The Body Next Door: Unraveling the Dark Legacy of Leigh Ann Sabine

[00:00:00] [SPEAKER_00]: The case featured in this episode has been researched using police records, court documents, witness statements, and the news.

[00:00:07] [SPEAKER_00]: Listener discretion is advised.

[00:00:10] [SPEAKER_00]: All parties mentioned are innocent until proven guilty, and all opinions are my own.

[00:00:34] [SPEAKER_00]: Hey everyone, my name is Nikki Young, and this is Serial Napper, a true crime podcast for NAPS.

[00:00:41] [SPEAKER_00]: I'm back with another true crime story to lull you to sleep or perhaps to give you nightmares.

[00:00:47] [SPEAKER_00]: A few months before 74-year-old Leigh Ann Sabine died after battling brain cancer,

[00:00:52] [SPEAKER_00]: she told her hairdresser that people were going to talk about her after she passed away because of the quote,

[00:01:00] [SPEAKER_00]: body in the bag.

[00:01:02] [SPEAKER_00]: An alarming statement but one that mostly went ignored as a wild, silly, made up story,

[00:01:09] [SPEAKER_00]: one of many that Leigh Ann was known for telling.

[00:01:11] [SPEAKER_00]: But the true meaning of her words would be revealed about a month after her death,

[00:01:16] [SPEAKER_00]: when two of her best friends made a gruesome discovery.

[00:01:20] [SPEAKER_00]: It was well known that Leigh Ann had kept a fake medical skeleton,

[00:01:25] [SPEAKER_00]: one that you might find on display at the doctor's office.

[00:01:28] [SPEAKER_00]: She sometimes liked to place it in her garden, move it around her house, or keep it in her shed.

[00:01:35] [SPEAKER_00]: She said that it was a keepsake from her nursing days,

[00:01:38] [SPEAKER_00]: and her friends thought that it might be funny to use this medical skeleton as part of a prank.

[00:01:44] [SPEAKER_00]: They were going to place it on one of their neighbors' doorsteps

[00:01:46] [SPEAKER_00]: and then ring the doorbell to kind of give them a fright.

[00:01:50] [SPEAKER_00]: They'd all have a laugh about it.

[00:01:52] [SPEAKER_00]: Instead, they would be the ones frightened when they began to unwrap the medical skeleton

[00:01:57] [SPEAKER_00]: and discover a perfectly mummified body.

[00:02:00] [SPEAKER_00]: Now it was Leigh Ann who had the last laugh as she had seemingly gotten away with murder.

[00:02:08] [SPEAKER_00]: So dim the lights, put your phone down and listen to the story of Leigh Ann Sabine

[00:02:14] [SPEAKER_00]: and the body that she had hidden in plain sight for 18 years

[00:02:18] [SPEAKER_00]: under the guise of a fake plastic skeleton.

[00:02:23] [SPEAKER_00]: So let's jump right in.

[00:02:25] [SPEAKER_00]: Leigh Ann Sabine was locally known as Mad Leigh.

[00:02:28] [SPEAKER_00]: She was what we would call extra.

[00:02:32] [SPEAKER_00]: She was flamboyant, she dressed for attention,

[00:02:35] [SPEAKER_00]: and she always had the wildest of stories to tell anyone who would listen.

[00:02:40] [SPEAKER_00]: She was also known to be downright selfish and evil according to some who knew her.

[00:02:45] [SPEAKER_00]: Maybe she was made this way because of her difficult beginnings.

[00:02:49] [SPEAKER_00]: Born in Wales, she was abandoned by her mother as a young child

[00:02:53] [SPEAKER_00]: and she spent much of her early years hopping between the homes of her relatives and foster care.

[00:03:00] [SPEAKER_00]: She was never shown love and so she grew up not knowing how to love others.

[00:03:05] [SPEAKER_00]: And so the cycle was repeated.

[00:03:08] [SPEAKER_00]: She did however have her own ambitions

[00:03:10] [SPEAKER_00]: and she became a working nurse when she was in her late teens.

[00:03:14] [SPEAKER_00]: At just 17 years old, while working at a hospital in London,

[00:03:18] [SPEAKER_00]: she would meet her future husband, a 28 year old man named John

[00:03:23] [SPEAKER_00]: who already had a wife and two children waiting for him at home.

[00:03:28] [SPEAKER_00]: John worked as an accountant and he was also a Korean war veteran

[00:03:32] [SPEAKER_00]: and he was absolutely smitten with Leigh Ann.

[00:03:36] [SPEAKER_00]: She was incredibly confident for her age

[00:03:39] [SPEAKER_00]: and clearly John was kind of a predator, kind of a creep who liked young girls.

[00:03:44] [SPEAKER_00]: It wasn't long into their love affair when Leigh Ann discovered that she was pregnant with John's baby.

[00:03:51] [SPEAKER_00]: His wife of course found out and she threw him out of the house.

[00:03:55] [SPEAKER_00]: Then he was free to marry Leigh Ann in 1960.

[00:03:59] [SPEAKER_00]: Leigh Ann and John continued to grow their family over the next five years

[00:04:03] [SPEAKER_00]: while living in Southwest England.

[00:04:05] [SPEAKER_00]: But then it was rumored that John had gotten himself into some financial troubles at work.

[00:04:10] [SPEAKER_00]: It's alleged that he defrauded his company out of $6,000 which was a lot of money back then.

[00:04:17] [SPEAKER_00]: One of their neighbors reported that they saw John burning papers in his garden

[00:04:22] [SPEAKER_00]: and the police believed that he was trying to destroy any evidence that connected him to the fraud.

[00:04:28] [SPEAKER_00]: When he felt like the authorities were on to him,

[00:04:31] [SPEAKER_00]: John, Leigh Ann and their five children all fled to Auckland, New Zealand.

[00:04:36] [SPEAKER_00]: They didn't stay there long before deciding in 1969 to take off to Australia

[00:04:42] [SPEAKER_00]: where Leigh Ann had decided that she wanted to pursue a music career.

[00:04:46] [SPEAKER_00]: This time they left their five children ranging from nine months old to 12 years old

[00:04:52] [SPEAKER_00]: behind at a state-run orphanage.

[00:04:55] [SPEAKER_00]: They just abandoned them there with no explanation or reason.

[00:04:59] [SPEAKER_00]: They didn't even bother to fill out any paperwork, they just left them.

[00:05:01] [SPEAKER_00]: Their daughter Jane who was just three years old when her parents dropped her off and then vanished,

[00:05:08] [SPEAKER_00]: she would later talk about all of the trauma she experienced in an interview with the NZ Herald.

[00:05:13] [SPEAKER_00]: She said quote,

[00:05:15] [SPEAKER_00]: I remember always my brother and I whenever we saw a taxi or an airplane walking home from school

[00:05:21] [SPEAKER_00]: headed towards where we lived, we would run thinking it was our parents coming to pick us up.

[00:05:27] [SPEAKER_00]: That went on for years.

[00:05:30] [SPEAKER_00]: Can you imagine a three-year-old just suddenly one day having no mother, no father?

[00:05:36] [SPEAKER_00]: I couldn't imagine my three-year-old just suddenly one day asking,

[00:05:40] [SPEAKER_00]: where's my mother, where's my father?

[00:05:42] [SPEAKER_00]: And there being no one there.

[00:05:45] [SPEAKER_00]: It was not easy for their children who were basically bounced around between various foster homes

[00:05:51] [SPEAKER_00]: and then back to being wards of the state.

[00:05:53] [SPEAKER_00]: Because the government of New Zealand wanted to try to keep the five children together,

[00:05:58] [SPEAKER_00]: they developed a program where this family home was built specifically for the kids to live

[00:06:04] [SPEAKER_00]: while foster parents were then rotated in and out of the home.

[00:06:09] [SPEAKER_00]: Some foster parents were better than others as you can imagine

[00:06:12] [SPEAKER_00]: and at times they suffered horrible abuse.

[00:06:17] [SPEAKER_00]: All of this while Leanne attempted to build her career as a cabaret singer.

[00:06:21] [SPEAKER_00]: She wasn't very successful, so in 1972,

[00:06:26] [SPEAKER_00]: she and John decided to return to New Zealand with new fake names, Leigh and John Martin.

[00:06:33] [SPEAKER_00]: The authorities had been looking for them these past few years.

[00:06:37] [SPEAKER_00]: They were facing charges of child abandonment

[00:06:39] [SPEAKER_00]: and the story of how they had just often left their kids,

[00:06:43] [SPEAKER_00]: it had been front page news at one point.

[00:06:46] [SPEAKER_00]: So they kept a low profile instead insisting that

[00:06:50] [SPEAKER_00]: they were childless to anyone that they became friends with.

[00:06:53] [SPEAKER_00]: They flat out denied that those five children belonged to them.

[00:06:57] [SPEAKER_00]: It wasn't until a decade later in 1984 that John and Leanne decided

[00:07:02] [SPEAKER_00]: to try to reach out to their children and reconcile.

[00:07:05] [SPEAKER_00]: Now I don't know how they thought this scenario was going to go.

[00:07:09] [SPEAKER_00]: Maybe they had hoped that their near grown children would welcome them back with open arms,

[00:07:14] [SPEAKER_00]: but that wasn't the case.

[00:07:16] [SPEAKER_00]: They had been severely traumatized

[00:07:19] [SPEAKER_00]: and they had questions about why their parents had abandoned them

[00:07:23] [SPEAKER_00]: and where they had been all these years.

[00:07:26] [SPEAKER_00]: Questions that John and Leanne were not ready or willing to answer.

[00:07:31] [SPEAKER_00]: 19 year old Martin and 15 year old Jane met with their parents

[00:07:34] [SPEAKER_00]: in hopes of getting some kind of closure,

[00:07:37] [SPEAKER_00]: but Leanne's response that they had simply decided to move to Australia

[00:07:40] [SPEAKER_00]: to pursue this music career, this cabaret career,

[00:07:44] [SPEAKER_00]: it just didn't sit well with them.

[00:07:47] [SPEAKER_00]: It obviously was not a good reason.

[00:07:48] [SPEAKER_00]: It was selfish.

[00:07:50] [SPEAKER_00]: Leanne claimed that they had wanted to come back to New Zealand

[00:07:53] [SPEAKER_00]: to get the kids as soon as she had made enough money,

[00:07:56] [SPEAKER_00]: but that she just never did.

[00:07:58] [SPEAKER_00]: It was a pathetic excuse.

[00:08:00] [SPEAKER_00]: So Jane and the other kids,

[00:08:02] [SPEAKER_00]: they decided to report Leanne and John to the authorities.

[00:08:05] [SPEAKER_00]: Plus they tipped off the media to their whereabouts.

[00:08:09] [SPEAKER_00]: Worried that they would soon be arrested, Leanne and John,

[00:08:12] [SPEAKER_00]: they took off once again, this time returning back to the UK.

[00:08:16] [SPEAKER_00]: Eventually in 1997,

[00:08:18] [SPEAKER_00]: the couple would find themselves hiding in a small coal mining town

[00:08:22] [SPEAKER_00]: called Bethai.

[00:08:24] [SPEAKER_00]: After only a few short months of living in the South Wales community,

[00:08:28] [SPEAKER_00]: John, who was now 67 years old,

[00:08:31] [SPEAKER_00]: seemingly vanished.

[00:08:33] [SPEAKER_00]: He had spent such a small amount of time living in this area

[00:08:36] [SPEAKER_00]: that no one knew who he was or that he was ever even really there.

[00:08:42] [SPEAKER_00]: If you were to ask people who John Sabine was,

[00:08:45] [SPEAKER_00]: they had no idea.

[00:08:46] [SPEAKER_00]: Leanne began going by her middle name Ann

[00:08:49] [SPEAKER_00]: and she quickly built herself a reputation.

[00:08:52] [SPEAKER_00]: She would sometimes tell people that she had never been married

[00:08:55] [SPEAKER_00]: or had children, which was an outright lie.

[00:08:59] [SPEAKER_00]: Or sometimes she'd say that she once had a husband,

[00:09:02] [SPEAKER_00]: but he was abusive to her and her kids

[00:09:04] [SPEAKER_00]: and he was also a womanizer who decided to just up and leave her.

[00:09:09] [SPEAKER_00]: No one really questioned her about her changing stories and contradictions.

[00:09:14] [SPEAKER_00]: It was here living in Bethai that she would earn the nickname Mad Leigh.

[00:09:19] [SPEAKER_00]: She was known around town for her theatrics.

[00:09:22] [SPEAKER_00]: She'd befriended her neighbors

[00:09:24] [SPEAKER_00]: and she'd tell them all about her days of being a nurse

[00:09:27] [SPEAKER_00]: and a famous cabaret singer, which was definitely an embellishment.

[00:09:31] [SPEAKER_00]: No one really knew when she was telling a wild tale

[00:09:34] [SPEAKER_00]: or when she was being truthful,

[00:09:36] [SPEAKER_00]: so y'all kind of took what she was saying with a grain of salt.

[00:09:40] [SPEAKER_00]: All they really knew was that this was a woman who loved attention

[00:09:43] [SPEAKER_00]: whether it be positive or negative.

[00:09:46] [SPEAKER_00]: She wore fishnet stockings at the most inappropriate of times

[00:09:49] [SPEAKER_00]: and she covered the walls of her immaculately kept home in photos of herself,

[00:09:55] [SPEAKER_00]: including one from her cabaret years

[00:09:57] [SPEAKER_00]: when she felt like she was in her prime.

[00:10:00] [SPEAKER_00]: Leigh-Ann would sometimes have boyfriends,

[00:10:03] [SPEAKER_00]: including one who lived with her for a brief time named Derek Ellis,

[00:10:07] [SPEAKER_00]: who was a retired fireman.

[00:10:09] [SPEAKER_00]: No one seemed to notice or care about her missing husband John

[00:10:13] [SPEAKER_00]: or the fact that each month his pension continued to be deposited

[00:10:18] [SPEAKER_00]: into their joint bank account.

[00:10:20] [SPEAKER_00]: John's name was still on most of the bills,

[00:10:23] [SPEAKER_00]: but it was commonly accepted that this alleged abuse of man

[00:10:26] [SPEAKER_00]: must have just run off with some other woman leaving poor Leigh-Ann

[00:10:30] [SPEAKER_00]: to pick up the pieces all on her own.

[00:10:34] [SPEAKER_00]: It's time for a quick break and a word from tonight's sponsors.

[00:10:38] [SPEAKER_00]: Hang on, I'll be back before you know it.

[00:10:43] [SPEAKER_00]: Now back to our story.

[00:10:46] [SPEAKER_00]: In 2000, Interpol was able to track Leigh-Ann down

[00:10:50] [SPEAKER_00]: to let her know that her son Martin had taken his own life.

[00:10:54] [SPEAKER_00]: Now I'm not quite sure why if they were able to finally find her

[00:10:57] [SPEAKER_00]: that they wouldn't continue to pursue those charges.

[00:11:01] [SPEAKER_00]: Maybe it was because the children were now adults,

[00:11:03] [SPEAKER_00]: so they didn't see the point in moving forward with child abandonment charges.

[00:11:07] [SPEAKER_00]: I just don't know.

[00:11:09] [SPEAKER_00]: But after learning that her son Martin had died,

[00:11:12] [SPEAKER_00]: Leigh-Ann decided that maybe it was time to reach back out to the kids

[00:11:15] [SPEAKER_00]: and she tried to contact her daughter Jane.

[00:11:18] [SPEAKER_00]: They had a brief conversation and for the very first time,

[00:11:22] [SPEAKER_00]: Leigh-Ann told Jane that her father John was dead

[00:11:26] [SPEAKER_00]: and that she had never loved him.

[00:11:28] [SPEAKER_00]: Jane was already grieving the untimely death of her brother Martin

[00:11:31] [SPEAKER_00]: and she just didn't have time for her mother's drama.

[00:11:34] [SPEAKER_00]: She didn't really take what she was saying seriously

[00:11:36] [SPEAKER_00]: or even really want to deal with it,

[00:11:38] [SPEAKER_00]: so she just kind of hung up on her

[00:11:40] [SPEAKER_00]: and that was the very last time that they would speak.

[00:11:44] [SPEAKER_00]: Years later, Jane tried one last time to get some answers from her mother

[00:11:48] [SPEAKER_00]: but in turn Leigh-Ann sent her a very cold response.

[00:11:52] [SPEAKER_00]: It was a card that featured a picture of a phoenix rising from the ashes

[00:11:58] [SPEAKER_00]: and on the back it was a handwritten note that read,

[00:12:02] [SPEAKER_00]: Like the phoenix I will arise from the ashes

[00:12:05] [SPEAKER_00]: and sleep will obey me and visit thee never

[00:12:08] [SPEAKER_00]: for my eyes are upon thee forever and ever.

[00:12:12] [SPEAKER_00]: I have served my life's sentence of shame and blame

[00:12:15] [SPEAKER_00]: now is your turn to do the same.

[00:12:19] [SPEAKER_00]: Signed, Your Nemesis, Ann Leigh Sabine.

[00:12:23] [SPEAKER_00]: Imagine receiving a letter from your estranged mother

[00:12:26] [SPEAKER_00]: who abandoned you as a kid and she refers to herself as

[00:12:30] [SPEAKER_00]: your nemesis? I mean it's kind of true,

[00:12:33] [SPEAKER_00]: she is pretty evil, she is kind of her daughter's nemesis

[00:12:36] [SPEAKER_00]: but how horrible to even admit such a thing.

[00:12:39] [SPEAKER_00]: Even after all that time had passed

[00:12:42] [SPEAKER_00]: Leigh-Ann was still trying to inflict pain upon her children.

[00:12:46] [SPEAKER_00]: While she was horrible to her offspring

[00:12:49] [SPEAKER_00]: Leigh-Ann was known to be very friendly, outgoing

[00:12:53] [SPEAKER_00]: and social to her neighbors.

[00:12:55] [SPEAKER_00]: She would often invite friends over for a glass of wine

[00:12:58] [SPEAKER_00]: where she would recall stories about being a famous singer,

[00:13:03] [SPEAKER_00]: a model in Australia and all of her woes

[00:13:06] [SPEAKER_00]: about her abusive womanizer husband, John

[00:13:08] [SPEAKER_00]: who had just up and left her.

[00:13:11] [SPEAKER_00]: She also often talked about a plastic medical skeleton

[00:13:14] [SPEAKER_00]: like one that you would see in a doctor's office

[00:13:17] [SPEAKER_00]: or in a science classroom, one that she had kept

[00:13:20] [SPEAKER_00]: as it keepsake from her days as working as a nurse.

[00:13:24] [SPEAKER_00]: Sometimes this skeleton sat in her garden,

[00:13:27] [SPEAKER_00]: sometimes she would keep it in her home

[00:13:28] [SPEAKER_00]: and sometimes it was left in the shed.

[00:13:31] [SPEAKER_00]: One of her best friends, a woman named Ryan Leigh

[00:13:34] [SPEAKER_00]: would recall having a drink with Leigh-Ann

[00:13:36] [SPEAKER_00]: one day in her home when she mentioned the skeleton

[00:13:39] [SPEAKER_00]: and how she had plans to move it to the attic.

[00:13:42] [SPEAKER_00]: When Leigh-Ann was questioned about why she was always

[00:13:45] [SPEAKER_00]: going on about this fake medical skeleton

[00:13:47] [SPEAKER_00]: like it was super important, Leigh-Ann replied

[00:13:50] [SPEAKER_00]: quote, all will be revealed my darlings.

[00:13:53] [SPEAKER_00]: An answer that disturbed Ryan.

[00:13:56] [SPEAKER_00]: Still she kind of just brushed it off.

[00:13:58] [SPEAKER_00]: Leigh-Ann was an odd character

[00:14:00] [SPEAKER_00]: and would often say really strange kind of

[00:14:03] [SPEAKER_00]: off the wall things.

[00:14:05] [SPEAKER_00]: And then around 2015 she was diagnosed with brain cancer

[00:14:09] [SPEAKER_00]: and her health began to deteriorate really quickly.

[00:14:12] [SPEAKER_00]: The once dazzling and flamboyant Leigh-Ann

[00:14:15] [SPEAKER_00]: who referred to everyone she met as darling

[00:14:17] [SPEAKER_00]: was now a shell of her former self.

[00:14:21] [SPEAKER_00]: She knew that death was knocking on her door

[00:14:23] [SPEAKER_00]: and she had not achieved all the things

[00:14:26] [SPEAKER_00]: that she had wanted to.

[00:14:27] [SPEAKER_00]: But that was okay because she had one final

[00:14:31] [SPEAKER_00]: big reveal that would only happen

[00:14:32] [SPEAKER_00]: once she had passed away.

[00:14:35] [SPEAKER_00]: Just a few months before the cancer took her

[00:14:37] [SPEAKER_00]: Leigh-Ann Sabine allegedly told a hairdresser quote

[00:14:40] [SPEAKER_00]: people are going to talk about me after I have gone

[00:14:44] [SPEAKER_00]: I could be famous.

[00:14:46] [SPEAKER_00]: And when the hairdresser asked her like why was that

[00:14:49] [SPEAKER_00]: she casually replied with

[00:14:51] [SPEAKER_00]: because of the body in the bag.

[00:14:54] [SPEAKER_00]: Again this was nervously laughed off by the hairdresser

[00:14:57] [SPEAKER_00]: who believed that she must have been being

[00:14:59] [SPEAKER_00]: sarcastic or making a joke.

[00:15:01] [SPEAKER_00]: Leigh-Ann also had a caretaker near the end of her days

[00:15:04] [SPEAKER_00]: named Lynn Williams and she was adamant

[00:15:07] [SPEAKER_00]: that the skeleton that she had kept in her shed

[00:15:09] [SPEAKER_00]: needed to be moved to the attic prior to her death.

[00:15:14] [SPEAKER_00]: Lynn joked that she hoped it wasn't an actual body

[00:15:17] [SPEAKER_00]: and Leigh-Ann responded with

[00:15:19] [SPEAKER_00]: you never know with a smile.

[00:15:22] [SPEAKER_00]: No one really knew when she was joking or being serious

[00:15:25] [SPEAKER_00]: so again this statement was brushed off.

[00:15:28] [SPEAKER_00]: Leigh-Ann passed away at the end of October 2015

[00:15:31] [SPEAKER_00]: from brain cancer.

[00:15:33] [SPEAKER_00]: Her children would never get the answers

[00:15:35] [SPEAKER_00]: that they so desperately wanted to know

[00:15:37] [SPEAKER_00]: regarding why their mother just abandoned them one day.

[00:15:41] [SPEAKER_00]: She had taken those details to the grave with her

[00:15:44] [SPEAKER_00]: but she did have one final surprise to reveal.

[00:15:49] [SPEAKER_00]: On November 24th 2015 approximately 25 days after Leigh-Ann

[00:15:54] [SPEAKER_00]: had died two of her best friends Ryan Lee and Michelle James

[00:15:58] [SPEAKER_00]: were sharing memories about her over a cup of coffee.

[00:16:02] [SPEAKER_00]: One of them brought up Leigh-Ann's medical skeleton

[00:16:05] [SPEAKER_00]: and how it was often a topic of discussion

[00:16:08] [SPEAKER_00]: and they thought wouldn't it be funny to use this skeleton

[00:16:11] [SPEAKER_00]: to play a prank.

[00:16:13] [SPEAKER_00]: They'd bring it out and then they'd put it on one of their neighbors' doorsteps,

[00:16:17] [SPEAKER_00]: ring the doorbell and they would all have a good laugh.

[00:16:20] [SPEAKER_00]: Leigh-Ann had requested that the skeleton be moved to her attic

[00:16:23] [SPEAKER_00]: but unfortunately it hadn't been done before she had died

[00:16:26] [SPEAKER_00]: so it was left sitting under a plotting table

[00:16:29] [SPEAKER_00]: in the communal garden still wrapped up in plastic.

[00:16:33] [SPEAKER_00]: So the two ladies they went out to the garden

[00:16:36] [SPEAKER_00]: and they found this skeleton

[00:16:38] [SPEAKER_00]: and they began to cut through the layers of the plastic sheeting

[00:16:41] [SPEAKER_00]: that was around the skeleton.

[00:16:43] [SPEAKER_00]: When suddenly they were hit with the worst smell

[00:16:46] [SPEAKER_00]: either of them had ever encountered.

[00:16:49] [SPEAKER_00]: It was the smell of decomposition

[00:16:50] [SPEAKER_00]: and as the plastic was unwrapped

[00:16:53] [SPEAKER_00]: it revealed not a fake plastic skeleton

[00:16:57] [SPEAKER_00]: but a partially rotting dead body.

[00:17:00] [SPEAKER_00]: They screamed, dropped the body

[00:17:03] [SPEAKER_00]: and ran to call the police about what they had just uncovered.

[00:17:07] [SPEAKER_00]: When investigators responded

[00:17:09] [SPEAKER_00]: they confirmed that the fake skeleton was actually

[00:17:12] [SPEAKER_00]: a near perfectly preserved body.

[00:17:15] [SPEAKER_00]: It had been chemically mummified

[00:17:16] [SPEAKER_00]: by being wrapped in more than 40 layers of plastic,

[00:17:20] [SPEAKER_00]: roofing felt and shopping bags.

[00:17:22] [SPEAKER_00]: The body had been so well preserved

[00:17:24] [SPEAKER_00]: that they were able to determine whoever this man was

[00:17:28] [SPEAKER_00]: had drank alcohol shortly before he died

[00:17:31] [SPEAKER_00]: but he would have been below the legal driving limit.

[00:17:34] [SPEAKER_00]: The body appeared to be that of a white middle aged male

[00:17:38] [SPEAKER_00]: who had a receding hairline.

[00:17:40] [SPEAKER_00]: He was about five, six tall

[00:17:42] [SPEAKER_00]: and wearing marks and Spencer pajamas

[00:17:44] [SPEAKER_00]: and he had a gold signet ring on one of his fingers.

[00:17:48] [SPEAKER_00]: When they searched their database

[00:17:50] [SPEAKER_00]: for missing people in the area

[00:17:52] [SPEAKER_00]: who matched this description

[00:17:53] [SPEAKER_00]: they found that there were none.

[00:17:55] [SPEAKER_00]: They also compared the victim's DNA

[00:17:57] [SPEAKER_00]: to those that they had in their system

[00:17:59] [SPEAKER_00]: and none came back as a match.

[00:18:02] [SPEAKER_00]: The police had no idea who this murdered man could have been

[00:18:05] [SPEAKER_00]: or how he became wrapped up in plastic

[00:18:07] [SPEAKER_00]: and left in the garden.

[00:18:09] [SPEAKER_00]: When an autopsy was conducted

[00:18:11] [SPEAKER_00]: the cause of death was listed as

[00:18:13] [SPEAKER_00]: Blood Force Trauma to the Head

[00:18:15] [SPEAKER_00]: but they had no idea what the murder weapon could have been.

[00:18:18] [SPEAKER_00]: There was none found at the scene.

[00:18:20] [SPEAKER_00]: Though the police couldn't confirm

[00:18:22] [SPEAKER_00]: the identity of the body just yet

[00:18:24] [SPEAKER_00]: rumors quickly began to swirl that

[00:18:26] [SPEAKER_00]: it could actually be Leanne's husband, John.

[00:18:30] [SPEAKER_00]: Over the years Leanne had made many jokes

[00:18:34] [SPEAKER_00]: about killing her husband

[00:18:35] [SPEAKER_00]: and how that medical skeleton could actually be real

[00:18:39] [SPEAKER_00]: but everyone thought that she was just joking.

[00:18:42] [SPEAKER_00]: Now it didn't seem all that funny.

[00:18:46] [SPEAKER_00]: Approximately three weeks after the body was discovered

[00:18:49] [SPEAKER_00]: there was a breakthrough in the case.

[00:18:51] [SPEAKER_00]: A relative of John's came forward

[00:18:54] [SPEAKER_00]: to provide the police with a DNA sample

[00:18:56] [SPEAKER_00]: and when a comparative analysis was done

[00:18:59] [SPEAKER_00]: it came back as a match.

[00:19:01] [SPEAKER_00]: The skeleton in the garden was John Sabine.

[00:19:05] [SPEAKER_00]: He had not run away with another woman

[00:19:06] [SPEAKER_00]: as Leanne had suggested.

[00:19:09] [SPEAKER_00]: There was also no reason to think

[00:19:11] [SPEAKER_00]: that he had been abusive towards her

[00:19:13] [SPEAKER_00]: as she had made everyone believe

[00:19:15] [SPEAKER_00]: there were no calls or reports

[00:19:17] [SPEAKER_00]: of abuse filed with the police.

[00:19:19] [SPEAKER_00]: When John's son Christopher from his previous marriage

[00:19:23] [SPEAKER_00]: had learned what had happened to his father

[00:19:25] [SPEAKER_00]: he said quote,

[00:19:27] [SPEAKER_00]: when I was told they had found my father's body

[00:19:29] [SPEAKER_00]: I couldn't believe it.

[00:19:31] [SPEAKER_00]: I hadn't seen him for 27 years

[00:19:33] [SPEAKER_00]: and we didn't know if he was dead or alive.

[00:19:36] [SPEAKER_00]: I tried to contact him many times

[00:19:39] [SPEAKER_00]: but he never replied.

[00:19:41] [SPEAKER_00]: Now we know why.

[00:19:43] [SPEAKER_00]: Christopher claimed that Leanne was an evil woman

[00:19:46] [SPEAKER_00]: who lied her whole life

[00:19:48] [SPEAKER_00]: and I think many people would agree.

[00:19:51] [SPEAKER_00]: Now that the mystery of John's whereabouts

[00:19:53] [SPEAKER_00]: had been solved

[00:19:54] [SPEAKER_00]: the police wanted to figure out how he was killed

[00:19:56] [SPEAKER_00]: they obviously wouldn't know why

[00:19:58] [SPEAKER_00]: she had taken that with her to the grave

[00:20:00] [SPEAKER_00]: but they wanted to know what had happened

[00:20:02] [SPEAKER_00]: in the moments before he died

[00:20:04] [SPEAKER_00]: but he had been hidden away for 18 years

[00:20:07] [SPEAKER_00]: so it wasn't going to be easy.

[00:20:09] [SPEAKER_00]: Then they received a phone call

[00:20:11] [SPEAKER_00]: from a woman named Valerie Chocley

[00:20:13] [SPEAKER_00]: who had been friends with both Leanne

[00:20:15] [SPEAKER_00]: and John back in the 90s.

[00:20:17] [SPEAKER_00]: She had heard about the discovery of John's body

[00:20:20] [SPEAKER_00]: and she had quite the story to share with them.

[00:20:23] [SPEAKER_00]: During a phone call with Leanne

[00:20:25] [SPEAKER_00]: back in 1997

[00:20:27] [SPEAKER_00]: Valerie asked her if her and John were still together

[00:20:29] [SPEAKER_00]: because she hadn't heard from either of them in so long

[00:20:32] [SPEAKER_00]: and she joked that she thought they may have killed each other by now.

[00:20:36] [SPEAKER_00]: That's when Leanne surprised her with a response of

[00:20:40] [SPEAKER_00]: it's funny you should ask

[00:20:42] [SPEAKER_00]: I have killed him

[00:20:43] [SPEAKER_00]: I hit him over the head with a stone frog

[00:20:46] [SPEAKER_00]: which was at the side of the bed

[00:20:47] [SPEAKER_00]: he was just driving me mad

[00:20:50] [SPEAKER_00]: every night he would get into bed crying

[00:20:53] [SPEAKER_00]: and weeping saying

[00:20:54] [SPEAKER_00]: you don't fancy me

[00:20:57] [SPEAKER_00]: but just as others had done in the past

[00:20:59] [SPEAKER_00]: when Leanne had made a really strange remark

[00:21:01] [SPEAKER_00]: Valerie brushed it off as a joke

[00:21:04] [SPEAKER_00]: even though it's oddly specific

[00:21:06] [SPEAKER_00]: but now it was clear she hadn't been joking

[00:21:10] [SPEAKER_00]: what was the stone frog that she had mentioned

[00:21:12] [SPEAKER_00]: which she had kept at the side of her bed

[00:21:15] [SPEAKER_00]: since Leanne had passed away

[00:21:17] [SPEAKER_00]: many of her belongings had been distributed to her friends

[00:21:20] [SPEAKER_00]: or simply tossed away because

[00:21:21] [SPEAKER_00]: she didn't have any known family members to give them to

[00:21:25] [SPEAKER_00]: her kids probably didn't want any of her belongings

[00:21:28] [SPEAKER_00]: they just didn't want anything to do with her at all

[00:21:32] [SPEAKER_00]: luckily Leanne's friend Michelle

[00:21:33] [SPEAKER_00]: had taken an interest in a heavy stone frog

[00:21:36] [SPEAKER_00]: that she had seen sitting beside Leanne's bedside

[00:21:39] [SPEAKER_00]: and she had decided to take it home

[00:21:42] [SPEAKER_00]: the frog which was now sitting in Michelle's living room

[00:21:45] [SPEAKER_00]: had a protruding eye and hind leg

[00:21:48] [SPEAKER_00]: that lined up perfectly with John's fractures

[00:21:51] [SPEAKER_00]: Leanne had quite literally killed her husband

[00:21:54] [SPEAKER_00]: by hitting him in the head with this stone frog

[00:21:57] [SPEAKER_00]: and then wrapping his body up tightly

[00:21:59] [SPEAKER_00]: with over 40 layers of plastic

[00:22:01] [SPEAKER_00]: and pretending like he was a fake skeleton

[00:22:04] [SPEAKER_00]: from her nursing days

[00:22:06] [SPEAKER_00]: it was shocking to those who thought that

[00:22:08] [SPEAKER_00]: they were her friends

[00:22:09] [SPEAKER_00]: but not to those who really knew how cold she could be

[00:22:13] [SPEAKER_00]: like her children

[00:22:15] [SPEAKER_00]: Leanne and John's son now an adult

[00:22:17] [SPEAKER_00]: and living in New Zealand would say quote

[00:22:19] [SPEAKER_00]: my father was a good soft-hearted man

[00:22:22] [SPEAKER_00]: but she was a conniving bitch

[00:22:25] [SPEAKER_00]: I could never forgive him for what he did

[00:22:28] [SPEAKER_00]: but I still believe he was manipulated

[00:22:30] [SPEAKER_00]: and fell in love with an evil woman

[00:22:33] [SPEAKER_00]: that was his biggest crime

[00:22:36] [SPEAKER_00]: that's it for me tonight

[00:22:37] [SPEAKER_00]: if you want to reach out

[00:22:39] [SPEAKER_00]: you can find me on Facebook at Serial Napper

[00:22:41] [SPEAKER_00]: you can find my audio on Apple or Spotify

[00:22:45] [SPEAKER_00]: or wherever you listen to podcasts

[00:22:47] [SPEAKER_00]: I post all of my episodes in video format

[00:22:50] [SPEAKER_00]: over on YouTube so go check it out

[00:22:52] [SPEAKER_00]: and if you're watching on YouTube

[00:22:54] [SPEAKER_00]: I would love if you could give me a thumbs up

[00:22:56] [SPEAKER_00]: and subscribe

[00:22:58] [SPEAKER_00]: I'm over on X formerly known as

[00:23:00] [SPEAKER_00]: Twitter at serial underscore napper

[00:23:02] [SPEAKER_00]: and I post things on TikTok

[00:23:04] [SPEAKER_00]: Serial Napper Nick and that's all one word

[00:23:06] [SPEAKER_00]: until next time

[00:23:08] [SPEAKER_00]: sweet dreams

[00:23:09] [SPEAKER_00]: stay kind

[00:23:10] [SPEAKER_00]: especially in the comments

[00:23:14] [SPEAKER_00]: bye