Featured Image Credit: Sky/Now
Topics: True Crime, Crime, UK News, Parenting, Sex and Relationships
Rhianna Benson
Topics: True Crime, Crime, UK News, Parenting, Sex and Relationships
Back in 2015, the tiny, close-knit Welsh village of Beddau hit the headlines when a well-preserved body was discovered in the overgrown garden of a block of flats.
And when it was revealed in the weeks that followed that a woman in her 80s - a resident of the apartment building - had committed the gruesome crime 18 years earlier, and had hidden the body within the realms of her own home, neither police nor neighbours, friends or relatives could comprehend the news.
Such is the tale told in Sky's brand new three-part hit The Body Next Door, which attempts to answer questions about the crime that shook the nation nine years ago.
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Before we get into the ins and outs of the show's chilling story, however, we suggest you took a look at what viewers have made of it so far.
"The Body Next Door on NowTV is a really good true crime documentary if you’re looking for something to watch in an evening," one fan wrote on Twitter.
"Well paced at only 3 episodes, not stuffed with filler and repetition, genuinely surprising twists while centring the victims voices."
Another went on: "Just watching “ The body next door” sky documentaries, you couldn’t write it👍".
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"The Body Next Door is a wild ride," a third added.
A fourth continued: "Just finished a heartbreaking 3 prt doc called 'The Body Next Door'. Highly recommend. If it was a film, you wouldn't believe it."
Okay, now you can see how much hype the show has received so far, let's get into the nitty gritty of the crime.
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As we say, a body was discovered in the garden of a block of flats in 2015.
The corpse - which was bound tightly in 14 layers of thick-cut plastic - was that of a male who appeared to be in his mid 40s, though no identification could be formed by investigating officers.
Weeks later, however, an eccentric old lady named Leigh Sabine would be deemed the culprit, after the man's body was finally identified as her 'late' husband John Sabine.
Yet - unaware of her sinister nature - neighbours and friends were initially quick to shut down speculation that she could possibly have been associated to the crime.
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It wasn't until police delved deeper into the life of Ms Sabine that they discovered each one of her acquaintances had conflicting stories about her life.
According to pals, Leigh - who moved to the village in 1997 - told one friend that 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.
After obtaining documents from her home, police discovered a death certificate for her husband, which claimed he had died of an illness years prior.
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She'd also handed out miscellaneous objects from her home - including a hoover, an ornamental frog and elaborate jewellery.
A batch of angrily-written letters addressed to five individuals living in New Zealand who shared the surname 'Sabine' were also found unsent.
After searching their names, Welsh police managed to trace Leigh and John Sabine to a case of child abandonment in NZ.
After the couple emigrated to the UK, they hit headlines across New Zealand before eventually returning to their then-adult children.
Tragically, however, the Sabine children were unable to recover from their trauma, and only on a handful of occasions did some of the children visit their parents in the UK.
Eventually, however, ties were cut again with the children and they'd last spoken to their parents in the mid 90s.
By this point, the timeline of the last time John Sabine was heard from or seen had skewed off in some way.
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.
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.
Thankfully, however, officers were able to apprehend the frog and 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 - and had kept his remains inside her tiny, two-bedroom property for 18 long years.
And just when you think that this plot twist-littered crime must have surely been concluded at the point, there's one more surprise in-store for viewers.
That's because, when the time finally came for officers to arrest Leigh Sabine for the murder of her husband John, they found themselves unable to.
She'd passed away of cancer just three months before the body was discovered...
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.