S&M games. Escaping with a mere fine, they moved on undeterred.

  UNLUCKY HEATHER

  Over the next five years Rose and her husband murdered at least another eight young girls between the ages of fifteen and twenty-one. All were enticed to the house with promises of work, a bed or board; all ended up dismembered, decapitated and buried on the property. Stuffed into vertical holes in the earth, the victims had endured their last days being subjected to increasing levels of carnal cruelty.

  For every dead girl buried below, it seemed Rose produced another baby above ground, conceiving six more children over ten years. The perverted parents succeeded in maintaining strict control over the brood, allowing their debauchery to go unnoticed by the local community. However, when Anne-Marie moved out and daughter Heather became the focus of their obscene desires, Rose and Fred came close to having their evil world revealed to all.

  By the time Heather reached her mid-teens she had become feisty and headstrong. After countless trips into the cellar to suffer at the hands of her parents, she made the mistake of telling a friend about life at home. When her mother and father found out, they reacted with unconstrained violence, ending in her death. They then made their thirteen-year-old son, Stephen, help with digging her shallow grave.

  SAVAGE SEARCH

  Heather’s burial, the ninth to be interred on the property, highlighted the fact that the Wests were running out of room. But these partners in crime refused to curb their immoral self-indulgence, inviting more playmates to the house. Soon reports began to filter through to the authorities regarding the activities in a house filled with young children and, on 6 August 1992, police produced a search warrant to the loathsome owners.

  Inside investigators found hardcore pornography littered about the home along with evidence of Rose’s prostitution. The children were interviewed, revealing disturbing accounts of rape and torture.However, when the case came to court in July 1993, proceedings collapsed when their abused daughter refused to testify.

  Leading the investigation had been DC Hazel Savage who refused to quit following this disappointment. While the Wests had seemingly got away scot free, the case had brought to light the mysterious disappearance of Heather West and the the dogged detective continued to search for the truth. She repeatedly questioned the West children, now out of harm’s way in the care of foster parents, and amassed sufficient circumstantial evidence to get a second search warrant.

  On 24 February 1994, police entered 25 Cromwell Street with a view to probe the fifteen by sixty foot garden. Initial excavation unearthed the remains of two headless and hacked-up fem
ales and, after Fred claimed sole responsibility, he directed detectives to the cellar. Here nine more dismembered bodies were found, leading to his immediate arrest. Rose, on the other hand, denied all knowledge of the murders. It was time for some desperate self-preservation tactics for the West woman.

  ROSEMARY AND TIME

  With her husband taking the blame for the bodies underneath their ‘House of Horrors’, Rose decided to distance herself from her partner in crime and allow him to take the fall on his own. She told police he made her sick and avoided his touch in public in her bid to convince those watching she was the victim and not the perpetrator. Rejected and alone, Fred West stood trial for twelve murders, confessing to as many as twenty before committing suicide in his Winson Green Prison cell on the first day of 1995.

  Failing her own suicide attempt, Rosemary was unable to avoid her own trial which took place on 3 October 1995 amid a media frenzy. Both Anne-Marie and Caroline Owens testified against the dowdy defendant in large glasses, giving evidence that she was, at the very least, an equal member of the sadistic couple. Their revelations of the depravity that existed inside the Gloucester home shocked those present in court with many requiring counselling.

  Rose’s lawyers then made the mistake of allowing her to take the stand and give testimony. During her cross-examination, the jury witnessed her violent temper and dishonest nature, helping them to unanimously find her guilty of ten murders at the end of the seven-week trial. Judge Mantell sentenced her to life imprisonment, which was later revised by the Home Secretary to a whole life tariff. She now resides at HMP Low Newton, an all-female prison in Durham, and has had two appeals rejected.