Blood Stain

by Peter Lalor

  —Do you know where he went to?

  —And then the police came… I presume I told them that he attacked me … He told, told them that I had a knife, went to the kitchen and got a knife. And I never, ‘cause the three children could verify that. I told the police to go out and check the drawers themselves and they couldn’t see the knife, so I went out to look and it was in the kitchen sink. I asked the policeman to take the knife away ‘cause it didn’t have my fingerprints on it whatsoever. I didn’t know whose fingerprints were on it at the time. And then my [youngest] daughter … said that [the young son] cut the tomato and onion up with the knife for tea that night. So, if they would have took it away it would have his fingerprints on it.

  It was a yellow-handled boning knife that belonged to Price, according to Knight, who admitted she had a knife that she ‘only cut up hot meat with’. She couldn’t remember where the children had been. ‘The pain in me breast was just too agonising to see or think of any think.’

  Pricey had broken her necklace. She went off over that. Something was going on with that necklace. Rosemary Biddle remembers at her son’s fifth birthday the week before that the little boy was playing on Nana Kath’s knee. He liked to open the locket she wore and look at the picture of Kath and Pricey in it. Kath told him not to bother trying to open it. ‘There’s nothing in there.’

  Kath’s youngest daughter was interviewed about what happened on the Sunday. She’d been staying with her dad and his new wife in Scone and had returned on the Sunday about 5.30 pm and had just put her bag down when things started to get violent. ‘Pricey and Mum were having a fight. And Pricey went over to Mum and tried to strangle her and nearly ripped off her breast.’ She hadn’t seen the struggle, but had been in the bedroom with the other two when ‘Mum screamed and Mum told us and she showed us the bruise and the red mark’. The girls said it had been a long time since their last fight and she had kept out of the way.

  —They were just starting to fight, and then I went into the kitchen to get a drink and then I went into my bedroom … Mum and Pricey [were] sitting on the lounge. Mum was laying on the big lounge and Pricey was just sitting on the rocky lounge. Then Pricey was drinking beer. Mum was watching her show…

  —How did Pricey bruise your mum’s breast?

  —Grabbed it and started pulling it.

  —Why did he grab and start pulling your mum’s breast?

  —’Cause Pricey was trying to get at her throat…

  —How do you know he was trying to get at your mum’s throat?

  —Oh, because Pricey said he was sorry and he didn’t mean to get her breast, he meant to get her throat.

  Later on, the girl said that Pricey too had lost a necklace in the unseemly struggle.

  —Did you ever see any marks on Pricey from any cuts with a knife?

  —No. Except for the scratch that Mum did when she pulled off Pricey’s necklace because she was trying to defend herself from Pricey … a crocodile tooth that Mum gave him for a present when we were up in Queensland with my sister.

  Kath would maintain that she was about to leave Price, but her daughter recalled her saying something quite different on the day.

  —Did your mum ever tell Pricey that she was not going to leave?

  —Yes.

  —What did she tell Pricey?

  —That she was not going to leave.

  —When did she tell Pricey that she was not going to leave?

  —When Pricey went across the road [to Keegan’s house].

  Katherine and some of the family made statements to the police that she had made up her mind to leave him. There was a lot of disinformation peddled in the ensuing months by her support group. Whatever the truth, the fight happened and the police came.

  Michael Steele, a senior constable with Scone Police, found Price at Keegan’s that night with a scratch on his cheek that had been bleeding a little and a stubbie of beer in his hand. He was ‘slightly affected by alcohol’, to use the police language. Pricey told him he’d grabbed her by the throat and wanted to punch her after an argument. Steele and Constable Amanda Doyle went over to the house and found Katherine Knight smoking a cigarette on the lounge chair.

  Steele asked her what happened.

  —He grabbed me by the shirt and pushed me down and grabbed me by the throat, but there’s no problem. He’s let off his anger and he’ll be right now.

  —John said that he grabbed you by the throat and that he let you go and you went into the kitchen and grabbed a knife. You then came out of the kitchen and threatened him with the knife.

  —No, I never grabbed any knife. You can ask the kids, they were here.

  The daughter backed up her story and Kath showed the female police officer her bruise. Doyle thought it looked like a love bite. Steele spoke with Price again before returning.

  —John said that you grabbed a knife out of his work bag.

  —No, I didn’t. You can have a look if you like.

  Doyle found the yellow handled knife in the sink. She said it was his and she never touched it. Doyle asked her if she wanted to press charges against Price.

  —No, I don’t have a problem with him. Now that he’s got his anger out he’ll just come home and go to sleep.

  —Well, for the kids’ sakes you might like to go back to your house for the night.

  —No way. This is my house as much as his. I told you I don’t have any problem. I never called the police.

  She said she wouldn’t give a statement or take any action unless he did. Doyle again said she should leave for the night, told her to think of the kids.

  —No way. I’m not leaving, The kids are settled. They have their own bedroom. I’ll put them to bed and he’ll come home and go to sleep. There won’t be any problems, I can tell you.

  Steele told her the courts would be left to sort this one out. They then went back to Price and told him if he wanted her out, he should go and get a court order. The only way she was leaving was if they dragged her out and they weren’t going to do that. Pricey was stuck with her and her pig-headed conviction that it was her house as much as his. Hers by right.

  The next morning Steele went to the Scone Courthouse and saw clerk Glenn Dunning, the man Pricey would visit on his last day. He handed over two AVO complaints and summonses that he had prepared. The summonses were issued for a court date on 22 March 2000. Later that day he gave them to Senior Constable Simon Gallen, but says he then realised he couldn’t deliver cross summonses. Price had admitted grabbing her by the throat and as it was usually the woman who needed protection, Steele said Gallen could serve the order on Price and forget Katherine’s.

  It was to prove a fatal move. Not because an order would have saved John Price, but because Katherine was left wondering what was going on with the order against her and started to get paranoid.

  Gallen went to St Andrews Street with Senior Constable Heath Boswell at 9 pm. Kath answered the door and they asked for Pricey. She got him out of bed. John was told they had an AVO summons for him. He wasn’t surprised, but asked if he could speak to the officers in private. They were reluctant—it wasn’t their business—but they agreed to follow him to the bedroom. Kath asked if she could come and listen. He said no. Pricey told the cops he wanted her out. They told him he’d have to go to the Clerk of Courts the next day.

  When they came back to the kitchen Kath was keen to know what was going on. Had he been telling them about the knife? She seemed agitated that they’d issued an order when she hadn’t wanted to take any action. The police weren’t that interested in explaining the ins and outs of it and wrote down Steele’s number on the AVO and left. The document says that Steele believed ‘that the protected person (Katherine Knight) is in need of protection and fears the commission of a personal violence offence or conduct amounting to harassment or molestation by the defendant’.

  It gives a brief ‘general history of violence and harassment’:

  The de facto couple have been in a relation
ship for around the last 6 years. In 1997 police were called to the defendant’s home for a report of a verbal argument. The couple still own their respective separate homes and the victim with her 2 children have been sleeping at the defendant’s home for about the last 6 months. According to the pinop [person in need of protection] the defendant has not previously engaged in acts of violence but has lost his temper, usually after drinking. The pinop however stated she did not have a problem with his behaviour. On the day in question, Sunday February 37, 200 [sic] the pinop and the defendant were sitting in the lounge room watching television. Both parties then began to argue and the defendant grabbed hold of the pinop and scuffled on the lounge. According to the defendant the pinop then went to the kitchen and grabbed a boning knife and returned to the lounge room and threatened the defendant. The defendant has then left the home and attended a neighbour’s home and telephoned the police. When spoken to the defendant had a scratch to the left side of face which had been bleeding. When speaking to the pinop she showed a female officer her right breast that the defendant had allegedly grabbed during the scuffle, however the bruise appeared to be that of a ‘love bite’ rather than a fresh bruise and there was no redness to the area. Both stories of the pinop and the defendant differ in relation to the knife. It was obvious that the defendant had been drinking when spoken to.

  It was suggested to the pinop she take her children and return to her home. The pinop refused and stated she did not have a problem with the defendant. Both parties were reluctant to initiate proceedings against the other so police have initiated this A.V.O. Application as a means of controlling the behaviour of the defendant toward the pinop.

  It was a mass of senseless type to both Knight and Price.

  Gallen made a note on the Affidavit of Service of Summons of Price’s reaction: ‘I just want her out of here but she won’t go’, and swore it before a Justice of the Peace the following day—John Price’s last day on Earth.

  Poor Pricey. She was chasing him around with a knife and she was refusing to leave his house and then they served him a summons. It just wasn’t right. But Kath was toey too. She figured he’d worked something out with the cops and that they were about to serve her with a summons asking her to leave his house. She was waiting for them to knock on the door and throw her out of the house that was half hers. She had a right to it. She wouldn’t let him get away with it.

  Pricey didn’t know it, but she’d taken some old pieces of his clothes and fashioned them into a little suit for a doll. She’d taken his semen too and smeared it on the doll. Witchcraft might work. It was her voodoo doll. But the situation had become more serious. She got a relative to sharpen her knives.

  Katherine was in a comer and she only knew one way to respond. This was the end game.

  16

  The murder

  29 February 2000

  Kath knew the end was near. She believed she would get a court order and it played on her mind. He was kicking her out. He’d used her up and was throwing her out of the house. She’d said numerous times she’d kill him and tonight she was going to do it. This morning she’d stood at the end of his bed, hands behind her back, knowing it would scare the living bejesus out of the bastard. God, he jumped when he saw her there. Petrified. And, in that moment she came to understand that she had so much power over him, she could snuff him out just like that and it was a magnificent feeling to have that power. But there were a few things a girl had to do first.

  He scampered off. His nerves shot. No doubt swearing he was going to get rid of her, whatever it took. She headed out for her morning walk with the family. On Monday she showed her twin Joy the bruises as they walked out to the colliery. She told their sister-in-law Val about the fight too. Joy said she should leave him. Kath said she’d do it when she was ready. Her sister knew about the fight the day before because her daughter had been there playing with Kath’s daughter.

  Kath was ready to head off on Tuesday as usual for the walk but found Joy and Val had been up all night at the hospital for the birth of Val’s grandchild. Joy and Val were tight like that. In fact five months later Barry, Joy and Kath’s half-brother, would discover the two women kissing in his house. His wife then left him for his half-sister. But that’s another story.

  That morning nobody was up for a walk, so Kath went back to St Andrews Street and took the kids back to her home and got them off to school, stopping at McDonald’s in Muswellbrook to get the boy’s breakfast and grabbing a bacon and egg McMuffin for Natasha before popping around to see her. The granddaughter was achingly cute that morning, but Kath had to go. She made a mental note not to forget the video and take some film of the child.

  She headed up to Scone to see her solicitor, Mr Noonan. Surely, she couldn’t just be thrown out of his house? She could. She talked about the bruises. She couldn’t just let him get away with this. She was getting worked up and had to keep moving. There were goodbyes to be said, but not in so many words.

  Glenda Reichel was just leaving her flat in Scone at around 10.30 in the morning. She remembers the time because the soap ‘Sons and Daughters’ was on the television before she left. As she pulled out of the driveway she noticed a red van pulling up. It was Kath in a pair of blue denim shorts and a small, sleeveless blue blouse. Glenda put the car back and went inside with her. She noticed that Kath wasn’t herself. She didn’t want a cuppa.

  Glenda pulled out a ciggy and Kath showed her a small tear around the button of her blouse. ‘Look at that. That’s where he grabbed me.’ She showed her the small bruise on her breast. ‘This is what Pricey did to me.’ Kath said she had been to a solicitor. ‘He told me I may as well pack my gear and go from Pricey’s. The bastard has done this to me. I’ve got nothing.’

  They talked for about an hour, Kath going on about how Dave Saunders and John Price had been so cruel to her. Glenda was used to this stuff and switched off a bit, but noticed that Kath was unusually sombre and then she had to go. On the way out she said, ‘I love you, Gurt.’

  That was strange. Gurt didn’t love Kath. It seemed so inappropriate.

  Kath got back in the red van and headed to the police station, where she told the story all over again, how he’d attacked her and the police woman thought the bruise was a love bite. They fobbed her off, told her to see her doctor. She made an appointment with Dr Cook for 5 pm and kept moving, down the road, past Aberdeen and on to Muswellbrook, where her mate Amanda Pemberton saw her going past towards Kath’s niece’s place in Wollombi Road, two doors up from hers. Later, Pemberton headed out to Woolworths with her daughter, where she bumped into her friend. Kath nursed Amanda’s baby and they chatted for about 10 minutes, Kath telling her all about her granddaughter, Natasha’s baby.

  Her brother-in-law, John Hinder, Joy’s husband, was at his Aberdeen home in the early afternoon when Kath showed up to return three videos and wanting to borrow another, but he wouldn’t let her without Joy’s permission. It was one of her good ones. She left and went to pick up the girl from school, coming back an hour later with the girl. Joy was home. She borrowed the video and picked up the video camera that John Price wouldn’t have in his house.

  Kath had some things to get down on tape, moments to preserve. She picked up the boy at her house, where the bus dropped him off. One of the ladies from the shop next-door, where she bought milk and bread every day, walked past her in the street and noted that Kath was in one of her moods. ‘She just looked through me and I thought, “What’s up your nose today?”‘ She dropped the two children off at Natasha’s house, then she was back on the road, heading up to Muswellbrook to see Dr Cook about the bruises. The consultation was brief. The doctor got the impression she just wanted the injury documented. And she was back in the car again and off home where she picked up some money before heading to Natasha’s for the third time that day.

  Kath set up the video on Natasha’s television set and plonked herself in an armchair mid-frame, a naked grandchild on her lap, her two younger child
ren coming in and out of the shot. The matriarch on her throne, weighed down by heavy responsibilities she cannot share. The child opens her shirt and plays with her breasts. She leaves it open. Nana’s titty bops. She sings nursery rhymes in a shrill voice and complains, She’s not going to smile like she did this morning for me. The scene ends and the film starts again in another room with the boy holding the camera. Natasha doesn’t want to be filmed, but Mum is keen. Task, be in the picture please...for your mother’s sake … because I want all of us on it. The three women hug and she kisses them time and again. Mummy loves ya. The boy comes in too close. Git back, will ya. Tash says that the baby has taken its first steps off screen. Ya fuckin’ missed out the first steps on video! The moment passes and she goes back to kissing. It seems so strained and unusual. She’s not a mum given to shows of affection.

  Then the video camera is back on the television set again and the kids are playing around. She wants a shot with the youngest daughter. She tells her she loves her and asks her to say it back. The girl is affectionate with her mother and they have a prolonged kiss. I love you very very very much, my darling daughter… I love you [sic] in the whole wide world. Don’t forget that old cane pram that my mum owned. I own, you own. They kiss again and the girl leaves the room.

  Katherine looks at the camera. Alone for a moment with her situation. She speaks an aside to the future. I love all my children. Music playing nearby makes the next bit almost inaudible. It sounds like ‘and my granddaughter.’ She feels a terrible sadness and sighs deeply. Then Katherine can be clearly heard to say and I hope to see them all

  The moment is cut short when the others re-enter and she is back in full voice. Pick up all these cups! Off-camera the young daughter bumps Natasha’s breast. Kath looks up from the chair. Did she hurt your breast like Pricey hurt mine? The granddaughter plays on a small rocking horse and Katherine is back in the material world. Look at this. Nan only paid $10 and look how good it is… Are we gonna go out and enjoy ourselves now and have some tea? She’s picked up a sewing machine for Natasha at the welfare shop in Muswellbrook, where she also bought a sexy black nightie. For the big night.