How mum hid husband's dead body inside home for decades without her five kids knowing

Back in 2015, the tiny, close-knit Welsh village of Beddau was shaken to the core when a well-preserved body was discovered, bound tightly by 14 layers of plastic, in the overgrown garden of a block of flats.

The corpse was that of a male who appeared to be in his mid 40s, though no identification could be formed by investigating officers.

What forensic officers immediately noticed about the victim's body, however, was the remarkable condition it had been kept in, implying whoever killed this mystery man had done so recently, before ditching the gruesome remains.

A body was discovered in the Welsh village of Beddau. (Juliet Eden)

In the weeks that followed, however, an elderly eccentric resident of the apartment block named Leigh Sabine would be deemed the culprit of the gruesome murder, after the man's body was finally identified as her 'late' husband John Sabine.

The only catch? She couldn't possibly be sentenced to the heinous crime, as she had passed away of cancer just three months before the body was discovered.

Such is the subject of a harrowing new documentary series titled The Body Next Door, which answers the vital questions that officers and residents of the village are still haunted by to this day.

According to those who discovered the body - two women who lived within the apartment block - Leigh had tipped them off that the packaging contained a medical skeleton, and they had hoped to pull a prank with the doctor's device.

Officers' hopes of interviewing Ms Sabine over the women's claims were quickly dashed, however, when it was discovered that she'd recently died.

Leigh Sabine was immediately linked to the crime, but why? (Juliet Eden)

On top of this, friends and neighbours were quick to shut down speculation that Leigh had anything to do with Beddau's first murder in 20 years.

It wasn't until police delved deeper into the life of Ms Sabine that they discovered that each one of her acquaintances had conflicting stories about her life.

Prior to her death, she'd told one friend she was a cabaret singer, another that her husband John had died some years prior, and a third that she had five children - though no one ever saw or heard from them.

Her accent implied some connection to a distant land, yet no one could say definitively where she'd come from. Records stated that she and John had moved to the village in 1997.

Some friends of Leigh had kept documents she'd handed to them prior to her death, which were later obtained by police.

She'd also handed out miscellaneous objects from her home - including a hoover, an ornamental frog, and elaborate jewellery.

A death certificate for John Sabine was found in Leigh's possession. (Juliet Eden)

A death certificate for her husband was also found in the documentation, which revealed that he'd died of an illness years prior, eradicating officers' initial theory that the then-unidentified man was John Sabine.

Furious letters addressed to five individuals living in New Zealand who shared the surname 'Sabine' were found unsent.

Upon further investigation, officers were able to trace Leigh to a case of child abandonment in NZ.

In their 30s, she and John had left their five children at a care home in a bid to launch a music career, and had travelled to the UK, in a story that hit headlines across New Zealand.

The couple eventually returned to collect their then-adult children, but the family was already broken by their abandonment, with one tragically going on to take their own life.

Only on a handful of occasions did a couple of members of the fivesome visit their parents in the UK.

Leigh and John Sabine abandoned their five children in New Zealand. (Juliet Eden)

Eventually, contact stopped once again, with the children claiming that though their father clearly regretted having left them behind, they'd last spoken to their parents in the mid 90s.

At this point in the investigation, forensics officers discovered that the pyjamas the deceased man had been wearing when he died were discontinued by M&S in 1999.

A Tesco bag also discovered in the body's bindings was also dated to the late 90s, implying the murder wasn't as fresh as they'd initially believed.

Suspicious that the body still belonged to John Sabine, officers once again reassessed the death certificate found in Leigh's belongings, and found that the date of this man's apparent passing conflicted with John's official birth date.

A positive DNA match with a British man later discovered to be John's son from a previous relationship positively identified the body as that of John Sabine.

Now, all officers needed to do was to link Leigh to the murder.

Leigh Sabine hid John's body in her home for 18 years. (Juliet Eden)

Following a final appeal to the public, a former friend of the couple - who also hadn't seen John since the late 90s - came forward claiming that Leigh had made a bizarre phone call to her in 1997, telling her that she'd 'battered' John with an 'stone frog', because he was 'getting on my nerves'.

Believing she must have been joking, the friend brushed the remark off, and only believed it plausible when John's body had been identified.

In order to definitively connect Leigh with the crime, they needed to apprehend the ornamental frog. Thankfully, as we say, the frog had been handed by Leigh to a co-resident of the apartment prior to her death.

After analysing the ornament, officers not only discovered Leigh's fingerprints, but they'd found traces of John's blood.

It was subsequently determined that Leigh had murdered John in his sleep, with officers under the impression that she resented his references to the abandonment of their children.

Juliet Eden interviewed and photographed Leigh Ann Sabine a year before her death. The author has also written a book about the case, The Frog Murderer, which you can find here.

Watch The Body Next Door on Sky Documentaries and NOW.