Blood Stain

by Peter Lalor

  Barry Roughan had been called in when the police set off the alarm while searching Kath’s place for the kids. He is on the video they make later that day as they collect evidence. When they’re finished they ask him if he’s satisfied with what’s happened and he says politely that he just wished it had been under different circumstances. At first he figured that Kath and Price had been fighting and she killed him. He had heard enough of his half-sister’s stories about Price not to have time for him. Anyway, he didn’t like Pricey after he pissed on Roughan’s bathroom floor one night when drunk. One of the cops at the house told the half-brother some of the detail of what his sister had done. Roughan was horrified. Maybe it hadn’t been as simple as he thought.

  In the statement he gave John Alderson at Muswellbrook Police Station he told how Kath dropped in late the night before while he was watching ‘Third Watch’ on TV, a new police show. He told how Kath, he, his wife, Val, and Kath’s twin Joy would walk most mornings and how close the women were. That night Kath and Val had compared notes. Kath had just left her grandchild and Val’s had just been born.

  I have no recollection at all of what Kath was wearing that night. All I can remember is that she was by herself. Kathy did wear pretty short clothes when she went out, I can’t remember that she was wearing anything like that. I wasn’t really taking much notice, I was watching the TV show.

  When Kath arrived my wife let Kath in. I had general conversation with Kath as she came in and she appeared to be in good spirits …

  He recalls that Kath left the house around 10.30 pm, just before ‘Third Watch’ finished. He told them a little about her background.

  Kath has had a few [other] relationships. These blokes have always been drunks and Kath would get assaulted. Pricey, even though I would have considered him a drunk too, appeared to be better than the others at first but as he got to know Kath, and she would tell me that he assaulted her too.

  He told the police how he’d helped Kath move out of Price’s place two years earlier after she caused him to lose his job and that she’d soon moved back in. He mentioned the incident the previous Sunday, when police had been called to her house.

  Price’s workmates Peter Cairnes and Geoff Bowditch came down to Muswellbrook and told the police how Pricey had told them about Kath stabbing him and how scared he was. In this situation it was handy that Price wasn’t hanging on to a life support system because the rules of evidence would have precluded these stories as hearsay. As it was, Pricey was dead and the gloves were off. Their stories made things a lot hotter for Knight. Pricey’s neighbour Keegan told them more about the weekend incident and how he’d had a beer with the little bloke a few hours before he was murdered and how worried he’d been that morning before they knew what had happened.

  That day there was a procession of people into police stations at Muswellbrook, Scone and Aberdeen, and things were looking pretty bad for Katherine Knight. With all this ammunition piling up, Bob Wells wanted to have a go at questioning her while things were fresh. A cop is always keen to step up and have a crack at their suspect, but in this case it wasn’t so easy and that was frustrating.

  I wanted to get in there and get stuck into her but the doctor didn’t want us to interview her and while I was itching to have a go, I wanted to get it right. She had been sedated and I didn’t want anyone to say we’d taken advantage of her.

  Later that night Johnathon Price came to the Scone Police Station wanting to know the full details of what had happened to his father. It was the moment the police had been dreading. Wells and Ford figured he better be told now, rather than let him find out from town gossip and Ford got the job because they knew each other.

  It was pretty hard. He knew his father had been murdered, but he didn’t know the full extent of what happened. He knew he’d been stabbed but he didn’t know how many times and he didn’t know anything about the other stuff.

  Ford reckons telling his mate the details of his father’s murder was one of the toughest things he’s had to do. When he’d finished he walked down to the Golden Fleece Hotel, where his girlfriend worked. By that stage the stories were already getting around Scone. He proceeded to debrief in the age-old manner of cops around the world. One schooner at a time.

  After talking with his colleague, Wells jumped in the car and drove back down the highway to Singleton where he knocked off, satisfied at least that his crook was in custody and that he had made good ground. He then drove another hour down the road to Newcastle, getting in late. He put his clothes straight into the washing machine and then tried to rinse the smell away from his clammy skin. Wells was rattled and woke up his wife Cath who had been a policewoman herself to tell her what had happened. Talked on and on about it. He was pumped up and couldn’t sleep well as he went over and over what he’d seen, what he’d learned and what he’d have to do.

  There were a million things going through Wells’ mind, but the one he kept coming back to was just how on earth any human being could do that to another person. He’d never encountered such gross inhumanity and he’d encountered plenty.

  He woke in the morning with a belting headache, his guts in a knot about the job ahead.

  Wells spoke to a few of Pricey’s friends on the phone and then had a word with the other cops. He was still keen to have a go at Knight but the doctors reckoned she wasn’t up to it; at least not if they wanted to be safe.

  There was a truckload of forensic evidence and that was a problem in itself. Crime scene police were back the next day and had collected 106 exhibits, many of which needed DNA testing for blood samples. But it wasn’t that simple. The powers that be had decided all local area commands (LAC) now had to pay for the services of the analytical laboratories, which had, until quite recently, been free. Before the laboratory would even look at anything they wanted a letter of authority from the LAC agreeing that the costs would be met. The bill was going to be $20000 for the 106 exhibits. After a lot of negotiating the testing was limited to 28 exhibits at a cost of $5600 to the local force. It was just another example of how the bean counters and politicians were making the job harder for the copper trying to catch a crook. Another pain in the arse and another round of memo writing, phone calls, requests and bureaucracy.

  Wells called Detective Sergeant Cynthia Donovan of the Child Protection Investigative Team at Tamworth to interview Knight’s youngest children, and she arrived with Wendy Wilson, the assistant manager at the Muswellbrook Department of Community Services. Getting a statement from kids is a highly specialised skill.

  Wells also rang Phil Lloyd, a senior sergeant at Newcastle and prosecutor. He wanted to know how best to proceed with the questioning of Knight if and when he could get near her.

  For the second night in a row Wells didn’t sleep well. To make matters worse that headache had set in and it just wouldn’t go away, no matter how much codeine he gobbled. He never got headaches but this one was making up for all the ones he had never had. It was a bastard running here and there, trying to keep on top of all those things and the whole time your head was sounding like a bloody techno record. Boom. Boom. Boom.

  He didn’t recognise it at the time, but this was his body saying to hell with this. He was stressed by the whole deal. He was running on adrenalin but it wasn’t a good feeling. He was anxious and spooked. Everybody was feeling the stress of the situation in one way or another, but few of them realised it at the time. Wells’ boss lined up psychiatric counselling, but Bob was going a million miles an hour and couldn’t stop. Didn’t need it anyway. He was a copper. A bloke.

  Mate. I’m trying to get a crook in the book, I want to find out what’s going on. Fuck going up to Aberdeen RSL Club because they’re going to debrief everybody. I didn’t have time for that shit. That was just the way I felt at the time. I probably should have; then again, there was no attempt to debrief me after that either. You know what I mean? I’m not trying to blame anybody, but there was so much work to do.

  Friday morning h
e transferred a prisoner up to Maitland with Mick Prentice and stuck his head in to see another psychiatric doctor at the hospital who reckoned Knight would be up to an interview at 8 am Saturday. The next day.

  The investigation was moving along pretty well. They were making some progress, and then one of the biggest breakthroughs just walked in the door that Friday when Natasha fronted up to the station with a home video for the police to watch. Mick Prentice and Bob stuck the tape in the machine, pushed the play button and sat there with their mouths open. There was Knight saying how she hoped to see her children again. The tape was made only six hours before the murder. The police knew this was a genuine smoking gun. You didn’t have to be Sigmund Freud to read between the lines and see that this was some sort of last will and testament.

  Wells drove home again, had a couple more pain killers and hit the sack with that same thumping techno beat playing in his head as he tossed and turned, thinking about the interview the next morning. What should he ask? What would she say? He was at the hospital at 8 am with Mick Prentice to make sure everything was in place. He was checking out the room when he saw a familiar bloke in a suit walking past.

  —Shit! Mick, she’s got herself a barrister.

  It was Peter Thraves. Somebody had got onto Brett Wiggins, a local solicitor and he had brought in Thraves to help out. The beat in Wells’ head got suddenly faster. He wasn’t expecting her to get a lawyer. Maybe they weren’t going to get a squeak out of her.

  Thraves told Wells that Knight had no recollection of what happened on the night of the murder and that although she was prepared to do a brief interview she didn’t want to know anything about what happened in the house. The barrister said they’d get about ten or fifteen minutes and that Wiggins would sit in on the interview and stop it if the questions went too far.

  Shit. Shit. Shit. Wells thought he had it all ready to go. He had a letter from the doctor saying she was fit to be interviewed and now there was a bloody barrister there to upset the apple cart. He excused himself and went out to a back room where he phoned Phil Lloyd again. The pair agreed just to lead her gently up to the crime and see what happened from there. There wasn’t a lot else that could be done.

  He took a deep breath and walked into the room ready to wrestle with the woman who had committed the worst crime he’d ever encountered. Even a cop gets the wind up them about something like this. This woman was plain bloody evil as far as he was concerned and now he had to have a nice little chat with her and find out what she was willing to say without ever mentioning the murder. He was wound up like a thousand day clock, ready to confront the monster behind the door.

  10

  Katherine’s police interview

  1-4 March 2000

  Katherine Knight had been taken from the crime scene to Muswellbrook Hospital where she arrived at 9.30 am Wednesday morning suffering from the effects of a mild overdose. She was transferred to the Newcastle Mater Misericordiae at 1.15 pm under police escort. The next morning she was alert enough to tell the doctors what pills she had taken (blood pressure and mild antihistamines). She said she wanted to sleep and not wake up. She still wanted to die. Later that day she was transferred to the Maitland Hospital secure psychiatric unit where she was alert but claimed no memory of the previous days. She arrived after lunch with her eyes still closed, but gradually opened them as she received a stream of visitors.

  Jason Roughan, her nephew, arrived with a bunch of flowers. He loved Kath and was worried about her. She had taken him in when his parents had thrown him out of home. He came with his girlfriend but they wouldn’t let him in. He was turned away, but left the flowers and a number for her to call.

  The next day Knight’s case was taken up by Dr Joanne Barrett, a part-time law student. Aware that the patient was going to be interviewed by the police she took it upon herself to make sure she got a lawyer. That morning Kath’s two half-brothers, Patrick and Neville, visited and left a phone number for a solicitor but he couldn’t be contacted as it was show day in town. Somebody eventually contacted local lawyer Brett Wiggins and he agreed to drop in.

  Joy and Melissa went to the hospital, Melissa having made the trip down from Queensland after finding out that this really wasn’t some sick first-of-the-month joke. The family, as was their want, had a vigorous argument outside the room. Melissa was angry with both of her uncles. There were further troubles at Aberdeen when Patrick and Neville let themselves into Katherine’s house to pick up some clothes for her. Barry Roughan arrived and told them to get out. At the same time Chillingworth arrived to get things for his son. Roughan flagged down a passing police car.

  Kath was worried that her youngest daughter was with her father, David Saunders and his new wife. She arranged with Melissa to get an AVO taken out on the girl’s behalf against her father. It alleged sexual abuse. Katherine’s ability to cause trouble for others was not inhibited by the fact she was locked up in a psychiatric hospital facing possible murder charges.

  Wiggins visited and agreed to be there when the police interviewed her the following day.

  Both sides were ready.

  * * *

  And here she is, an unremarkable woman, sitting on a chair at a table in a small featureless hospital room. The monster of Aberdeen, the woman who slaughtered John Price is just so ordinary. Could be a librarian. Wells hadn’t expected horns but this 45-year-old mother of four and grandmother is disturbingly mundane. You wouldn’t look twice if she walked past you in a supermarket. She’s tall, with long, greying red hair, glasses and a straight back.

  Detective Victor Ford, Mick Prentice, two other detectives and the custody officer have come along for the ride. The atmosphere in the room is tense and awkward. Silences echo off the clinical decor. The pressure is on Wells and Ford, who will conduct the interview, to come out with a good result.

  She is seated in front of a large whiteboard, her arms folded, her glasses case on the table and her solicitor, Brett Wiggins, at her side. There’s a nurse there also. They do their introductions for the video camera, then custody officer Senior Constable Barry Miles asks her a few preliminary questions to see if she is fit to be interviewed. He asks if she has read a document setting out her rights.

  —I can’t read… I can read a little, but not enough to save meself.

  He asks if she is an Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander. Knight replies that there is some link five generations back, according to her eldest brother.

  —But, we don’t use it.

  They start the formal interview at 10.29 am and she folds her hands on the table. Wells explains that the interview is being recorded and may be used later in evidence. It kicks off with all the formalities: how she’ll get a tape and that she hasn’t been pressured or promised anything. It’s not until question 44 that the detective approaches the crime.

  —Okay. As I’ve told you, Kathy, I’m investigating the death of John Price, known as Pricey to a lot of people in Aberdeen on or about Wednesday, the 1st of March, this year. I have reason to believe that you may be the person responsible. Is there anything you can tell me about the matter?

  Knight shakes her head.

  —I don’t know anything on it.

  —Can you recall, recall the last thing that you do remember?

  She begins to fidget, moving her hand from her glasses to her neck. You don’t need to be a body language expert to see she is uncomfortable with the question and will attempt to avoid answering it truthfully.

  —The last thing I remember was going out for tea with me daughter and the kids. Coming home.

  —Okay. Could, could you give me a time, I’ve been told that that was Tuesday, the 29th of February, this year. Can you tell me anything about that?

  —No, then I don’t know anything about the next day then.

  Wells asked her again what she remembered about Tuesday.

  —I had to go to Muswellbrook for the test, to show the doctor the bruises on me breast, and I asked me daughter would she
like to go to tea, ‘cause she up … upset over her little girl’s father.

  —Right.

  —So, we went out for tea and we, I was watching a video and it was too late to take the kids home to bed so they spent the night at Tasha’s, and I just went home to [pause] Pricey’s.

  She says she drove her red Toyota Lite Ace and that Pricey was her defacto and fiancé, that she met him six and a half years ago through her little girl’s father, David Saunders, and then one night asked him to dance—she can’t remember the year—but the date was October 8.

  —Your de facto relationship commenced virtually from about that time?

  —No, not quite.

  —Okay.

  —No. He lived at his house and I lived at mine.

  —And you, did you move between those residences from time to time?

  —Yeah. He, he was being pretty nasty to me at one stage, and Tasha was having hassles at home, and I went to Brisbane to the alcoholic side of things [sic]. The only way I could get into it was saying I was an alcoholic, to get help for meself and for Tasha, and Pricey come up there with me that time.

  —What…

  —And when I come back he wouldn’t let me live down in me own house. I had to go up there and live with him.

  Following Knight’s answers is a bit of a wild ride, but Wells hangs in and then asks her to explain the type of relationship she has had.

  —I really can’t. His wife wanted me to go with him and he come round. He was nice to my children, he was nice to me, and before I went up to live with him, as I said, I went to Brisbane for help meself and my daughter, he’d be, he had sex with me and called me some other woman’s name … He was just being nasty all the time to me or the children … Pricey would hit me.

  —Was there any time that you may have hit Pricey?

  —The last time I put me arms up to stop him from choking me and he had me by the breast and all I could think of was the pain in my breast.

  —When was that occasion?