by Peter Lalor
After a brief honeymoon period—two months at best—life started getting pretty uncomfortable for Saunders. Kath was paranoid, she couldn’t be out with him all the time and when he wasn’t there on time she would start to go crazy. Uncontrollably angry. Minor separations like this were another form of abandonment and every minute was distressing. She started accusing him of sleeping with other women. Yelled and screamed. In his roamings there were plenty of women friends, but Kath’s real problem was with a woman called Glenda ‘Gert’ Reichel, another local girl who had had a relationship with Dave and cared for him a lot.
A month after Barbara’s death Saunders took off. All the abuse and accusation had got too much for him and he decided to find a bit of peace. He shifted back to Scone to his old place in Liverpool Street in January. But Kath had other ideas. He wasn’t getting off that easily.
The very day he moved out she went looking for him. She had worked herself up into a state. Her anger was volcanic. He’d been out having a couple of beers with Jon Collison—the same man who would drive out to find Pricey fourteen years later—in Guernsey Street, and decided to leave his car there and walk back to Liverpool Street. Kath drove up and he wasn’t home. She saw his car and decided to take it out on that. Saundo loved his cars. When he got home later, Kath arrived at the door. She seemed pretty calm and wanted to talk about the relationship, wanted him to come back to Aberdeen. So he jumped in her car and headed back there. On the way he clicked that something had happened to his car and demanded she drive him back to it. Sure enough, he found the windscreen wipers, the aerial and the inside damaged. He was furious. They headed back again to Segenhoe Street and things got really heated, but she wasn’t taking a backward step. She accused him of sleeping with Glenda. And then some.
—You’re fucking that bitch. You’re fucking her and you’ve got me pregnant!
It was a bombshell and then the volcano really erupted. She was at him, calling him all the names under the sun, pushing him, screaming and abusing him. His head was spinning. She was out of control. It was the first time things had got physical and Saunders says he pushed her away to protect himself as she started to throw big heavy punches at his head. Kath got more incensed and was yelling loud enough for the whole valley to hear.
—You kicked me in the stomach! You kicked me!
She was hysterical, absolutely out of control, and next thing they were in the kitchen. She ran to the drawer and grabbed one of the knives. Saunders was sure she was going to stab him, but instead she ran out the back door. He didn’t follow her out immediately, but when he did she was holding his dingo pup in her arms. Something seemed odd and then he realised there was blood everywhere: on her, the dog and the knife. He looked more closely and could see a gaping wound across the dog’s throat. It was already dead. There was blood everywhere. She had calmed down, but was even more frightening because now she seemed to be in control.
Saunders was terrified and ran for his life, taking refuge at a mate’s home. Somebody rang the police. When they arrived at 104 Segenhoe Street nobody was there. Kath had done a runner too. Saunders wandered back from the neighbours and the police asked him where his girlfriend was. He didn’t know. They looked inside and the place was like an abattoir. There was blood all over the kitchen floor. Where had the blood come from? He showed them the dead dingo. They seemed reluctant to believe him but eventually moved on.
According to her daughter Melissa, her mother showed up at her sister Joy’s house after she had cut the dingo’s throat. She was carrying a shotgun in her hand, saying she had killed Dave. On going back to the house they found blood everywhere and no sign of Saunders. Just the dead dog.
Saunders drove back to Scone around midnight and noticed Ken’s Chewy Luv parked at the Scone hospital. He didn’t know what it was about, but was shitting himself that she had spun some line and the cops might come back to arrest him. Sure enough, Kath was inside the hospital reporting that she had been attacked. She said her boyfriend had kicked her in the stomach and punched her and that she was pregnant. Apart from a slightly swollen lip and a small bump on the back of her head she had no other physical manifestations of the attack. The only kick in the guts Katherine had taken was when David left. She complained of general body soreness and was given an aspirin and told to come back and see the doctor in the morning. Unsatisfied, she went around to another doctor a few hours later. This time she had lacerations on her lip and forehead and a bruise on the arm. She said her thigh and hip were sore and she felt giddy.
Kath had probably left the hospital and hurt herself before seeing the next doctor. There was no limit to what she was willing to do to square up with Saunders for leaving her. In her mind it was totally justified. It turned out she wasn’t pregnant either.
Showing the same sympathy he would to a confused pup, Saunders went back to her. He was a man of infinite sympathy and somehow he found a way to love her. Being pissed a lot helped too, but she was back on her best behaviour and when she was well behaved she was a wonderful person, caring and full of loving energy. However, the incident set a pattern for the rest of their relationship.
Meeting Saunders had proven to be good for Kath’s finances. She stopped work because of her back. He ended up giving her $300 a week for housekeeping and Katherine loved money. Sometimes the money wasn’t enough. Saunders remembers one week she said she’d lost it and he gave her $300 more. Later he was in the roof and found a machine for transferring Super8 movie to video that cost about $300. She was greedy and pawing like that. She loved easy money and he was a good source of it. All the miners were.
Things with Katherine were never smooth for long and soon it was on again. Glenda Reichel remembers her storming into the Belmore Hotel one afternoon searching for Saunders, who was talking to her. You could hear the ground shake as Kath bowled into the pub and confronted the pair. Galling him all the names under the sun. It was one of life’s shitty little coincidences according to Glenda and Dave, but Kath wasn’t wearing that bullshit.
—You want her or me? If it’s me, you follow me out of this fucking pub right now.
Glenda watched as poor old Dave whispered an apology, shrugged his shoulders and followed.
Like a mongrel dog.
The effect of Barbara’s death on Katherine was demonstrated further a few months after she killed the dingo. Saunders and Kath were returning from Wingen when they stopped at Scone to pick up Wayne Partridge, better known as Shakey. Driving back to Aberdeen, Kath got herself into a state again, although nobody can remember why. She had been agitated all day. Distracted. The boys had been drinking a fair bit and everyone was a bit cranky. Just another pissy day with a moody girlfriend. There were roadworks near what the locals call Water Tower Hill, and it was around here she got so worked up that she opened the door and tried to jump out while they were driving. Shakey grabbed her and managed to keep her inside until Dave stopped the car. She eventually calmed down and they drove slowly on to Aberdeen, dropping Shakey off at the caravan park before heading home.
When they got to Segenhoe Street, Kath went into the house while Dave stayed outside talking to the neighbour Kelvin Dunn. Then Natasha ran out crying.
—Help, Mummy’s on the floor! Mummy’s fallen down!
Saunders found her on the floor with an empty bottle beside her and pills scattered around the floor. Dave was pissed and panicked. He got Kelvin to drive up to Scone Hospital while he tried to keep her awake. They stumbled into the emergency department and on cue Kath collapsed unconscious. The doctors wanted to know what sort of pills she’d taken and Saunders got in the car and drove full pelt all the way back to Aberdeen. He can’t remember now what had happened to Kelvin. He was in no condition to drive. He rang the name of the pills through and then they asked how many she had taken. With a bit of guidance he did the sums and they got a fair idea. She was pretty crook though and was admitted to hospital with suspected inhalation pneumonia. It was 10 May 1987, Mother’s Day, and the first Kath had spent withou
t Barbara. The date seemed significant. As the years passed, family members became wary around Kath near the anniversary of her mother’s death. She would get stressed, depressed and moody.
That year the family rallied and began to visit the troubled twin. She told her dad Ken she wanted to go home and finish it all. She didn’t want the kids, she just wanted to be with her mum. It was Melissa’s birthday but Kath still thought it was Mother’s Day. A girl at school told Melissa her mother didn’t love her; that was why she tried to commit suicide and was in hospital for her birthday.
Kath was counselled by Reverend Ian Johnson from the Aberdeen Presbyterian church and his assistant counsellor Neville Knight, Kath’s half-brother. Neville visited Saunders while his sister was in hospital. He said that she was blaming his drinking for all the violence and that he had better lay off her. Sanders told Neville he had never hit his sister and she was the one who was violent. The brother seemed to accept this and asked if he would go and visit her in hospital. Saunders said he would and in an act of faith agreed to give up the grog.
There was a miraculous change in Kath after Dave dropped in. She reverted from suicidal to ecstatic and she was released from hospital soon after, but the doctors were wary of her instability and made sure she had no drugs at home, briefing Saunders on the dangers and even contacting the local pharmacy to make sure she didn’t get her hands on any. Katherine’s moods could always turn on a pin.
She was referred to a psychiatrist and remained unstable on release from the hospital. Later she asked Saunders to take her to a psychiatric hospital near Wollongong where, he recalls, she stayed for two weeks before he brought her back to Aberdeen.
They stayed together. How could he abandon her when she was such a pathetic mess? After six months he decided to drink again. He had stayed sober all that time and nothing had improved. She would still launch into him at will, having what he called her little fits. He concluded his drinking didn’t affect her moods but it certainly helped him put up with them.
Later that year she was back at her local doctor’s complaining of back pain. Dave can recall that she was trying to bluff compensation out of the meatworks and would lift wardrobes, hoping to exacerbate the injury before seeing a doctor. After 1986 she never worked again. It was a big change in her life, she’d been wielding her knives on and off for nearly fifteen years and now the days were a little more empty. Katherine was always keen to move, to do something. She didn’t like being still much.
After she got out of the psychiatric hospital, Kath finally got pregnant to Dave. She had difficulties with morning sickness early in the term and was admitted to hospital at least three times in November, although by her last visit the doctors suggested that the extent of her illness was exaggerated and suspected depression was the real cause.
Dave and Kath’s daughter was born in June 1988. She had her mum’s colouring and she was given Barbara as a middle name as a mark of respect to the Nan she never knew. Now there were four girls.
Around this time, Saunders borrowed money and bought a dilapidated old weatherboard shop at 50 MacQueen Street on the main road at the north end of Aberdeen. He began doing it up and it became his refuge during their arguments. He needed it; life became absolutely miserable after the birth of the baby as Kath couldn’t stand its crying, but when the child was six months old they all moved in there. The place was single-fronted, adjoined by an identical building and shared a lane with a shop on the Muswellbrook side. There were only a few windows and a low wooden awning over the footpath, so it was pretty dark. It was a great spot for Saunders as it was only a short swerve across the highway to the pub, but as a house it left a lot to be desired. It looked like it hadn’t been painted for years. When the trucks went by on the highway the whole place shook and dirt would fall down from the wooden ceiling. Later Kath developed a cough and asthma and thought the dust might have been the cause. The subterranean rumble caused by heavy vehicles was profound and it appeared the place was built on some sort of hollow. One day when Dave was digging in the back the crow bar broke through a crust and just sank. Only the really big trucks shook the house, but they gave it a big shake.
The new place must have brought back memories for Ken too. There is a small park opposite where the Knight family home once stood. Ken and his brothers were raised here, next to the old open-air picture show. In this part of the world you move a lot but never get very far from the family ghosts and Kath was comfortable at home with the ghosts. She began to hang old bits of farm machinery, cross saws, scythes and old mowers from the exposed beams. She nailed tin plates on the walls and started to decorate them with skins, skulls, horns and stuffed animals. She loved prints of Indian chiefs and American eagles. Feathers arranged to catch dreams. Mail order mysticism. And she began to arrange pictures of relatives, alive and dead, creating a casual shrine. Later she described it as her ‘dream home’, but it is a long way from most people’s suburban dream. Crowded, dark, dusty and noisy, but over the years Kath found some spiritual comfort surrounded by these inanimate objects.
It was around this time that her back injury paid a dividend. Just like Dad and her brothers, she got a compensation payout for her work-related injuries. She used the money from this and the sale of the Landsborough property to pay off the house and in Saunders’ mind this seemed to coincide with another bad turn in their relationship. Kath was going to the doctor’s a lot because of her back and ‘nerves’. Saunders was awake to what he calls her ‘fits’. She could swing from love to hate in an instant. He remembers sitting in the back seat while she, Ken and he drove back from playing cards at the workers club in Muswellbrook. The next thing he knew the car was stopped and she told him to get out and walk. He never knew why. Just as he could never tell when it was coming. Fits. Psycho ways. The family streak.
Saunders says that you couldn’t leave Kath if she didn’t want you to. He tried many times and she stalked him. Showing up wherever he was, like the times she came to Scone to get him. If he was at a mate’s place she’d arrive. He’d go to the pub, she’d be there. Waiting for a weak moment. He had plenty of those. He’d never met anybody as wild in bed as her and somehow he kept falling for it.
In 1989 she did some unpaid work at the bowling club as part of an employment project, but her back became sore after standing for a short period so she never went back. Around this time they have a big breakup and he left for ten weeks before she wooed him back again. Life was a protracted nightmare by this stage, littered with arguments, police, doctors and AVOs for Dave—whenever there was an explosion she would ring the police and accuse him of beating her.
If he thought that the early incidents were an aberration he was to be proven painfully wrong. Saunders found himself trapped in a violent relationship, unable to escape. He says that while he was the one accused of the brutality, the truth was he was the victim. There are a number of witnesses to their increasing number of fights who confirm this. Kath’s cousin, Brian Conlon, would often drink with Dave and he remembers a Saturday when they went fishing at Glenbawn Dam with Melissa, Natasha and Charlie’s daughter, Tracy. It wasn’t long after their little girl was born.
Dave wanted to give Kath a bit of a break from the kids and let them have a swim. Late in the afternoon they got back to town but before going home Dave got them to wait in the carpark while he saw a mate at the RSL. It had been a long day away from a beer tap. He got distracted inside and despite a number of hurry-ups from an anxious Conlon, didn’t come out for a while. Dave says it was only two beers. In the end it made no difference as they were late for dinner. When they got back to 50 MacQueen Street Kath was ironing and in a state. Her fury has been building and building. That strange mix of panic and vindictiveness. Melissa says the men told her to not say where they’d been. The moment they get inside she told Kath they were waiting outside the pub for Dave for ages. Kath didn’t need excuses and grabbed him by one arm as he entered the front door and had him off balance. She had the iron and b
egan to swing it at his head. He had a six-pack under one arm and she was swinging him around and around. It was farcical. Saunders was yelling for Conlon to grab the beers each time he went past. In the end they went flying and broke. She smashed the hot iron into his head.
Melissa remembers that Mum tipped a pot of peas on his head.
Conlon says his cousin just started screaming at his mate the moment they walked in.
David had a go back at Kathy, shaking her and telling her to wake up to herself as she was well and truly fired up. She was yelling and screaming and definitely out of control.
She had the iron in her hand and hit David in the head. David stumbled a bit and ran out the door to the back yard.
Now the cousin was in the firing line and he was terrified. She seemed superhumanly strong when she got like this.
Kathy turned on me and grabbed me by the arm, I tried to tell her that I had nothing to do with David going to the club. She would not listen at the time as she was wild. She then flung me like a match stick and I hit the ground.
It shows you just how strong she could be, that physical strength that scared men. Conlon picked himself up and ran for his life, finding Dave out the front under the shop awning. Both were too frightened to go back in the house. The cousin spent the night at the Commercial Hotel before high-tailing it back to Sydney. Dave licked his wounds in his car. He was burned and bleeding. A bloody, sorry sight. To this day the blokes in the pub give a little snigger into their beer when the subject of the steam hole burns to his face are raised. The poor bastard really copped it.
One of Saunders’ work mates and friends, Ron Wilton, used to car pool with him at this time and describes Saunders as a decent and gentle bloke. The Monday after the iron incident he came by to pick up his friend at 50 MacQueen Street but saw him further up the road and drove up to get him. Saunders climbed into the car. Wilton took one look at him and was stunned by the mess his mate was in. Saundo looked like he had done twelve rounds with Mike Tyson.
