Friend of woman who had joke skeleton that was actually her husband speaks out about moment she found his body

The friend of a woman who had a 'joke' skeleton stashed at her house has spoken about the moment she found it and realised it actually the woman's husband.

Rhian Lee was one of Leigh Ann Sabine's best friends prior to her death in October 2015 following a cancer diagnosis.

Sabine lived in the Welsh village of Bedday, Pontypridd, with the late nurse often telling her neighbours that she had an old medical skeleton in her apartment, as a piece of memorabilia to do with her time working in the healthcare sector.

After dying aged 74, her belongings were dumped in a communal garden nearby, and two of her friends decided that they'd play a practical joke with the famous medical skeleton that they often heard about.

Michelle James, her neighbour, and Lee decided it would be a good idea to retrieve it for a prank on another one of Sabine's neighbours.

It was the former's idea to retrieve it, but the 'prank' ended up being more serious than anything they could have imagined.

Speaking to the Sun, Lee revealed the discovery she made on 24 November, 2015: “I had over six months of counselling to help get over the trauma of the discovery,” she began.

“That morning I went over to my friend Michelle’s [James] for a cuppa and we thought, for a laugh, we’d play a prank.

"We knew about the medical skeleton wrapped up like a big package under the potting table in the garden and so we thought we’d bring it in, put it on the settee and give a knock to the neighbour to come down to see, as a joke,” she admitted.

But as they cut through several layers of plastic sheeting to get to the skeleton, James froze as she thought they had found a dead body.

“I said, ‘Michelle, don’t be so stupid. She told us it has been out here for years. The smell and wetness is probably stagnant water’," Lee said.

Lee couldn't believe what she found in her friend's garden. (Sky)

However, James went on and called the police, with Police Community Officer Gareth Bishop believing there had been a mistake.

After a closer inspection, he revealed that James' initial thoughts were right, it was a dead body and many questions began to flood in.

He later explained: “The garden was shared by four flats.

“The entrance to it was through the communal hall. There was a gate on the side but it was padlocked.

"We spoke to the occupants of the flats but no one had any recollection of seeing that body in the garden. Potentially there was a killer on the loose,” he suggested.

But the truth was much darker than that.

It turns out that Leigh Sabine was a murderer who had killed and hidden her husband's body at home for 18 years, having also abandoned her five children.

The chilling story is told in The Body Next Door, a three-part documentary series that delves into one of the most unbelievable and bizarre true crime stories in recent times.

It took three weeks for DNA tests to prove that the body, still in blue Marks and Spencer pyjamas - belonged to Leigh's husband John, who was last seen alive in 1997.

Sabine was hiding her dead husband from the public. (Juliet Eden)

This was just the beginning though, as the police delved deeper into Sabine's life, uncovering more than they expected, as it was discovered that the couple lived in Australia together, having five children, before abandoning them at an orphanage in New Zealand.

Police were struggling to find an exact date and cause of death, until a former friend came forward, revealing a phone call from 1997 between the two where Sabine said she 'battered' her husband with a stone frog because he was 'getting on her nerves'.

Authorities would recover the ornament, which had traces of John's blood and Sabine's fingerprints on it, and came to the conclusion that she had become resentful to John over regrets about leaving their children, killing him in his sleep.

As for the responses of their kids, daughter Jane Sabine would later go on record saying: "I have no doubt my mother was capable of murder."

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

You can watch The Body Next Door on Sky Documentaries and NOW TV.