Katherine Knight - Trial

Trial

Knight's initial offer to plead guilty to manslaughter was rejected and she was arraigned on 2 February 2001 on the charge of murdering Price, to which she entered a plea of not guilty. Her trial was initially fixed for 23 July 2001 but was adjourned due to her counsel's illness and it was re-fixed for 15 October 2001.

When the trial commenced, Justice Barry O'Keefe offered the 60 jury prospects the option of being excused due to the nature of the photographic evidence, which five accepted. When the witness list was read out to the prospects, several more also dropped out after which the jury was empanelled. Knight's attorneys then spoke to the judge who adjourned to the following day; the next morning, Knight changed her plea to guilty, and the jury was dismissed. It was now made public that Justice O'Keefe had been advised of the plea change the day before. He had adjourned the trial and then ordered a psychiatric assessment overnight to determine if Knight understood the consequences of a guilty plea and was fit to make such a plea. Knight's legal team had planned to defend Knight by claiming amnesia and dissociation, a claim supported by most psychiatrists although they did consider her sane.

No reason has ever been given for the guilty plea, and despite giving it, Knight still refused to accept responsibility for her actions. At the sentencing hearing, Knight's lawyers requested that Knight be excused to avoid hearing some of the facts, but the application was refused. When Dr. Timothy Lyons took the stand and described the skinning and decapitation, Knight became hysterical and had to be sedated.

On 8 November, Justice O'Keefe pointed out that the nature of the crime and Knight's lack of remorse required a severe penalty; he sentenced her to life in prison, refused to fix a non-parole period and ordered that her papers be marked "never to be released", the first time that this had been imposed on a woman in Australian history.

In June 2006, Knight appealed the life sentence, claiming that a penalty of life in jail without possibility of parole was too severe for the killing. Justices Peter McClellan, Michael Adams and Megan Latham dismissed the appeal in the NSW Court of Criminal Appeal in September, with Justice McClellan writing in his judgement "This was an appalling crime, almost beyond contemplation in a civilized society."