The damning evidence that caught woman who joked about having a prank skeleton in her garden that was actually her husband

Here is the damning piece of evidence which allowed police to link Leigh Ann Sabine to the murder of her husband.

For decades, it appeared as if retired nurse Leigh had committed the perfect crime. However, a grim discovery after her death in 2015 would reveal that she had been hiding a grisly secret for many years.

Leigh had often joked to her neighbours in the Welsh village of Beddau that she had a medical skeleton in her flat, a memento from her days in nursing, which was eventually dumped in the communal gardens of the building after she died from cancer.

Remembering Leigh's frequent jokes about the skeleton, Michelle James and a fellow resident decided to use it as part of a practical joke on another one of their neighbours.

However, their prank would soon turn into the scene of crime.

Leigh Ann Sabine was hiding a dark secret in her home. (Juliet Eden)

The discovery of a corpse

Recalling the events during the new three-part Sky documentary The Body Next Door, Michelle explained that she and the other neighbour had cut through plastic sheeting which they believe contained the skeleton - only to find an actual decomposing body in there.

"We took two kitchen knives and headed out to the patio but were surprised how well wrapped up the thing was," she said.

"Suddenly a pool of black sludge poured out, all over my hands and arms. And we were hit by the worst smell you can imagine.

"I started screaming, 'it's a body, a real body'."

Police would initially arrest Michelle on suspicion of murder, where she repeatedly told them to investigate Leigh.

Leigh's troubled past

However, with Leigh dead, authorities were left digging into her past and found she had lived quite a colourful life.

They discovered that she had been married to a man named John Sabine, with the couple moving to Australia and having five children together. However, they would later abandon their kids in New Zealand and return back to the UK.

DNA testing would subsequently prove the body was John's. (Juliet Eden)

Leigh would later claim that John had died from an illness, with police even recovering a death certificate in her possessions, leading them to rule out John as the potential victim.

Authorities remained baffled on who the body could belong to, until a DNA test proved that it was actually John after all.

How Leigh was unmasked as John's killer

With a body now found in Leigh's possession, police now had to work out whether or not she was responsible for his death.

Clothing items found on the body were M&S pyjamas which had been discontinued in 1999, suggesting that the crime would've taken place before then

And his skull showed signs of blunt force trauma.

However, police still had no way of proving Leigh was the killer, so they decided to put out a public plea for evidence.

A friend of the Sabine's then came forward, sharing details of a phone call which turned out to be the missing piece.

Leigh had kept her husband's body in her flat until her death in 2015. (Juliet Eden)

Recalling the unnerving phone call between herself and Leigh in 1997, the woman said recalled the former nurse claiming that she'd 'battered' John with a stone frog as he was 'getting on her nerves'.

The woman hadn't thought much about the conversation until the discovery of the body, with the phone call being enough to link Leigh to her husband's murder.

Police would later recover the ornament, which revealed traces of John's blood alongside Leigh's fingerprints.

As for the motive, police believed Leigh had grown resentful to John over his regrets about abandoning their children all those years ago.

As we have in the Tyla stories, can we please credit Juliet Eden for the pics of the woman, and include this at the end:

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.