Blood Stain

by Peter Lalor

  Kylie Henry, a solicitor at the Director of Public Prosecution’s (DPP) office in Newcastle, keeps reassuring Wells that her boss Mark Macadam will see the case through. A copper’s always cynical about support from the DPP; too many times they see plea bargains done to save the government money. And, he’s never met this Macadam.

  In the meantime, Wells is chasing down all sorts of minutiae: records of television programs to correlate the timing of events on the day of the murder, medical files from all over the valley, obscure leads that go nowhere. Always at 100 miles an hour. Fussing and obsessing. Wondering if it’s a waste of time.

  Mavis Paulger, Kellett’s mother, remembers Wells’ visit. The detective with his black briefcase that never leaves his side, lap top computer and sense of mission. She realised he was a man consumed by the task at hand.

  I just thought, I hope this man gets some peace when this is done. I hope he had something good in his life apart from this. He was just so focused and determined. So dedicated.

  Wells’ work has resulted in an extraordinarily good brief. It’s pretty clear Katherine Knight killed John Price at some stage between Tuesday night and Wednesday morning. You don’t have to be Sherlock Holmes to get there. Also, Wells has found a number of witnesses who will testify that she has a history of violence against men, when, in fact, she is claiming they were violent to her. Any hope of mitigating the crime by presenting herself as a battered woman would be up against the testimony of Kellett, Chillingworth, Saunders and a score of other witnesses.

  The most damning evidence comes from her brother Charlie and the others who heard her say she would kill Pricey, and the implication any reasonable person would take from the last videotape was that she was planning to kill him, possibly even that night. That evidence goes a long way towards proving intent. Then there’s the talk of wanting $10 000 to get out of the house. It’s all looking pretty grubby and clear cut. Still, if you’re a cop trying to get a conviction you’ve got to keep closing imaginary gates that might lead a jury into dismissing a crime or developing misplaced sympathies with a criminal. Or a DPP’s office deciding it’s too hard.

  Aware that the defence will probably attempt to suggest Knight was not of right mind during the crime, the DPP authorise Dr Robert Delaforce, a Coffs Harbour forensic psychiatrist, to interview Knight and prepare a medico-legal assessment. Delaforce is given a copy of the brief of interviews prepared by Wells, the medical records and videos of the crime scene, the interview with Knight and footage of evidence being removed from her home. The prosecution want to find out what they’re dealing with. They want to know what psychiatric issues might be raised as either defence or mitigation of the crime.

  Delaforce spent eight hours and 46 minutes with Knight at the Mulawa Correctional centre over two days in June 2000 and compiled a 66-page report from the interview. It’s a mix of autobiography, psychiatric and legal opinion. Basically he says she’s odd, but knew what she was doing. He even thinks she might have enjoyed it.

  Kath was bright and smiling at times during the interview and at other times she became openly distressed. She had a lot to say, but Delaforce notes:

  On numerous occasions she made self-manipulating gestures (that can suggest giving misleading information) such as scratching herself, including when I was questioning her about events related to Mr Price’s death. Her intelligence was estimated to be at best in the lowest region of the average range. Some difficulty reading, but not a difficulty understanding my questions, was noted.

  The report is instructive to Wells and the prosecution as it flags, further to the initial interview conducted two months before, the sort of defence Knight will be running. They already have a fair idea: all the men in her life were violent, all her relationships were dysfunctional, she has no recollection of the murder and had no intention of killing John Price. In fact, she wanted to get away from him and was going to leave. Knight wants the jury to think, as she previously told relatives, that she killed him in a moment of madness and he got what he deserved, being the last in a long line of bastards, wife-beaters and sexual deviates who preyed on her children and her. She even tells Delaforce that Price threatened to kill the kids; a claim she has never made before.

  Delaforce made a summary of Knight’s life, a ghost-written autobiography. It’s an interesting assessment of Katherine Knight’s life as told by Katherine Knight:

  Her childhood, much of which could not be recalled because of bad and sad events, was characterised by repeated physical violence by her father to her and other family members, especially her mother, his forcing sexual activity onto her mother, Ms Knight receiving ‘beltings’ from her mother, during her primary school years, repeated sexual abuse of her by her half-brother and brother, and her fears of being raped. Her mother died in 1986 following a good relationship with her. Ms Knight continued to have negative feelings towards her father. During her primary school years her uncle died following suicide.

  At school, where she attended to partway through Year 8, she was in the lowest or second lowest class, achieved only very minimal reading and writing skills, was called ‘uncontrollable’ by one teacher, had few friends, and tended to keep to herself.

  Between age 16 years and 1985 she loved her work at the meatworks, initially doing the final cleaning of the animal carcass and subsequently slicing the carcass, work that was more exciting than her year working in a clothing factory. She loved to spend time at the meatworks with a man who would knife pigs to make them bleed, although she denied she was aware of the details of his work. Overall she had been a good worker and had not been employed since 1985 because of her back problems.

  At age 18 years she left home ‘to get away from the violence at home’. There was only one relationship with a male prior to her marriage to David Kellett, her only legal marriage, that resulted in her 2 children, Melissa Kellett aged 24 years and Natasha Kellett aged 20 years. Her defacto relationship with David Saunders resulted in her 12-year-old daughter, … The 9-year-old… resulted from the non-defacto relationship with Mr John Chillingworth. In about 1994 she commenced a defacto relationship with John Price. During all her relationships she feared getting raped and she would always give in to requests for sex rather than having forced sex. In all of her relationships she was the victim of physical abuse. She realised she picked the wrong male partner because they ‘were all drunk and violent’. There were numerous separations during her relationships. During the relationships she was sometimes sexually involved with other males. Sometimes her children were physically abused by her partner. Her daughters had been sexually abused by adult males. Ms Knight’s overall experience with males meant that they abused females.

  An alleged incident where she sat on Mr Kellett’s chest and held a knife to his throat was denied. In response to his involvement with another woman, Ms Knight was admitted to Morisset Hospital (psychiatric) after she used a knife and demanded that a woman drive her to Mr Kellett’s mother so that Ms Knight could kill Mr Kellett’s mother, she thought to pay back Mr Kellett, and kill herself. The allegation that she had at about that stage (1976) swung her infant around by the legs was denied, however, she recalled at about that time she swung an axe around. At another stage she burnt all of Mr Kellett’s clothes following his involvement with another woman.

  There was a lot of violence to her from Mr Saunders with police involvement, including for apprehended violence orders. During the worst incident (1987) they were each violent to one another, she killed his dog by cutting its throat, something she had not been able to recall, and was hospitalised after taking an overdose of medication.

  Because Mr Chillingworth hit one of her children she deliberately smashed his false teeth set…

  The negative aspect of her relationship with Mr Price, a ‘pisspot’, was his sexual involvement with other women; other aspects of his sexual behaviour, such as his eventual cruel sexual acts to her, his homosexual-type talk, and inappropriate public sexual/social behaviour; his p
hysical abuse of her; and conflict with him about the sexual abuse of her children by his children. After Mr Price was violent to her for the first time and the police would not charge him she videotaped recorded items he stole from his employment and his employment was therefore terminated (in about 1998). In November 1999 she accidentally stabbed him in the chest.

  She escaped from the abuse by Mr Price by ‘all of the time’ watching television and videotapes, including violent videotapes. Her own home was like a museum with items hung on the wall or ceiling, including a cow skin, animal horns, animal skulls, and coats made of leather and fur. Also displayed were a stuffed deer and peacock. She loved to watch these items and did not regard the animals as dead.

  Mr Price kept threatening to kill her children, and also threatened to kill Ms Knight. The only other persons she may have told about Mr Price threatening to kill her children were the 2 prison health care workers. About 6 times overall since Mr Price’s employment was terminated because of her videotape recording, and last about 2 weeks before his death, she talked with her nephew, Jason Roughan, about him being violent to Mr Price or his property, for example, breaking Mr Price’s bones or burning his motor vehicle.

  Mr Price called police to his home on 36 February 2000 and claimed Ms Knight came at him with a knife. He was served with an apprehended violence order the following day. Ms Knight stated that if she were to again overdose she would never die alone and would take another life with her, and presumed that included Mr Price. However, she denied her plan was to kill Mr Price. Instead she talked, but inconsistently, of her plan to in early March 2000 cease living with Mr Price and move back to her own home after going camping with her children.

  On 29 February 2000, a day she did not use medication or alcohol, she spent time with Natasha and Natasha’s daughter… ‘the apple of my eye’, including some time trying to record a videotape of [the granddaughter] That night they went to a restaurant, something that Ms Knight did not do with her family. Afterwards at Natasha’s home she found it peaceful watching a videotape of her family. She had no recollection of Natasha asking, when Ms Knight was leaving, if she was going to kill Mr Price and herself.

  Mr Price was already in bed when she arrived at his home on 29 February 2000. Her last recall before her hospitalisation was him about 2 metres from her on his way back from the toilet after they had just had sexual intercourse. She did not know what happened to Mr Price but was told in prison that she had killed him, removed part of his skin, and cooked his head in a pot. Also she presumed she cut off his penis. There was no recall of notes left at the crime scene. Her relationship with Mr Price, which always had its ups and downs, was said to be satisfactory up until the night he died. It was her wish that someone was around when she became aware of all the details of his death. Her current fear was that she would repeat her behaviour if released from prison.

  Although she denied ever being (other than related to his death) violent to Mr Price she referred to her violence to her father, Mr Kellett, and Mr Saunders, and smashing Mr Chillingworth’s false teeth.

  To date she had not experienced emotion about the death of Mr Price and still thought of him as alive, even though part of her said he was dead.

  Inquiry about mental health problems noted chronic low self-esteem, shyness, much difficulty coping with the end of a relationship, unstable emotions, difficulty controlling her anger, anxiety when re-experiencing childhood abuse, continued fear of being raped and of her children being sexually abused, avoiding talking about her sexual trauma, and difficulty coping with injury to humans. There had never been a period of significant depressed mood. Her maximum depressed mood followed the permanent or temporary end of her relationships with males. There had been reduced pleasure from life since 1998. Deliberate self-harm involved overdoses in 1976, 1987, and 1995. There was no recollection of her drug overdose in 3000 or that she in hospital in March 3000 talked about her overdose prior to that admission. It was difficult for her to believe that she would have overdosed after Mr Price’s death because she had lived for her granddaughter that she described as ‘my world’. Ms Knight experienced ‘visions’ of ghosts, heard bells that she thought meant someone would die because that had happened after hearing the bells, but had not heard voices other than her name being called. People would tell her that she was mad because she had difficulty remembering everyday things.

  Mostly she would not take psychiatric medication, which was first used during her marriage and last some months prior to March 2000. Al-Anon and Alcoholics Anonymous had both been attended because of her partners’ alcohol problems. When she attended her general practitioner she did not talk much about the problems in her life. Twice since imprisonment she had taken a tranquilliser.

  I administered parts of the Structured Interview for DSM-IV Personality (SIDP-IV) which identified especially Borderline and Avoidant Personality Disorder traits. I utilised the Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-IV Dissociative Disorders—Revised (SCID-D) and noted again her reference to difficulty recalling the bad things in her childhood and some problems with identity confusion …

  Delaforce’s diagnosis suggests that Katherine was suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder that was chronic but in partial remission and borderline personality disorder.

  The Post-traumatic Stress Disorder refers to the outcome following her experiencing repeated childhood trauma related to witnessing the alleged physical abuse of her mother by her father and the alleged sexual abuse of, and sexual activity with, her by her half-brother and brother. The symptoms include re-experiencing the sexual abuse/activity during her childhood as suggested by her play with her dolls, during her childhood her isolation from her peers and not expecting to have a future, the continued anxiety associated with thoughts related to the abuse and sometimes re-experiencing the abuse, avoiding talking about the abuse … avoiding males and sexual activity during her early adulthood, fear of being raped, her continued excessive anger and irritability, and the extent to which she remained very vigilant about abuse of her children and has been in Partial Remission since about her early adult years.

  The Borderline Personality Disorder has been present since adolescence or early adulthood. The features present here are…

  There are nine symptoms that may be seen in somebody with borderline personality disorder. If you have five of those you are deemed to have the disorder, according to Dr Delaforce—and this was later supported by other psychiatrists—Katherine Knight suffers from eight of the nine symptoms, which are: (1) frantic efforts to avoid real or imagined abandonment; (2) a pattern of unstable and intense interpersonal relationships, characterised by alternating between extremes of idealisation and devaluation; (3) identity disturbance: markedly and persistently unstable self-image or sense of self; (4) impulsivity in at least two areas that are potentially self-damaging (e.g. spending, sex, substance abuse, reckless driving, binge eating), but excluding suicidal or self-mutilating behaviour; (5) recurrent suicidal behaviour, gestures, or threats, of self-mutilating behaviour; (6) affective (emotions) instability/marked reactivity of mood; (7) chronic feelings of emptiness; (8) inappropriate, intense anger or difficulty controlling anger; (9) transient, stress-related paranoid ideation or severe dissociative symptoms.

  The boot seemed to fit Katherine’s foot perfectly. Delaforce’s footnotes from DSM-IV state that a personality disorder is:

  … an enduring pattern of inner experience and behaviour that deviates markedly from the expectations of the individual’s culture and is manifested in at least two of the following areas: cognition, affectivity, interpersonal functionings, or impulse control. This enduring pattern is inflexible and pervasive across a broad rage of personal and social situations and leads to clinically significant distress or impairment in social, occupational, or other important areas of functioning. The pattern is stable and of long duration, and its onset can be traced back at least to adolescence or early adulthood.

  The standard definition of
post-traumatic stress disorder is:

  the development of characteristic symptoms following exposure to an extreme traumatic stressor involving direct personal experience … The person’s response to the event must involve intense fear, helplessness, or horror … the characteristic symptoms resulting from the exposure to the extreme trauma include persistent re-experiencing of the traumatic event, persistent avoidance of stimuli associated with the trauma and numbing of general responsiveness … persistent symptoms of increased arousal.

  Delaforce also noted that there was some correlation between an abusive childhood and picking abusive partners, but suggested that ‘some aspects of Ms Knight’s borderline personality disorder, her moodiness, problems with anger control, and her lack of trust, caused her male partners to become uncharacteristically violent to her or to increase the level and frequency of violence’.

  He ruled out battered woman syndrome, saying he believed that the main basis of Katherine’s psychiatric problems were ‘repeated victimisations in childhood and in adulthood’, and noted that here there was some uncertainty as to whether she was beaten by her partners. He also addressed her apparent amnesia about the killing.

  Dr M Giuffrida, visiting psychiatrist to Mulawa Women’s Correctional Centre, in his short report dated 28 March 2000 diagnoses the mental disorder ‘Dissociative Amnesia’ for the period related to Mr Price’s death and her overdose. I do not support that diagnosis. For a start there are too many inconsistencies regarding the details she reports related to the death of Mr Price and her overdose to begin to support the diagnosis.

  He noted that she could give adequate information to medical staff about the overdose. He also contradicts the prison psychiatrist’s diagnosis of hysterical dissociative fugue and amnesia, claiming ‘it is completely inappropriate’.