# Katherine Knight: The life of Australia's most shocking female killer | Roje Augustin Pt. 1

An episode of [I Catch Killers with Gary Jubelin](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1506667049), 29 Aug 2026, 1 h 02 min.

Audio: https://p.podderapp.com/2544644999/traffic.omny.fm/d/clips/2fb3740d-3436-44af-8cc0-a91900716aa5/5bc8c2ed-b718-4f44-beb3-ac2a005246cc/4715b47d-4e51-4419-812c-b4b30026b473/audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=786928c3-10c1-4cef-a7bf-ac2a005246d0

What Katherine Knight did to her partner John Price wasn't just murder, it was something far more twisted. Katherine was a woman consumed by two things: a crippling fear of abandonment, and an insatiable need for control, enforced through violence, manipulation, and sexual exploitation. Most Australians know the horror of how John Price died. What they don't know is the decades-long history of abuse Katherine inflicted on the men in her life, and anyone else she deemed an obstacle. Which raises an uncomfortable question, if a man had done to women what Katherine did to men, would he have been stopped years earlier? In this episode of I Catch Killers, Gary Jubelin is joined by Rojé Augustin, whose new book The Butcher of Aberdeen, delves into Katherine’s chilling past shaped by childhood trauma, violent relationships, and a relentless descent into madness. Rojé Augustin is the author of The Butcher of Aberdeen: An Australian Story of Sex, Madness, and Murder. You can watch I Catch Killers on Youtube here. Follow I Catch Killers: Instagram: @icatchkillers Tiktok: @icatchkillerspodcast Facebook: @icatchkillers Email the show at icatchkillers@news.com.au See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

## Transcript

[0:01] Speaker 1: The public has had a long-held fascination with detectives. Detectives
[0:05] Speaker 1: see a side of life the average person is never
[0:08] Speaker 1: exposed to. I spent 34 years as a cop. For
[0:12] Speaker 1: 25 of those years, I was catching killers. That's what
[0:14] Speaker 1: I did for a living. I was a homicide detective.
[0:17] Speaker 1: I'm no longer just interviewing bad guys. Instead, I'm taking
[0:21] Speaker 1: the public into the world in which I operated. The
[0:24] Speaker 1: guests I talk to each week have amazing stories from
[0:26] Speaker 1: all sides of the law. The interviews are raw and honest,
[0:29] Speaker 1: just like the people I talk to. Some of the
[0:31] Speaker 1: content and language might be confronting. That's because no one
[0:34] Speaker 1: who comes into contact with crime is left unchanged. Join
[0:38] Speaker 1: me now as I take you into this world. Today,
[0:47] Speaker 1: we explore the dark, twisted world of notorious killer, Catherine Knight.
[0:52] Speaker 1: This is a shocking story and I think a content
[0:55] Speaker 1: warning is necessary. We're going to talk about domestic violence
[0:58] Speaker 1: where male partners are the victims, about sexual exploitation, violence,
[1:04] Speaker 1: and a woman tormented by a fear of abandonment and
[1:07] Speaker 1: the need for control. There is no happy ending in
[1:10] Speaker 1: this story, and I think you'll be shocked when I
[1:13] Speaker 1: sit down with journalist Rojay Augustine, author of the book
[1:18] Speaker 1: The Butcher of Aberdeen, an Australian story of sex, madness,
[1:22] Speaker 1: and murder. Take a listen. Roger Augustine, welcome to I
[1:28] Speaker 1: Catch Killers.
[1:29] Speaker 2: Thank you. Thanks for having me.
[1:30] Speaker 1: Well, looking forward to having this conversation, kind of, because
[1:34] Speaker 1: the subject matter is pretty heavy, what we're going to
[1:36] Speaker 1: talk about, and that's the crime of the Kathleen Knight committed, murder. Yeah, slaughter, butcher. Butcher, murder. Yeah.
[1:49] Speaker 1: As a sort of career homicide detective, I saw a
[1:52] Speaker 1: lot of crime. But I've got to say, reading your book,
[1:56] Speaker 1: The Butcher of Aberdeen, I felt this sense of overwhelming
[2:00] Speaker 1: dread knowing what's coming. Like it's not a spoiler alert.
[2:03] Speaker 1: I knew how this matter ended. But your book really
[2:07] Speaker 1: covered how the crime built up and the background to
[2:13] Speaker 1: a lady like that that commits such a horrendous murder. Yeah.
[2:17] Speaker 1: Is that how you felt writing the book? Could you
[2:20] Speaker 1: see it, all these red flags, you saw what was
[2:22] Speaker 1: going to happen or you knew what was going to happen?
[2:25] Speaker 2: Well, I did know what was going to happen. What
[2:27] Speaker 2: I didn't, I guess, anticipate was laying out the story
[2:33] Speaker 2: and realizing as you stood back and looked at it,
[2:37] Speaker 2: that there was this long pattern, you know, a year's
[2:40] Speaker 2: long pattern of serial abuse. And when I first discovered
[2:46] Speaker 2: the case, there wasn't much that was really written about
[2:49] Speaker 2: her kind of serial abuse of her partners. It wasn't
[2:53] Speaker 2: until I started to piece the story together that I realized, God,
[2:57] Speaker 2: this has been going on for a long time. So
[3:01] Speaker 2: many red flags that no one really just really paid
[3:06] Speaker 2: attention to. So I think that's where you get that
[3:10] Speaker 2: sense of buildup and dread.
[3:12] Speaker 1: Well, it's interesting because obviously I was aware of the case.
[3:17] Speaker 1: I was working homicide at the time. I didn't work
[3:19] Speaker 1: that particular matter. I knew the detective that was running
[3:23] Speaker 1: the investigation. And such a dramatic, horrible murder scene, I
[3:28] Speaker 1: think that took everyone's attention. And so perhaps our attention
[3:33] Speaker 1: was directed to the actual crime, but not the buildup
[3:36] Speaker 1: to the crime. And that's what your book covered in
[3:39] Speaker 1: great detail. Yeah, yeah.
[3:41] Speaker 2: And I like to say that it's essentially a story
[3:43] Speaker 2: about domestic violence, really, but the perpetrator in this case
[3:46] Speaker 2: is a woman, which we don't necessarily talk a lot about.
[3:51] Speaker 2: And I think that's why the headlines focused on Australia's
[3:57] Speaker 2: Hannibal Lecter rather than this lifelong abuser who culminates in
[4:03] Speaker 2: this act of terrible violence.
[4:06] Speaker 1: I want to talk more about that than the gender-specific
[4:09] Speaker 1: nature of this crime. It is domestic violence at the extreme.
[4:13] Speaker 1: Just as a throwaway line, if the roles were reversed,
[4:16] Speaker 1: the genders were reversed, and a man was carrying on
[4:19] Speaker 1: the way that she was carrying on, people would be,
[4:23] Speaker 1: you know, Screaming from the rooftops.
[4:25] Speaker 2: Oh, absolutely.
[4:25] Speaker 1: This person needs to be stopped before he hurts someone.
[4:29] Speaker 2: That's right. And it may not have happened if he
[4:31] Speaker 2: was a man. You know, that end of the butchering
[4:34] Speaker 2: and the slaughtering of the partner. Yeah. But even from
[4:37] Speaker 2: the very first sort of big, big red flag with
[4:40] Speaker 2: her first husband, David Kellett, as you know, on their
[4:45] Speaker 2: wedding night, she tries to strangle him. Now, imagine if
[4:49] Speaker 2: that was, if the gender was flipped.
[4:51] Speaker 1: And, you know, my interpretation of it reading through it
[4:54] Speaker 1: was because he, yeah.
[4:56] Speaker 2: He wouldn't perform.
[4:57] Speaker 1: He wouldn't perform in bed like he was meant to
[4:59] Speaker 1: perform in bed on her wedding night. And she had
[5:01] Speaker 1: this sense of entitlement.
[5:03] Speaker 2: Yeah.
[5:03] Speaker 1: You know, if you flip that and the man attacked
[5:07] Speaker 1: the bride on a wedding night, they'd be all hell
[5:10] Speaker 1: to pay.
[5:10] Speaker 2: Yeah.
[5:11] Speaker 1: Just again, not a spoiler alert, but just so people
[5:14] Speaker 1: know what we're talking about, because I want it to
[5:17] Speaker 1: build up so people understand all these red flags, all
[5:21] Speaker 1: these indicators leading up to the actual crime. But I'll
[5:25] Speaker 1: talk about the crime here. So in 2001- Catherine Knight
[5:30] Speaker 1: was sentenced to life imprisonment, never to be released for
[5:32] Speaker 1: the murder of John Price. As far as I know,
[5:35] Speaker 1: she's the only, we were talking the other day, she's
[5:37] Speaker 1: the only woman that's ever been sentenced to life imprisonment,
[5:40] Speaker 1: never to be released.
[5:41] Speaker 2: That's right.
[5:42] Speaker 1: Papers marked, never to be released. The sentencing judge, Justice O'Keefe,
[5:46] Speaker 1: stated in his findings, so this is at sentencing, I'm
[5:50] Speaker 1: satisfied beyond any doubt that such a murder was premeditated.
[5:54] Speaker 1: I'm further satisfied that not only did she plan the murder,
[5:57] Speaker 1: but she took pleasure in the horrific acts that followed,
[6:01] Speaker 1: acts which formed a ritual of death and defilement. Strong
[6:06] Speaker 1: comments from a judge. Yeah, yeah. Do you, so people,
[6:11] Speaker 1: the few people that haven't heard about this crime, do
[6:13] Speaker 1: you want to just actually tell us what she was
[6:15] Speaker 1: convicted of?
[6:16] Speaker 2: So she was convicted of murdering, slaughtering, butchering her partner
[6:24] Speaker 2: of six years. And the manner of the assault and
[6:29] Speaker 2: the murder were so, so gruesome that it's not surprising
[6:35] Speaker 2: the judge came to that conclusion because who spends that
[6:40] Speaker 2: much time after stabbing someone 37 times to then defile
[6:46] Speaker 2: the corpse the way that she did and to go further,
[6:50] Speaker 2: cook pieces of his flesh alive? that she plates up
[6:54] Speaker 2: intending for his children to find. So it's understandable that
[6:59] Speaker 2: somebody like Justice O'Keefe or even the forensic psychiatrist would
[7:04] Speaker 2: come to the conclusion that this is a woman who
[7:07] Speaker 2: actually had a vindictive, revengeful streak about her because you've
[7:14] Speaker 2: already killed him. So the act of defiling him is
[7:18] Speaker 2: sort of a vindictive sort of final stroke.
[7:22] Speaker 1: And for the judge to be that strong that she
[7:27] Speaker 1: took pleasure in the horrific acts. We're talking, this is
[7:31] Speaker 1: a content warning up front for this one. It's heavy discussion.
[7:37] Speaker 1: But we're talking about a person who was skinned. Yeah.
[7:42] Speaker 1: She basically skinned him. There's no other way of describing it.
[7:45] Speaker 1: And hung his skin up in the doorway.
[7:47] Speaker 2: Very skillfully skinned. That was the other thing. I think
[7:50] Speaker 2: that really struck me as well that it wasn't a
[7:53] Speaker 2: hack job. This is a very, very skilled person having
[7:58] Speaker 2: learned her skills from years working at the abattoir. And
[8:04] Speaker 2: The time that it took for her to sit down
[8:07] Speaker 2: and carefully remove his entire skin in one piece is
[8:12] Speaker 2: really telling.
[8:14] Speaker 1: Well, I think the judge identified that talking about the
[8:16] Speaker 1: precision in the act that she did to skin this person.
[8:23] Speaker 2: Apparently the hair, the ears, the genitals, all of it
[8:27] Speaker 2: was intact. Yeah.
[8:28] Speaker 1: And that takes control and skill. And she got the
[8:32] Speaker 1: skill from her previous work. And then what we're talking
[8:37] Speaker 1: about with cutting off pieces of the flesh, that was
[8:39] Speaker 1: pieces of his buttocks. Yeah. And she was boiling vegetables
[8:44] Speaker 1: with his head. Yeah. And also frying, cooking up the
[8:48] Speaker 1: chunks of meat cut off.
[8:49] Speaker 2: That's right. And she made homemade gravy.
[8:53] Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah.
[8:54] Speaker 2: So it was all. I mean, the psychology behind that.
[8:58] Speaker 2: How do you even come around to categorizing someone like that?
[9:03] Speaker 2: The time to make homemade gravy that you're going to
[9:06] Speaker 2: serve with pieces of your partner's flesh. It's just... I like,
[9:12] Speaker 2: I have no words.
[9:13] Speaker 1: Well, I should have words because I was a former
[9:17] Speaker 1: homicide detective, but I'm shocked by it too. I put
[9:20] Speaker 1: it in that category and I choose not to use
[9:23] Speaker 1: the word evil often, but there's some times when I
[9:26] Speaker 1: just got to go, I just see that there's an
[9:29] Speaker 1: active evil. It's whatever's going through a person's mind that
[9:33] Speaker 1: does that. But There's a whole series, and we will
[9:36] Speaker 1: talk about it, evil acts that she's done in the
[9:38] Speaker 1: lead up to that with other partners. There was multiple partners.
[9:41] Speaker 1: And again, the judge summed up that, the fact that
[9:44] Speaker 1: she didn't have a criminal record, that he didn't place
[9:47] Speaker 1: much weight on that sentencing because of all the calculated
[9:52] Speaker 1: acts of violence against multiple former partners.
[9:55] Speaker 2: Yeah, over years, years.
[9:58] Speaker 1: You can see why, really. the book was pretty heavy.
[10:01] Speaker 2: Yeah.
[10:03] Speaker 1: Before we talk about this, I think it's important that
[10:07] Speaker 1: we acknowledge John Price and his family. We're talking about
[10:12] Speaker 1: a murder, a horrific murder, but the impact it had
[10:15] Speaker 1: not just on John, he lost his life, but also
[10:18] Speaker 1: his family members and friends. Tell us a little bit
[10:22] Speaker 1: about who John Price was.
[10:24] Speaker 2: So from everything that I read about him, he was
[10:27] Speaker 2: a really likable, well-respected, well-loved person in his community. Everyone
[10:34] Speaker 2: who knew him had nothing but good things to say
[10:36] Speaker 2: about him. He was a guy who worked hard, played hard.
[10:40] Speaker 2: He loved to go to the pub with his mates,
[10:43] Speaker 2: hang out, have a few tuis, and have a laugh.
[10:47] Speaker 2: And he loved to dance. They described him as sort
[10:49] Speaker 2: of this This kind of cheeky, larrikin, you know, every
[10:55] Speaker 2: man who just was a charming guy, you know, a
[10:58] Speaker 2: lot of fun and also loved women. That was his weakness.
[11:03] Speaker 1: That was his weakness. Well, yeah, when he came up
[11:06] Speaker 1: against Kathleen, that was the way that she manipulated and
[11:09] Speaker 1: traded with the sexual prowess.
[11:11] Speaker 2: Didn't she? Yeah, that's what they all said, that she
[11:13] Speaker 2: was very uninhibited, would do it. In fact, John Price's
[11:18] Speaker 2: close mate, said that she was the sort of person
[11:21] Speaker 2: who would do it anywhere, anytime, with anyone and do anything.
[11:25] Speaker 2: So I feel that that was very much a part
[11:29] Speaker 2: of her arsenal, one of her tools in catching the
[11:33] Speaker 2: men and keeping them.
[11:34] Speaker 1: And even after the acts of violence that will break
[11:37] Speaker 1: down and all the horrendous things that she did to them,
[11:41] Speaker 1: she would always win them back with sexual favours.
[11:43] Speaker 2: That's right, yeah.
[11:45] Speaker 1: And the poor old simple blokes come back and go, oh, okay,
[11:49] Speaker 1: all forgotten. But, yeah, with John Price, that's the sense
[11:52] Speaker 1: that I got of him. He was a decent human being.
[11:56] Speaker 1: He loved his kids. He'd separated from his first wife,
[11:59] Speaker 1: but they were still on good speaking terms and was
[12:03] Speaker 1: just one of those people that fitted into a community
[12:06] Speaker 1: in which he was living and didn't cause anyone harm. Yeah. Yeah,
[12:11] Speaker 1: it's sad that he came to such a horrific demise.
[12:15] Speaker 2: Yeah, very sad.
[12:17] Speaker 1: Before we get into it, just tell us a little
[12:19] Speaker 1: bit about yourself.
[12:21] Speaker 2: Well, I'm originally from New York.
[12:22] Speaker 1: I wouldn't have picked that.
[12:24] Speaker 2: If you can tell by the accent. Although I'm told
[12:27] Speaker 2: I don't have much of a New York accent, but
[12:29] Speaker 2: definitely an American accent. So born and raised in New
[12:31] Speaker 2: York City. Met my partner who's Australian about 30 years ago. Um, and, uh,
[12:39] Speaker 2: he stayed in America for me for a number of
[12:41] Speaker 2: years and then we moved to London and then eventually
[12:44] Speaker 2: came here, have two daughters. I've always been a writer
[12:47] Speaker 2: and a producer, um, have loved stories and telling stories
[12:51] Speaker 2: and reading since I can remember. Um, and have always
[12:55] Speaker 2: known that that's what I want to do, um, and
[12:57] Speaker 2: have worked, um, either as a writer or a producer, um,
[13:02] Speaker 2: in television, across news documentaries, um, current affairs scripted television
[13:08] Speaker 2: just everything i just love telling stories and i love
[13:10] Speaker 2: telling them in different formats so i've i've written a
[13:13] Speaker 2: collection of poetry i've written um a fiction book there's
[13:17] Speaker 2: this what i like to call a non-fiction novel um
[13:21] Speaker 2: podcasts and um lots and lots of um television scripts
[13:28] Speaker 2: and news stuff.
[13:29] Speaker 1: Well, in the changing world of media, it's good to
[13:32] Speaker 1: have a lot of different skill sets. So it sounds
[13:35] Speaker 1: like you've covered it broadly.
[13:37] Speaker 2: For sure.
[13:38] Speaker 1: This book, what got you interested in this case in
[13:40] Speaker 1: the first place?
[13:42] Speaker 2: Well, I like to say I'm a self-confessed gore queen. Okay.
[13:45] Speaker 1: Well, look, a lot of people are going to have
[13:48] Speaker 1: to put their hands up to it. We'll talk about
[13:50] Speaker 1: that later. But what is it that attracts people to
[13:53] Speaker 1: true crime?
[13:54] Speaker 2: Well, you know, with true crime, the stats lean towards female.
[13:58] Speaker 2: You know, they're the largest consumers of true crime. And
[14:02] Speaker 2: for me, they kind of act like a survival guide
[14:05] Speaker 2: in a way when I watch true crime. There's always
[14:08] Speaker 2: this thing in the back of my mind of if
[14:10] Speaker 2: I were in that situation, this is what I would
[14:13] Speaker 2: do to get out of it. Or if I encountered
[14:16] Speaker 2: somebody who behaved in this way, I would make this choice.
[14:21] Speaker 2: There's something about true crime that just, it fits with
[14:28] Speaker 2: what women often have to think about. There's an extra
[14:30] Speaker 2: level of thought that goes into, if we're traveling alone,
[14:34] Speaker 2: where are we going to stay? How close is it
[14:37] Speaker 2: to our transportation? Will we have to catch a cab?
[14:40] Speaker 2: Do we want to get in a cab with a,
[14:42] Speaker 2: With a male driver, this extra layer of thought that
[14:48] Speaker 2: goes into a lot of things that we do. And
[14:50] Speaker 2: I think that's where this consumption of true crime comes from.
[14:55] Speaker 1: That's an interesting take because I've spoken to a lot
[14:58] Speaker 1: of people and I know you're right. The female population
[15:01] Speaker 1: of the big consumers are all the ones with the
[15:02] Speaker 1: interest in the true crime. Well, I haven't seen it
[15:05] Speaker 1: from that perspective. So it's almost like it's an education. Absolutely.
[15:09] Speaker 1: As in you're looking, okay, this happened to that person.
[15:11] Speaker 1: How could we prevent that?
[15:12] Speaker 2: That's right.
[15:13] Speaker 1: Yeah, that's a different take.
[15:13] Speaker 2: I watched a true crime documentary recently. I think it
[15:19] Speaker 2: was called Survivors or something. And this young woman started
[15:22] Speaker 2: driving an Uber to supplement her income. And she was
[15:27] Speaker 2: just finishing up her one last ride. And a gentleman
[15:31] Speaker 2: came up and said– Can I get a lift to so-and-so?
[15:35] Speaker 2: And she says, oh, I finished my shift. And he
[15:40] Speaker 2: offers her $ 300 off the books if he could get
[15:45] Speaker 2: to another city. So it was a long trip. It
[15:49] Speaker 2: was a two-hour trip because he had to pick up
[15:51] Speaker 2: his truck. And so she's thinking $ 300 off the books,
[15:55] Speaker 2: meaning turn off your Uber app thing. So she agrees
[15:59] Speaker 2: to it. She drives him there. Everything goes fine. He says, look,
[16:03] Speaker 2: I have to be here for a couple of days,
[16:05] Speaker 2: but I'm going to need to go back. Can we
[16:07] Speaker 2: have the same arrangement? And she says, sure. You know,
[16:10] Speaker 2: she's got the $ 300. And of course, on the way back,
[16:14] Speaker 2: he attacks her.
[16:15] Speaker 1: Right.
[16:15] Speaker 2: Yeah. She ends up jumping out of the car as
[16:19] Speaker 2: they're speeding down the roadway because it was her only chance.
[16:22] Speaker 2: And she really banged herself up. But she survived. And
[16:25] Speaker 2: I'm thinking to myself... Uber driver, turn off your app?
[16:29] Speaker 1: No.
[16:30] Speaker 2: Because all of these things, you know, they keep you safer.
[16:35] Speaker 2: In other words, the few ways that he manipulated her
[16:38] Speaker 2: to allow him to sort of manipulate her. those little
[16:45] Speaker 2: moments she didn't think of at the time, you know,
[16:48] Speaker 2: and those are the things that strike me when I
[16:50] Speaker 2: consume true crime.
[16:52] Speaker 1: Okay, little life hacks to keep yourself safe. But yeah,
[16:57] Speaker 1: quite often in situations without, you know, blaming victims on
[17:01] Speaker 1: those situations, but if something seems too good to be true,
[17:05] Speaker 1: sometimes you've got to take a step back.
[17:08] Speaker 2: That's right.
[17:09] Speaker 1: Offenders, predatory type offenders, are very manipulative in the way
[17:13] Speaker 1: that they find their victims and are calculated. When did
[17:18] Speaker 1: you first find out about the Kathleen Knight? Right.
[17:21] Speaker 2: So to answer your question, so I was actually in
[17:24] Speaker 2: between jobs. This was just around the time of COVID,
[17:30] Speaker 2: so maybe a year or two into COVID. And I
[17:33] Speaker 2: just started researching infamous Australian crime stories. And it wasn't
[17:39] Speaker 2: long before I discovered Catherine Knight's story. And one female,
[17:47] Speaker 2: that was the first thing on the list because it
[17:49] Speaker 2: was maybe four or five men before I got to her.
[17:53] Speaker 2: And then when I saw the headlines, what she did,
[17:55] Speaker 2: the skinning, the butchering, the cooking, I just had to
[17:59] Speaker 2: find out more. And then, you know, that consumed the
[18:02] Speaker 2: next three, three and a half years of my life.
[18:05] Speaker 1: Okay. Yeah. Well, I can see the amount of research
[18:08] Speaker 1: and effort that's gone into the book and the detail
[18:11] Speaker 1: that you've got in the book. The way you've written
[18:14] Speaker 1: it is quite interesting. It's a factual account. It's a
[18:17] Speaker 1: factual account of what's happened and you've got documents that
[18:20] Speaker 1: you've referenced to and your research.
[18:22] Speaker 2: Mm-hmm.
[18:23] Speaker 1: But you've also told it in a story form that
[18:26] Speaker 1: makes it– I thought it was compelling reading. Like I
[18:30] Speaker 1: read a lot of true crime books and sometimes they
[18:32] Speaker 1: become a little bit too much like a fact sheet
[18:35] Speaker 1: or a court report. This really took me into the
[18:38] Speaker 1: world and that's why I think it was freaking me
[18:40] Speaker 1: out a little bit as I'm reading. You're not the
[18:42] Speaker 1: first to say that. This is scary.
[18:45] Speaker 2: Yeah.
[18:45] Speaker 1: And it makes you reflect on relationships and– All sorts
[18:49] Speaker 1: of things. So what was the way you decided to
[18:52] Speaker 1: set out to write the book and how did you
[18:54] Speaker 1: write the book?
[18:56] Speaker 2: That's a great question because for me, telling a story,
[19:00] Speaker 2: if you're going to sit down and tell a story,
[19:02] Speaker 2: I find that structuring it is the first thing you
[19:05] Speaker 2: have to do. And over the years, I've learned the
[19:08] Speaker 2: importance of structure and how you build tension in a story.
[19:13] Speaker 2: There's particular ways to do that. So I approach most
[19:17] Speaker 2: of my long form writing writing with a structure in
[19:20] Speaker 2: mind and with the intent of building tension and making
[19:25] Speaker 2: the clear sort of plot points, you know, these beats
[19:29] Speaker 2: in the story very clear at a certain point in
[19:32] Speaker 2: the story. So that's how I structured the story. When
[19:35] Speaker 2: I first discovered it, I started to gather research. I
[19:39] Speaker 2: just read everything I could find about her. And then
[19:42] Speaker 2: eventually went into court documents and watched little sort of
[19:47] Speaker 2: documentaries on YouTube. and just pieced together the pivotal moments
[19:51] Speaker 2: of her journey and those around her and how she
[19:56] Speaker 2: came to be the person who did what she did.
[19:59] Speaker 2: So I like to flesh things out into scenes. I
[20:03] Speaker 2: think it's from my work in scripted television and that's
[20:09] Speaker 2: what I wanted for myself in fleshing out the story.
[20:14] Speaker 2: I kind of told the story the way I wanted
[20:18] Speaker 2: to see it, you know, and the way it kind
[20:20] Speaker 2: of visualized how I visualized it in my mind. And,
[20:27] Speaker 2: you know, that's, that's, if I was going to pick
[20:30] Speaker 2: up a true crime book, I'd want to read something
[20:34] Speaker 2: that was, Like a novel, you know.
[20:36] Speaker 1: And it felt that way. Yeah. And it certainly, it
[20:41] Speaker 1: gave me a greater understanding than the lead up to
[20:43] Speaker 1: the crimes. And I think part of my concern, the frustrations,
[20:48] Speaker 1: I'm seeing the warning signs. I'm seeing red flags everywhere and,
[20:52] Speaker 1: you know, make it stop. Like when she's killing someone's
[20:54] Speaker 1: pet and smashing dentures, which we'll talk about.
[20:58] Speaker 2: Mm-hmm.
[20:59] Speaker 1: This is an act of a scary person. This is
[21:01] Speaker 1: an act of a person that needs to be reined
[21:03] Speaker 1: in and a sense of entitlement and rolling out the
[21:07] Speaker 1: fear of abandonment and all that. You could see it
[21:10] Speaker 1: building up like a pressure cooker.
[21:12] Speaker 2: Definitely. Yeah. And the psychology behind that really interested me.
[21:16] Speaker 2: It really fascinated me. And I think really at the
[21:19] Speaker 2: core of my love of true crime is trying to
[21:22] Speaker 2: understand the psychology of a person who would do something
[21:25] Speaker 2: like that. It just boggles the mind and It's a
[21:28] Speaker 2: way to try to fathom the unfathomable. I can never
[21:35] Speaker 2: say that word. But that's part of the reason as
[21:38] Speaker 2: well that I wanted to flesh it out into these
[21:40] Speaker 2: scenes because I really wanted to understand the human being
[21:44] Speaker 2: behind this evil act.
[21:47] Speaker 1: Let's talk about her then. Let's talk about who she
[21:50] Speaker 1: was growing up. Where did she grow up, family and environments?
[21:55] Speaker 2: Yeah. So the environment, Hunter Valley, working class environment, working
[22:01] Speaker 2: to sort of lower middle class, I would say. Her
[22:04] Speaker 2: family were a well-known and pretty respected family in that area.
[22:11] Speaker 2: Most of them worked at the abattoir. That was a
[22:13] Speaker 2: big industry, that mining in that area, particularly back then
[22:17] Speaker 2: in the 70s. She was born in 1955. And by
[22:20] Speaker 2: all accounts, her family life was A bit dysfunctional. They
[22:25] Speaker 2: moved around a bit because they went where the jobs were.
[22:28] Speaker 2: Her mother had been married to a man named Jack Rogan? Rogan?
[22:33] Speaker 2: I don't know how to pronounce it because it spells strangely,
[22:35] Speaker 2: but they had four sons. And she, at some point,
[22:40] Speaker 2: began an affair with her husband's friend, worked with him
[22:44] Speaker 2: at the abattoir that was Ken Knight. And the scandal
[22:47] Speaker 2: of that sort of forced them to flee. So she
[22:49] Speaker 2: left her four sons with Jack and moved with Ken
[22:54] Speaker 2: Knight to, I believe it was Tenterfield or Morey, one
[22:58] Speaker 2: of those towns, and proceeded to have four more children there. Right.
[23:02] Speaker 2: And Catherine came with her twin sister, Joy, and there
[23:07] Speaker 2: were two boys. Now, Ken apparently was quite violent. He
[23:13] Speaker 2: was a big drinker. And from what I've read, demanded
[23:19] Speaker 2: sex from Barbara up to 10 times a day is
[23:23] Speaker 2: what a lot of the sources say and would take
[23:27] Speaker 2: it by force. Right. Catherine, her siblings, they were exposed
[23:32] Speaker 2: to a violent household, a lot of dysfunction, and apparently
[23:39] Speaker 2: Barbara shared a lot of inappropriate details with her daughters.
[23:44] Speaker 1: Well, part of the motherly advice that I understood or
[23:48] Speaker 1: took from the book was that she was telling you
[23:51] Speaker 1: just got to put out for men. That's what they do.
[23:53] Speaker 2: Yeah, that's right.
[23:54] Speaker 1: Stop complaining. Just if they want sex, give them sex.
[23:57] Speaker 2: That's right.
[23:58] Speaker 1: And that sort of life advice from a parent is
[24:04] Speaker 1: not very helpful for a young child. Absolutely not. So
[24:07] Speaker 1: you can see where things start to go off track there.
[24:10] Speaker 2: It would fracture a young mind, I think. You know,
[24:13] Speaker 2: her attachment styles. How do you trust people? How do
[24:17] Speaker 2: you learn to attach properly? And her mother was just
[24:22] Speaker 2: as kind of volatile. Yeah. had a mouth like a sailor,
[24:26] Speaker 2: you know, was always one cuss word after another. And
[24:28] Speaker 2: Catherine was the same. And I just get the sense
[24:31] Speaker 2: that from such a young age, there's going to be
[24:35] Speaker 2: some damage done, you know, emotionally and psychologically, not to
[24:39] Speaker 2: mention physically. Catherine also claimed to have been sexually abused
[24:43] Speaker 2: by members of her family. She was clear to say
[24:46] Speaker 2: that was not her father, but there were other family members.
[24:50] Speaker 2: So you put all of that together, the dysfunction, the
[24:53] Speaker 2: moving around, the scandal of infidelity, the sexual violence, the
[24:59] Speaker 2: boundarylessness between mum and... And it's no wonder that something cracked.
[25:05] Speaker 1: Something's gone wrong there. In school, how was she at school?
[25:09] Speaker 1: Was there anything that indicated that.
[25:12] Speaker 2: That stood out?
[25:12] Speaker 1: Yeah.
[25:13] Speaker 2: Well, there were cases of... There were stories of her...
[25:17] Speaker 2: having a volatile, you know, sort of reputation. People knew
[25:22] Speaker 2: that she could explode and would get violent. And she
[25:25] Speaker 2: was apparently sort of midway, I think middle school.
[25:31] Speaker 1: I don't know.
[25:31] Speaker 2: You don't have middle school here. Yeah, that's right. So
[25:34] Speaker 2: high school kind of, it's combined here.
[25:36] Speaker 1: Early high school.
[25:37] Speaker 2: Early high school, yeah. Apparently she was suspended because she
[25:41] Speaker 2: assaulted a teacher. But there were also, you know, little
[25:45] Speaker 2: anecdotes about her being a good student. You know, there
[25:49] Speaker 2: were times where she was well behaved and did have
[25:53] Speaker 2: some capacity for, you know, being in class and sort
[25:57] Speaker 2: of paying attention and focusing. So there was this very
[26:01] Speaker 2: contradictory nature about Catherine.
[26:03] Speaker 1: Well, she got, she had no trouble getting men and
[26:06] Speaker 1: she was very free with sexual favors, but she kept
[26:10] Speaker 1: men for a little bit too. Like she must've had
[26:13] Speaker 1: the skills to present As a reasonable person, there must
[26:16] Speaker 1: have been a good side to it that she could
[26:18] Speaker 1: put on display.
[26:19] Speaker 2: Well, all of her partners say that the first year
[26:23] Speaker 2: or so was fantastic. Model, partner, couldn't have asked for
[26:27] Speaker 2: a better wife. I mean, David Kellett said she was
[26:29] Speaker 2: just golden. They had the best time those first two years.
[26:33] Speaker 2: It seems to be. This period of this honeymoon period
[26:37] Speaker 2: that's about two years. And, you know, psychologically, I remember
[26:42] Speaker 2: reading that for most relationships, there is that. you know,
[26:45] Speaker 2: the new relationship energy. And your mind is flooded with
[26:50] Speaker 2: dopamine and all this stuff because you're in love, everything's exciting.
[26:53] Speaker 2: And that chemically actually lasts for about two years. And
[26:58] Speaker 2: then comes the reality that sets in.
[27:01] Speaker 1: Yeah, all the stars have disappeared at that stage.
[27:04] Speaker 2: That's right, yeah. And if there's a real connection, you
[27:07] Speaker 2: can build on that, you know, in healthy relationships, healthy people.
[27:11] Speaker 2: So it's interesting to me that all of her partners say,
[27:14] Speaker 2: In the beginning, she was fantastic, just great fun. We
[27:18] Speaker 2: had great sex, went out all the time. She was
[27:21] Speaker 2: just a lovely person, a homemaker, and then things turn.
[27:27] Speaker 1: She left school early and started working in an abattoir. Now,
[27:31] Speaker 1: I'm not casting aspersions on anyone that works in an abattoir,
[27:34] Speaker 1: but And, you know, out of necessity, people work there
[27:38] Speaker 1: and not– but it is a place that, to me,
[27:42] Speaker 1: it wouldn't be a nice environment, I'll put it that way,
[27:45] Speaker 1: to work in. You did a bit of research about
[27:48] Speaker 1: that because, yeah, that was a skill set that Catherine
[27:51] Speaker 1: carried through to the demise and the murder.
[27:54] Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah.
[27:55] Speaker 1: But she was attracted to that environment and, in fact,
[27:57] Speaker 1: enjoyed it.
[27:58] Speaker 2: Very much.
[27:58] Speaker 1: Tell us what you found out about that period of
[28:00] Speaker 1: her life.
[28:01] Speaker 2: Yeah, that side of her life. Well, she dropped out
[28:03] Speaker 2: at 15 and initially she went to go apply for
[28:06] Speaker 2: a job at the abattoir where her father had worked.
[28:08] Speaker 2: And they told her, you're too young, come back. So
[28:11] Speaker 2: she got a job somewhere else. working in clothing retail
[28:14] Speaker 2: or something or clothing shop. And then the following year,
[28:18] Speaker 2: she went back and applied and got the job. So
[28:20] Speaker 2: this was part of the family history, you know, and
[28:23] Speaker 2: we know that she had kind of lessons and training
[28:26] Speaker 2: from her father who routinely, I think once a year,
[28:29] Speaker 2: they would, you know, take a steer and butcher it
[28:32] Speaker 2: and sort of distribute pieces out to the family, you know.
[28:35] Speaker 2: So she would have learned from an early age that
[28:38] Speaker 2: this is something. So when she was working at the abattoir,
[28:42] Speaker 2: she took to it very quickly, you know, and her skills, they,
[28:46] Speaker 2: she rose up quite quickly from the awful room and
[28:50] Speaker 2: sort of cleaning up, up to being a slicer in
[28:55] Speaker 2: the boning room. And so I researched what's life like
[28:58] Speaker 2: in an abattoir? What's the, you know, a day look like?
[29:02] Speaker 2: And found a number of videos on on YouTube and
[29:09] Speaker 2: read some books about it. And it's just watching the
[29:15] Speaker 2: process of slaughtering these animals. There was a period after that,
[29:21] Speaker 2: and to this day, where I just couldn't eat meat anymore.
[29:24] Speaker 1: I'm a vegetarian.
[29:25] Speaker 2: Yeah, I did. Because particularly the pigs, they really seemed
[29:29] Speaker 2: to be aware of what was happening in a way
[29:31] Speaker 2: that the cows and the sheep didn't. So I know
[29:34] Speaker 2: that Catherine... On her breaks, she loved to go to
[29:37] Speaker 2: the kill room, right? That was her favorite thing to
[29:40] Speaker 2: do because she loved to watch the pigs get zapped
[29:43] Speaker 2: and slaughtered. So I thought, I want to see what
[29:45] Speaker 2: this looks like. What was it that she loved so much?
[29:48] Speaker 2: And it was probably one of the most violent periods of,
[29:52] Speaker 2: or violent sections of the abattoir because You have the
[29:57] Speaker 2: people who clean up. You have the ones who collect
[29:59] Speaker 2: the scrap to make sausages. And then you have the
[30:01] Speaker 2: ones who cut the pieces of meat and grade them
[30:04] Speaker 2: for distribution. The kill room is where the violence really happens.
[30:09] Speaker 2: And to watch the men, the slaughter men, put down
[30:13] Speaker 2: a cow or sheep or pigs were the one that
[30:17] Speaker 2: really stuck with me. It was so incredibly violent. And
[30:21] Speaker 2: the way they did it just seemed so desensitized. It
[30:26] Speaker 2: was like, oh, my God, you've done this so many times.
[30:29] Speaker 1: Thousands.
[30:29] Speaker 2: Thousands of times that it's nothing to just take a
[30:32] Speaker 2: knife and just, you know, and sometimes the pigs would
[30:35] Speaker 2: break loose and they'd squirm and squeal and the noise
[30:39] Speaker 2: of fear, the sheer terror that you could hear, even
[30:42] Speaker 2: from the video, the blood everywhere, and they would just
[30:45] Speaker 2: wrestle it back onto the bleed trough and then just
[30:50] Speaker 2: not even bother with the stunning prods and just right
[30:54] Speaker 2: in the throat.
[30:55] Speaker 1: Yeah.
[30:56] Speaker 2: You know, 20 stabs in there just really quickly. And
[30:59] Speaker 2: I saw this is what she enjoyed watching.
[31:02] Speaker 1: Yeah, well, she seemed to have a fascination with death
[31:05] Speaker 1: and killing implements and knives.
[31:08] Speaker 2: Yep, her cottage was filled with instruments of death.
[31:11] Speaker 1: And I think that's one of the things that scared me.
[31:13] Speaker 1: One of the relationships, and we'll break down the relationships,
[31:16] Speaker 1: but where she wanted her bony knife mounted above the
[31:19] Speaker 1: bed in easy reach on her side of the bed.
[31:22] Speaker 2: Yes.
[31:22] Speaker 1: I don't know. I'm thinking mourning, mourning.
[31:25] Speaker 2: I know, and he did it. He did it for her. Okay.
[31:28] Speaker 1: Okay. That's her upbringing. We talk the Hunter Valley. You
[31:32] Speaker 1: mentioned it's a mining town. And for people that are
[31:36] Speaker 1: not familiar with it, it's a mining town that Socio
[31:39] Speaker 1: and economically fairly low, semi-rural, that type, a simple life
[31:44] Speaker 1: for people living in towns like that. Her first relationship, well,
[31:51] Speaker 1: not her first relationship, but with David Kellett, who she married. Now,
[31:55] Speaker 1: it sounded like it was a shotgun wedding, but on
[31:59] Speaker 1: her behalf, she had the shotgun and threw him on,
[32:01] Speaker 1: got him drunk. threw him on the back of a
[32:03] Speaker 1: motorbike and got him married.
[32:04] Speaker 2: Well, he got himself drunk. I think he was trying
[32:06] Speaker 2: to cope with what was happening.
[32:09] Speaker 1: Describe that to us, how they got together and what
[32:11] Speaker 1: was that about?
[32:12] Speaker 2: Well, it seems that she pursued him. So she was
[32:16] Speaker 2: introduced to him by her brother. He was working at
[32:20] Speaker 2: the abattoir. They were both there. So her brother, Charles,
[32:25] Speaker 2: and Catherine were there. He came on board at some
[32:27] Speaker 2: point because he was kind of doing a probationary period
[32:32] Speaker 2: in this area. So he had to find work. He
[32:34] Speaker 2: couldn't leave the area because he was on probation for
[32:37] Speaker 2: some legal, you know, I think he stole something or whatever.
[32:41] Speaker 2: He was a bit of a ruffian. And so she,
[32:46] Speaker 2: you know, she was introduced to him by her brother.
[32:49] Speaker 2: And I think she just thought, oh, I like the
[32:52] Speaker 2: look of this guy. I want him. And that was
[32:55] Speaker 2: sort of her M.O. She pursued the men. And here
[32:59] Speaker 2: you've got this 18-year-old, 19-year-old guy working at the Aperture,
[33:03] Speaker 2: this tall guy. red-headed, very saucy woman approaches him and says,
[33:08] Speaker 2: you know, let's get together, you know. And, of course,
[33:11] Speaker 2: offers herself up. I mean, what teenage boy doesn't take that?
[33:15] Speaker 1: Yeah, he's taken the bait.
[33:16] Speaker 2: Exactly, yeah. And at that point, they had a lot
[33:20] Speaker 2: of fun together.
[33:20] Speaker 1: Yeah.
[33:21] Speaker 2: And she asked him to marry her.
[33:25] Speaker 1: Yeah.
[33:26] Speaker 2: And he sort of just kind of got swept up
[33:29] Speaker 2: in her, In her dream. Do you know what I mean?
[33:32] Speaker 1: She sounded like she had a strong personality. Oh, yeah.
[33:35] Speaker 2: Like her mother.
[33:36] Speaker 1: In the relationships, like a dominant personality.
[33:38] Speaker 2: Very much so. And I think that's probably by design
[33:42] Speaker 2: as well. I think she chose men that she felt
[33:44] Speaker 2: either consciously or unconsciously that she could manipulate, you know,
[33:48] Speaker 2: that she'd have the upper hand. And so it sounds
[33:52] Speaker 2: to me from what I've read that she very much
[33:54] Speaker 2: pursued him. She's the one who asked him to marry her.
[33:58] Speaker 2: And he kind of went along with it. And, you know,
[34:00] Speaker 2: one day they're just, you know, she wakes up. She's like,
[34:03] Speaker 2: all right, today's the day. Let's go to the courthouse.
[34:05] Speaker 2: And he starts drinking that day. I'm thinking in my
[34:08] Speaker 2: mind he's just trying to cope with this whirlwind that
[34:12] Speaker 2: he's gotten himself into. And they go off. She's driving
[34:17] Speaker 2: the motorbike. He's on the back. And, you know, they
[34:21] Speaker 2: get to the courthouse and. He's married suddenly. The whole day,
[34:25] Speaker 2: he's pretty much, he's sauced. I mean, he's not even
[34:28] Speaker 2: aware of what's happening. She doesn't care. She's got her husband.
[34:32] Speaker 2: This is a beginning for her.
[34:34] Speaker 1: And the way you describe, and I think you understand
[34:36] Speaker 1: the psychology of men too, that sometimes it's in a
[34:41] Speaker 1: situation like that, I can imagine that at that age,
[34:43] Speaker 1: you're thinking, I don't want the conflict. I'm just going
[34:45] Speaker 1: to roll along with it. If you're not someone that's
[34:48] Speaker 1: comfortable standing up for yourself, you can see how a
[34:51] Speaker 1: person can be coerced into that sort of relationship and
[34:54] Speaker 1: then just go along with it for the sake of
[34:56] Speaker 1: peace and, oh, this is all right, this will do.
[34:59] Speaker 2: Yeah, and particularly because there's, you know, free-flowing sex. Yeah, yeah.
[35:03] Speaker 2: You know, for a young man, I imagine that's pretty
[35:07] Speaker 2: easy to say, okay.
[35:09] Speaker 1: I'll overlook this. Yeah, well, sign off on that and say, well,
[35:12] Speaker 1: I'm going to be happy in that part of my life.
[35:15] Speaker 1: But it went sour on the wedding night?
[35:18] Speaker 2: Yeah, immediately it went sour because– She compared her relationship
[35:24] Speaker 2: and her marriage to her parents. And, of course, we
[35:28] Speaker 2: know that Barbara was very forthcoming with a lot of
[35:31] Speaker 2: details that were inappropriate for kids. So Catherine knew that
[35:37] Speaker 2: her parents, or she was told that her parents had
[35:40] Speaker 2: sex on their wedding night five times, I think it was.
[35:45] Speaker 1: Right.
[35:46] Speaker 2: So she thought, well, that's the standard. It's got to
[35:50] Speaker 2: be the same with me. And so poor David, you know,
[35:54] Speaker 2: he's drunk and, you know, nursing probably with the beginnings
[35:58] Speaker 2: of a hangover. And she seduces him. He manages to
[36:03] Speaker 2: get on there and she seduces him again and he
[36:07] Speaker 2: rallies up again. And then by the third time, he's
[36:10] Speaker 2: just out of it. You know, he's spent and she
[36:13] Speaker 2: just won't accept it. So she... I think that felt
[36:17] Speaker 2: like a rejection to her. And we know that that's
[36:20] Speaker 2: one of the triggers. So that was an early sign,
[36:23] Speaker 2: you know, the rejection and the saying no and not
[36:26] Speaker 2: getting what she wants. And so she wraps her hands
[36:29] Speaker 2: around his throat and starts to strangle him to get
[36:32] Speaker 2: him to wake up and do what she wants. And
[36:36] Speaker 2: he wakes up, you know, because he must have passed out.
[36:40] Speaker 2: So he wakes up with her hands around his neck,
[36:44] Speaker 2: you know, choking him. And they had an altercation and,
[36:48] Speaker 2: you know.
[36:49] Speaker 1: And she was physically strong too, wasn't she? Yeah, yeah.
[36:52] Speaker 1: She was very strong. She could look after herself and
[36:54] Speaker 1: she had some strength. Well, we put that down as
[36:59] Speaker 1: a warning sign. You can see the books littered with tags.
[37:02] Speaker 1: I'm going through all the warning signs. That's one of
[37:04] Speaker 1: the warning signs. They're the red flags.
[37:06] Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay.
[37:09] Speaker 1: How did that relationship play out? Because I know after
[37:13] Speaker 1: reading the book and the way that I see that
[37:16] Speaker 1: she deals with these relationships, she'll have the big blow up.
[37:19] Speaker 1: It'll be all dramatic. Assaults him. God knows what else
[37:23] Speaker 1: she did. But the next day she can be like
[37:26] Speaker 1: it's water off a duck's back and let's get on
[37:28] Speaker 1: with it. And if there's a little bit of resistance
[37:30] Speaker 1: from the male partner, she'll just offer herself up sexually
[37:34] Speaker 1: and we're back on board and away to go.
[37:36] Speaker 2: Yep, yep. She'll act like nothing's happened, you know, the
[37:39] Speaker 2: next day. It's like, oh, you want some breakfast, you know?
[37:42] Speaker 1: Yeah.
[37:42] Speaker 2: And so for a young guy like Dave Kellett, he's thinking, oh,
[37:47] Speaker 2: that was a one-off. She's fine now. This isn't going
[37:50] Speaker 2: to happen again. All right, sure. Yeah, I'll have some breakfast.
[37:53] Speaker 1: Yeah.
[37:54] Speaker 2: Let's go have some fun. Let's have a beer. And
[37:57] Speaker 2: then it just rose along, you know, denial until the
[38:01] Speaker 2: next incident. So they started happening more frequently as time
[38:07] Speaker 2: went on until he felt, I can't take this anymore.
[38:11] Speaker 2: This is too much. She's very controlling. She wanted him
[38:14] Speaker 2: home by a certain time. You're going to the pub again?
[38:16] Speaker 1: No.
[38:16] Speaker 2: And then it would be like, okay, why don't you
[38:18] Speaker 2: go to the pub? You deserve it, you know. A
[38:22] Speaker 2: testing sort of thing, you know, very manipulative.
[38:24] Speaker 1: Give him enough rope to hang himself.
[38:26] Speaker 2: That's right. But if he stays out a little too long,
[38:28] Speaker 2: I think he was like 10 minutes late or something,
[38:30] Speaker 2: and he comes in the door. whack with a frying pan,
[38:34] Speaker 2: you know, so really, really manipulative.
[38:37] Speaker 1: And when we're talking, that was not just a tap
[38:40] Speaker 1: on the head with a frying pan. That was a.
[38:41] Speaker 2: Full-on psychotic attack with.
[38:44] Speaker 1: A frying pan and knock him down.
[38:47] Speaker 2: Absolutely, yeah. So he got to a point where he
[38:50] Speaker 2: just had to get out of there. Didn't really know how.
[38:54] Speaker 2: Then he began an affair with a woman.
[38:56] Speaker 1: That would have gone over well. Yeah.
[38:59] Speaker 2: Oh, God, little did he know. Yeah. And they sort
[39:02] Speaker 2: of escaped to Queensland and that's where, I think that's
[39:06] Speaker 2: where a real break in her kind of facade really happened.
[39:15] Speaker 2: I think that's the beginning of this escalation because before
[39:21] Speaker 2: David Kellett, there wasn't really any relationship. She really didn't have.
[39:25] Speaker 2: He was pretty much her first. I mean, maybe she'd
[39:27] Speaker 2: had sexual encounters.
[39:29] Speaker 1: Yeah.
[39:30] Speaker 2: With other young men, but he was her first relationship.
[39:34] Speaker 2: And when he took off to Queensland with this woman,
[39:40] Speaker 2: that sense of abandonment really destroyed her. It really, really
[39:45] Speaker 2: triggered quite a psychotic break. And that's the first major
[39:49] Speaker 2: psychotic break that you see in her life. She had
[39:53] Speaker 2: volatile moments when she was younger. Her mother would say
[39:56] Speaker 2: she was, you know, a screw loose, but nothing like
[39:59] Speaker 2: what we saw with the baby in the pram and
[40:02] Speaker 2: the baby on the train tracks.
[40:03] Speaker 1: Yeah, tell us about that because that was David's baby.
[40:07] Speaker 2: Yes, yeah, it was their first.
[40:08] Speaker 1: He has left Catherine. And then just tell us the
[40:14] Speaker 1: story when the baby was left on the train tracks
[40:15] Speaker 1: because that's quite chilling.
[40:17] Speaker 2: Yeah.
[40:18] Speaker 1: Again, these are the things that should have been addressed.
[40:21] Speaker 1: I look at this and think this should not have happened.
[40:25] Speaker 2: No, absolutely.
[40:27] Speaker 1: Tell us what happened there.
[40:28] Speaker 2: So Lauren said he's left and has gone up to
[40:32] Speaker 2: Queensland with this woman. And in her desperate attempt to
[40:36] Speaker 2: get him back, because he left for a couple of
[40:40] Speaker 2: months and she had the baby without him there. He'd
[40:43] Speaker 2: also gotten this other woman pregnant.
[40:46] Speaker 1: Oh, he's waving the red flag, isn't he?
[40:49] Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm thinking definitely. So here she is alone with
[40:53] Speaker 2: a newborn. Her husband's gone. He's been gone for a while.
[40:58] Speaker 2: And it's just all brewing in her mind. It's really
[41:04] Speaker 2: building in the sense of abandonment, the betrayal. all of
[41:11] Speaker 2: that for somebody with her sort of makeup, it was
[41:14] Speaker 2: just too much to bear, I think. And the way
[41:18] Speaker 2: I understood it, this was a way to get his attention.
[41:21] Speaker 2: If I put my baby on the tracks, something happens,
[41:24] Speaker 2: he's going to come back. And then there was the
[41:26] Speaker 2: other idea of, I'm going to go up to Coffs
[41:29] Speaker 2: Harbor and I'm going to kill his mother. That will
[41:32] Speaker 2: get him back. That will get his attention. So there's
[41:35] Speaker 2: that vindictive payback thing, that pattern, that MO that's starting
[41:39] Speaker 2: to formulate for her so it worked you know when
[41:44] Speaker 2: when she did it first there was the um her
[41:47] Speaker 2: walking down the street with the pram she'd had a
[41:49] Speaker 2: a moment i think where it was a you could
[41:52] Speaker 2: characterize as a psychotic kind of break and people um
[41:57] Speaker 2: witnesses say that she was just waving this pram around
[42:00] Speaker 2: with the baby and walking into traffic and you know
[42:03] Speaker 2: everyone was very concerned and then she tried to attack
[42:06] Speaker 2: a neighbor waving an axe around and then she takes
[42:09] Speaker 2: the baby places it on the train tracks and then
[42:12] Speaker 2: walks away. Somebody nearby sees that there's, you know, or
[42:16] Speaker 2: hears the sound and notices there's a baby on the
[42:18] Speaker 2: tracks and rescues the baby. So the baby's fine. But
[42:23] Speaker 2: strangely enough, no one took the children from her. No
[42:26] Speaker 2: one took this baby from her.
[42:27] Speaker 1: Yeah, that's where the system has broken down, isn't it?
[42:30] Speaker 1: And I understand, yeah, if it's a mental health issue,
[42:33] Speaker 1: police might be reluctant to charge and it might be
[42:36] Speaker 1: dealt with under the Mental Health Act. But The fact
[42:39] Speaker 1: that children are still left with her. Was it this
[42:42] Speaker 1: relationship where she took a neighbor's kid hostage? Yes.
[42:46] Speaker 2: So it was after the train tracks. She was then
[42:50] Speaker 2: taken into custody but placed in a psychiatric evaluation. And
[42:57] Speaker 2: the first time I think they kept her for two weeks.
[43:00] Speaker 2: So the baby was in place with her mother or something.
[43:04] Speaker 2: When she came out, she got the baby back and then–
[43:09] Speaker 2: that's when she went to a neighbor and said, oh,
[43:12] Speaker 2: I need help going to hospital. Melissa's sick. So the
[43:16] Speaker 2: neighbor takes her children and they all get in the
[43:20] Speaker 2: car to help her. And that's when Catherine basically kidnaps
[43:24] Speaker 2: them or forces them to drive her to Coffs Harbor
[43:29] Speaker 2: so that she could attempt to kill David's mother.
[43:34] Speaker 1: I shouldn't be laughing, but it's almost incomprehensible, isn't it?
[43:37] Speaker 2: It is, yeah.
[43:38] Speaker 1: The chaos that surrounded her.
[43:40] Speaker 2: So she got quite violent with this woman and her children.
[43:44] Speaker 2: And yeah, that was her way of following through on
[43:48] Speaker 2: her plan. So when that happened, they sent her back
[43:51] Speaker 2: to psychiatric evaluation. And this time, I think she only
[43:54] Speaker 2: stayed a day and discharged herself. David did eventually come
[43:59] Speaker 2: back from Queensland when he heard what was going on.
[44:02] Speaker 2: And he agreed to take her back in with his mother.
[44:06] Speaker 2: So at this point, he felt he had no choice.
[44:09] Speaker 2: He was worried about his child. And, you know, he
[44:12] Speaker 2: didn't expect all of this to happen, you know. And
[44:15] Speaker 2: they gave her a course of medication. David and his
[44:18] Speaker 2: mother agreed to look after her. And so that plan worked.
[44:23] Speaker 2: She got her husband back.
[44:25] Speaker 1: How long did that last before?
[44:27] Speaker 2: It lasted for another two, two years, I believe. I
[44:30] Speaker 2: think total, they were together four years, if I recall.
[44:35] Speaker 2: So he managed to put up with her for another
[44:37] Speaker 2: couple of years, but it got increasingly volatile. Then they
[44:41] Speaker 2: moved up to Queensland to see if they could, you know,
[44:45] Speaker 2: repair some semblance of normality in their relationship. And he
[44:51] Speaker 2: got a job as a Which I think maybe was
[44:54] Speaker 2: calculated on his part because it kept him away from
[44:58] Speaker 2: the home for a week at a time, two weeks
[45:01] Speaker 2: at a time. He traveled interstate. And in that period,
[45:04] Speaker 2: that's when Catherine decided, I'm out of here. He's never
[45:08] Speaker 2: around again. And maybe it's because he wasn't around for
[45:11] Speaker 2: her to even manipulate and abuse, you know. So by
[45:15] Speaker 2: that point, they'd had two kids and she started seeing
[45:19] Speaker 2: Dave Saunders.
[45:20] Speaker 1: Did she move back down to the Hunter Valley from there?
[45:22] Speaker 2: Yeah.
[45:23] Speaker 1: And that's where Dave Saunders came into the scene.
[45:26] Speaker 2: That's right, yeah.
[45:27] Speaker 1: Now, of the things that she did to Dave Saunders,
[45:30] Speaker 1: and I love animals, she killed his puppy.
[45:34] Speaker 2: The puppy that he was going to give to his
[45:36] Speaker 2: daughter by a previous marriage.
[45:38] Speaker 1: And what preempted that? And we talk about the rejection
[45:42] Speaker 1: and the story that, or the way it played out
[45:45] Speaker 1: with her husband, David Kellett. You can see how she
[45:50] Speaker 1: feels rejection, yeah. No one likes rejection, but she takes
[45:55] Speaker 1: it very personally. I got the sense with every relationship
[45:59] Speaker 1: she was in, there was this jealousy, like if the
[46:02] Speaker 1: bloke looked at a woman the wrong way or she'd
[46:05] Speaker 1: create in her own mind.
[46:08] Speaker 2: Something's going on.
[46:12] Speaker 1: Tell us about the relationship with Saunders. Saunders.
[46:15] Speaker 2: So that started after she left Dave Kellett. She's the
[46:19] Speaker 2: one who decided, I've had enough. He's never around. I'm
[46:21] Speaker 2: going back home. She took her kids. And she meets
[46:26] Speaker 2: Saunders at the pub, you know, one night or the
[46:29] Speaker 2: RSL Club or something. And again, decides, oh, I like
[46:33] Speaker 2: the look of you.
[46:34] Speaker 1: And I can see and it's not– I understand the
[46:38] Speaker 1: environment up there. And there's– a lot of men that
[46:42] Speaker 1: work hard in the mines and their relaxation is going
[46:45] Speaker 1: to the pub and there's probably a shortage of women,
[46:47] Speaker 1: available women in that environment. So anyone, it would be
[46:51] Speaker 1: fairly easy for her to strike up a relationship with
[46:54] Speaker 1: any bloke sitting there having a drink at the local pub.
[46:58] Speaker 2: That's right, yeah. And it's also how she met Chillo,
[47:01] Speaker 2: how she met Price, walks into the pub, gets her eyes,
[47:05] Speaker 2: you know, sets her sights on someone and that's the
[47:08] Speaker 2: one for me. So it was very much that with Saunders.
[47:13] Speaker 2: And so they got into a relationship. And again, at
[47:16] Speaker 2: the start, it was brilliant. You know, he had a
[47:18] Speaker 2: lot of fun with her. The same pattern played out
[47:22] Speaker 2: of great sex, great times. And then, you know, at
[47:25] Speaker 2: a certain point, things start to turn sour. He's sort
[47:30] Speaker 2: of like, what's happened? You know, it takes him by surprise.
[47:34] Speaker 1: Because she kept up that facade for those early periods,
[47:38] Speaker 1: didn't she? Because the way it's come out, or my
[47:41] Speaker 1: interpretation of it is, it almost came as a shock.
[47:43] Speaker 1: It was the honeymoon, how lucky am I? I'm the
[47:46] Speaker 1: luckiest man in the world. And then, bang, the switch
[47:50] Speaker 1: happens and they see the dark side.
[47:51] Speaker 2: Yeah, that's right.
[47:52] Speaker 1: Yeah.
[47:53] Speaker 2: So I think she had this, I personally think she
[47:57] Speaker 2: had this real desire to create that family life for herself.
[48:04] Speaker 2: And really wanted it, you know. It's why she was
[48:08] Speaker 2: always on the hunt for a man. She was always
[48:10] Speaker 2: willing to be the homemaker, to have the children. She knitted.
[48:16] Speaker 2: She went to the, you know, she played bingo with
[48:20] Speaker 2: her friends. She did all these kind of, what do
[48:22] Speaker 2: you call it, like stay-at-home mom sort of.
[48:25] Speaker 1: The 1950s housewife. Yeah.
[48:28] Speaker 2: I think that's what she wanted. Yeah, for sure. Just
[48:31] Speaker 2: didn't know how to go about it because of, you know,
[48:34] Speaker 2: her personality. her mental health issues. But with Saunders, you know,
[48:39] Speaker 2: things like not being home in time for dinner.
[48:42] Speaker 1: Yeah.
[48:42] Speaker 2: That was enough for her. Yeah, for her to smack
[48:46] Speaker 2: him around with, you know, an iron or kill his dog.
[48:50] Speaker 1: Yeah, and with that, police called for that when the
[48:53] Speaker 1: dog was killed?
[48:54] Speaker 2: I don't think so.
[48:55] Speaker 1: No, no.
[48:56] Speaker 2: Because, yeah, if.
[48:58] Speaker 1: You're looking at warning signs, and we keep talking red flags,
[49:01] Speaker 1: someone that out of revenge– slashes the throat of an
[49:04] Speaker 1: eight-week-old puppy and then points out to the owner, there's
[49:08] Speaker 1: your dog, what are you going to do about it,
[49:10] Speaker 1: type thing. Yeah. Like, scary.
[49:12] Speaker 2: And we know that a lot of, you know, killers,
[49:15] Speaker 2: serial killers, they often start with animals. Like, if you
[49:18] Speaker 2: can kill an animal... then it's one step further to killing,
[49:22] Speaker 2: you know, a person. So big red flag, big red flag.
[49:25] Speaker 1: So what happened with that relationship? Did Dave just get
[49:31] Speaker 1: brave and run away?
[49:32] Speaker 2: Yeah, he did. He was terrified. Yeah. And it finally
[49:37] Speaker 2: got to the point where the abuse was so bad,
[49:40] Speaker 2: he took leave of absence from his work and left
[49:44] Speaker 2: for Newcastle and just kind of hid out.
[49:47] Speaker 1: Newcastle being the bigger city near the Hunter Valley where
[49:51] Speaker 1: he could be anonymous.
[49:53] Speaker 2: And that's right. And he told, my guess is he
[49:57] Speaker 2: told his mates that. Don't tell her where I am.
[50:01] Speaker 2: Because she did go around looking for him. But he really,
[50:05] Speaker 2: he fled because he was really afraid for his life.
[50:08] Speaker 2: And to this day, he has maintained a very, very
[50:11] Speaker 2: low profile. I couldn't find him anywhere. And after he left,
[50:17] Speaker 2: she went looking for him. Couldn't find him. None of
[50:20] Speaker 2: his mates would say where he was. And basically, she
[50:23] Speaker 2: never really saw him again because... He was just too
[50:27] Speaker 2: scared to be anywhere near her.
[50:29] Speaker 1: And that was a smart move. It was, yeah. Like
[50:33] Speaker 1: any one of these previous partners, I think they could
[50:36] Speaker 1: have ended up like John did in the right circumstances.
[50:41] Speaker 1: I wouldn't like to front her if I was hiding
[50:43] Speaker 1: from her.
[50:43] Speaker 2: Yeah. Which tells you it must have been even more
[50:47] Speaker 2: severe than we even know.
[50:49] Speaker 1: Well, that's the point because on the gender side of
[50:53] Speaker 1: things with domestic violence, like We quite often laugh and
[50:58] Speaker 1: society has now appreciated the tragedy of domestic violence and
[51:02] Speaker 1: the amount of women that are subject to be victims.
[51:05] Speaker 2: Of coercive control.
[51:07] Speaker 1: You must have seen that a lot. Lots of times.
[51:09] Speaker 1: And I think society is waking up to it now.
[51:12] Speaker 2: Yeah.
[51:13] Speaker 1: And we understand that. But something that doesn't get talked
[51:16] Speaker 1: about a lot is where the roles are reversed, where
[51:19] Speaker 1: a woman is the aggressor and the man is the
[51:22] Speaker 1: victim in it. And I think we as society, we
[51:25] Speaker 1: sort of half laugh about it. It's almost like, oh,
[51:28] Speaker 1: fatal attraction, bunny boiler, that type of thing. And in
[51:33] Speaker 1: an environment, if a man said, I'm scared to go
[51:36] Speaker 1: home to the wife, he'd be laughed at. Whereas if
[51:39] Speaker 1: a woman said, I'm scared to go home to my husband,
[51:42] Speaker 1: people would form around and protect her. Especially nowadays.
[51:46] Speaker 2: Yeah.
[51:46] Speaker 1: So I think this is not just a murder story.
[51:49] Speaker 1: It's about domestic violence and what we miss because- If
[51:54] Speaker 1: she was a man and did any one of these
[51:56] Speaker 1: things that we've talked about, there would be ramifications and
[51:58] Speaker 1: the courts would come down hard and there would be judgment.
[52:02] Speaker 1: But here it's almost, and I would imagine the talk
[52:05] Speaker 1: around the pubs in that Hunter Valley environment would have been, oh,
[52:08] Speaker 1: she's a wild one, stay away from her. She'll, but.
[52:12] Speaker 1: It was real. Yeah. And we've seen the end result.
[52:16] Speaker 1: Your thoughts on that when you were writing the book
[52:18] Speaker 1: and researching it, were you thinking what happens if this
[52:22] Speaker 1: was a man terrorizing people?
[52:23] Speaker 2: Absolutely. You know, I worked a number of years ago for–
[52:27] Speaker 2: I was a producer for a panel show. Yeah. And
[52:31] Speaker 2: every sort of six weeks you had to kind of
[52:34] Speaker 2: come up with an idea that you would do for
[52:37] Speaker 2: the panel. And it would be this kind of, you know,
[52:39] Speaker 2: question and answer. It was a topic– And one of
[52:42] Speaker 2: the topics that I pitched was domestic violence against men.
[52:47] Speaker 2: And in the course of producing the show, you have
[52:50] Speaker 2: to obviously get your case studies and talk to a
[52:53] Speaker 2: lot of people. So I spoke to a lot of
[52:55] Speaker 2: men who called in because we put a kind of
[52:59] Speaker 2: call out for people. If you have a story you
[53:02] Speaker 2: want to share. And there were men on the phone
[53:05] Speaker 2: with me who were in tears and saying, Thank God
[53:09] Speaker 2: that somebody is paying attention to this. Thank God somebody
[53:12] Speaker 2: is listening to us because we suffer in silence. Now,
[53:15] Speaker 2: there's no question that women represent the larger percentage. I
[53:19] Speaker 2: don't want to take away from that. That is absolutely
[53:22] Speaker 2: a fact. But according to the ABS, 12% of men
[53:26] Speaker 2: in this country experience domestic violence from a spouse. About 2,500,
[53:34] Speaker 2: a little over that, are hospitalized every year. From domestic
[53:38] Speaker 2: violence injuries.
[53:39] Speaker 1: Yeah.
[53:41] Speaker 2: And a huge percentage, the perpetrator is a woman. Now,
[53:47] Speaker 2: that percentage grows when the perpetrator is a man. So
[53:52] Speaker 2: in other words, men experience a lot of violence from
[53:56] Speaker 2: other men. Yeah. And also from their partners, from women. Yeah,
[54:01] Speaker 2: that percentage is smaller. So as I'm writing the story
[54:05] Speaker 2: and going through the history of her relationships, none of
[54:10] Speaker 2: the abuse or violence was ever taken out on her
[54:13] Speaker 2: children that I could find. There was no indication that
[54:16] Speaker 2: she was abusive towards her children. There were psychotic moments,
[54:19] Speaker 2: like the baby on the train tracks. But from what
[54:22] Speaker 2: I can tell, she was a pretty good mother, you know.
[54:25] Speaker 2: She may have been volatile and maybe not always there mentally.
[54:29] Speaker 2: It was always at the partners. Yeah. So that's when
[54:32] Speaker 2: I started to think this is really a serial abuser
[54:37] Speaker 2: because when I found her story, I was looking for
[54:39] Speaker 2: cases of serial killers. I hate to say, you know,
[54:43] Speaker 2: such a morbid fascination, but that's what she came up
[54:46] Speaker 2: in the list. Yeah. And I realized, well, she's not
[54:49] Speaker 2: a serial killer.
[54:50] Speaker 1: But she's a serial offender.
[54:52] Speaker 2: She's a serial offender. Yeah. And all of her victims
[54:55] Speaker 2: were men. Yeah. So what do you make of that?
[55:00] Speaker 1: Yeah, that's the thing that we do need to talk
[55:04] Speaker 1: about it. And yeah, I think there's an embarrassment and
[55:07] Speaker 1: shame that comes from men being victims of domestic violence
[55:11] Speaker 1: where the woman's the perpetrator.
[55:13] Speaker 2: Yeah, they don't want to admit it.
[55:14] Speaker 1: You're not going to put your hand up and you're
[55:16] Speaker 1: not going to get everyone rallying around you. You'll get
[55:18] Speaker 1: snickers and laughs and go, he should be able to
[55:20] Speaker 1: stand up for himself.
[55:22] Speaker 2: I also think men don't even recognize the signs the
[55:24] Speaker 2: way women do.
[55:26] Speaker 1: You have nailed it there because we're pretty simple men.
[55:31] Speaker 1: And we're just– okay.
[55:32] Speaker 2: That's what I love about men, frankly.
[55:34] Speaker 1: Well, that's right. And we just go along with the flow.
[55:37] Speaker 1: But you don't realize until you step away that you
[55:40] Speaker 1: have been manipulated or coerced or whatever. So, yeah, that's
[55:44] Speaker 1: something that comes out. And when we're telling this story,
[55:46] Speaker 1: I think it's an important message to come out that
[55:49] Speaker 1: we're seeing a serial offender And it just happens to
[55:52] Speaker 1: be a female who's preying on vulnerable men. That's right.
[55:56] Speaker 1: Because with the men, they all seem fairly simple in
[55:59] Speaker 1: their needs. They were looking for companionship and that and
[56:02] Speaker 1: just go along with the flow. Yeah. So Dave Saunders ended.
[56:08] Speaker 1: Then we've got John Chillingsworth. Chillo. Chillo. Chillo is he.
[56:13] Speaker 2: As he is affectionately known. Yeah.
[56:15] Speaker 1: From Hunter Valley. Mm-hmm. smashed his dentures.
[56:21] Speaker 2: Both, both sex.
[56:22] Speaker 1: Tell us that story. And again, that's what I've tagged
[56:25] Speaker 1: in the book because I think, Jesus, that's spiteful. What
[56:29] Speaker 1: precipitated that and what did she actually do?
[56:31] Speaker 2: Well, Chilo, unlike her other partners, he was a bit
[56:35] Speaker 2: more willing to fight back.
[56:37] Speaker 1: Right, yeah.
[56:38] Speaker 2: So there's indications that he probably, you know, So.
[56:44] Speaker 1: It was a toxic relationship and the physicality went both ways.
[56:48] Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, that's right. And he also didn't shy away
[56:52] Speaker 2: from kind of parenting her children in a way that
[56:56] Speaker 2: she felt was inappropriate, you know. So it's like, you're
[57:00] Speaker 2: not their father. You have no right to speak to
[57:02] Speaker 2: my children that way. And apparently he did because he wasn't–
[57:06] Speaker 2: it's interesting because he had this real strong relationship with
[57:12] Speaker 2: his mother. Yeah. And he had kind of this old
[57:14] Speaker 2: school sort of thing with respect for your elders, respect
[57:19] Speaker 2: for your parents. And when he saw Catherine's children not
[57:24] Speaker 2: doing the same, it sort of disgusted him, you know.
[57:27] Speaker 2: And so he spoke out about it. And Catherine didn't
[57:30] Speaker 2: like that, you know. So in retaliation for him treating
[57:35] Speaker 2: his children in a way that she didn't like– She
[57:40] Speaker 2: got him back and smashed his dentures.
[57:43] Speaker 1: So just so I picture this, we've got he's upset
[57:47] Speaker 1: her for the way he's disciplined her children.
[57:50] Speaker 2: Disciplined her children, yeah.
[57:52] Speaker 1: They've gone to bed. He's put his dentures or whatever
[57:55] Speaker 1: in a glass beside the bed. Yeah. And he's woken
[57:57] Speaker 1: up and he's found these dentures smashed all over the floor.
[58:01] Speaker 2: Smashed up, yeah. So then he goes home, back to
[58:03] Speaker 2: his home because he had a place in Scone, I
[58:05] Speaker 2: think it was. He goes home. He had a spare.
[58:09] Speaker 1: Yeah.
[58:09] Speaker 2: And he comes back with the spare and he finds
[58:13] Speaker 2: the next day that she smashed those up as well. Vindictive,
[58:18] Speaker 2: you know, very, very vindictive. So, yeah, that was one
[58:21] Speaker 2: of the things that she, you know, showed him who's boss.
[58:25] Speaker 1: But just so volatile. And she must have been good
[58:30] Speaker 1: in the manipulation. I know she had the honeypot of
[58:33] Speaker 1: the sexual prowesses that she had. offer up to the men.
[58:37] Speaker 1: But there were so many things that were, you know,
[58:40] Speaker 1: warning signs. But, you know, we, and maybe this is
[58:44] Speaker 1: my attitude when, you know, we talk about the gender.
[58:47] Speaker 1: We give understanding and sympathy to women that can't leave
[58:52] Speaker 1: abusive men for a whole range of reasons and understand that,
[58:57] Speaker 1: you know, it's not because they're weak, it's just because
[58:58] Speaker 1: of the circumstances. What I see in this is a
[59:01] Speaker 1: pattern the same way. Like, you know, stuff that, it
[59:05] Speaker 1: You hit me over the head with a frying pan,
[59:07] Speaker 1: I'm out of here. You do this, I'm out of here.
[59:09] Speaker 1: You smash my dentures, I'm out of here. But they
[59:12] Speaker 1: keep coming back.
[59:13] Speaker 2: Yeah, they keep coming back. I can only say it's
[59:16] Speaker 2: because they didn't recognise that they were being abused. They
[59:21] Speaker 2: were like the frog in the boiling pot.
[59:23] Speaker 1: Yeah, that's a good way of describing it.
[59:25] Speaker 2: Yeah, and I also think The sex is probably also
[59:29] Speaker 2: was a big draw for them. They had fun with her.
[59:33] Speaker 1: And that's the way she seemed to appease them after
[59:37] Speaker 1: the violence or whatever actions she's caused them harm. It's, well,
[59:42] Speaker 1: I can get them back. We'll have some good sex
[59:45] Speaker 1: and they'll forget all about it.
[59:47] Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah. Memory scrubbed clean.
[59:50] Speaker 1: As I said, men are simple people.
[59:52] Speaker 2: I know, I know.
[59:54] Speaker 1: Look, we might take a break here.
[59:57] Speaker 2: Okay.
[59:58] Speaker 1: I think we need a break from Catherine.
[1:00:01] Speaker 2: Fair enough, yeah.
[1:00:03] Speaker 1: It's heavy discussions. When we get back, we'll talk about
[1:00:06] Speaker 1: the build-up in the next relationship was with John Price
[1:00:11] Speaker 1: and the build-up there, the warning signs and the sheer
[1:00:15] Speaker 1: horror and terror of the crime that she committed. Yeah,
[1:00:19] Speaker 1: I'll give a content warning. We'll unpack that. Unpack that
[1:00:22] Speaker 1: and try to– Try to understand it. It's interesting, the
[1:00:26] Speaker 1: judge made comments about her mental health and the type
[1:00:30] Speaker 1: of personality disorder that she had, but kept coming back
[1:00:34] Speaker 1: to the fact that she was in control and was
[1:00:36] Speaker 1: getting enjoyment from what she did.
[1:00:38] Speaker 2: Yeah, and I'd love to hear your insights too on
[1:00:42] Speaker 2: the psychology of a lot of this because you would
[1:00:44] Speaker 2: have seen so much in your 30 years as a detective.
[1:00:49] Speaker 2: So that kind of stuff always fascinates me.
[1:00:53] Speaker 1: I find the interesting side of the crime, trying to
[1:00:55] Speaker 1: understand why people have committed these type of offences. With her,
[1:01:01] Speaker 1: I could imagine the murder investigation, if it wasn't so
[1:01:06] Speaker 1: obvious who committed the murder, if you looked at her
[1:01:09] Speaker 1: as a suspect, all these things that we've talked about now,
[1:01:13] Speaker 1: it's not evidence that she's committed the murder, but it
[1:01:15] Speaker 1: certainly would be an indicator that we're looking at the
[1:01:18] Speaker 1: person that's capable of committing a murder that way when
[1:01:20] Speaker 1: you look at her past behaviour. But, yeah, we'll delve
[1:01:23] Speaker 1: into that more in part two.
[1:01:25] Speaker 2: OK, yes, I really want to know.
[1:01:27] Speaker 1: We'll just have a bit of a break.
[1:01:28] Speaker 2: OK.
[1:01:28] Speaker 1: OK, cheers. Sounds good. MUSIC PLAYS

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