The Body Next Door: A dark story of abandonment and murder

John and Leigh Sabine.
Photo: Handout for the police

Warning: Contains spoilers for the three-part series The corpse next door.

When a body wrapped in plastic was discovered in a village in South Wales, it marked the end of a tragic story that began in Auckland in the 1960s.

The body discovered in 2015 was that of John Sabine, Leigh Sabine's husband. It was found on the property where she had lived shortly after her own death from cancer.

A new documentary, The corpse next doortells this sad, confusing story in three episodes.

In 1969, John and Leigh Sabine dropped their five children off at a daycare center in Auckland and told them they would pick them up later. They never came back.

The five abandoned children spent the next ten years or so in foster families.

Her parents had fled to Australia, where Leigh wanted to start a career as a cabaret singer.

Steve Sabine.
Photo: Screenshot

“She always thought she was Shirley Bassey or something,” said her son Steve Sabine.

The abandoned children made national headlines at the time, which intensified in the early 1980s when the Sabines' parents resurfaced in New Zealand and claimed that they had always intended to reunite the family.

Of the five children, Steve, Lee-Ann and Jane are all extensively covered in The corpse next doorTheir memories of the trauma of abandonment and abuse they endured in foster care are heartbreaking.

“We never received any funding or anything like that,” said Steve Sabine.

The reunion in 1984 soon fell apart. The parents left the family again, sold everything and set off for Great Britain with their eldest son Marty in tow.

The second break was triggered when Jane confronted her mother about the first neglect and spoke to the media about it. Leigh was overjoyed, Steve recalled.

Jane, Sabine.
Photo: Screenshot

“Jane had challenged her, she was so angry, you could see the anger in her, and I looked at her and thought, 'My God, she could kill someone.'”

Leigh was indifferent to the suffering her actions caused to the children, Jane Sabine said.

“My mother was an evil, horrible, heartless bitch.”

Lee-Ann, the youngest, never felt that Leigh was her mother.

“She was the woman who gave birth to me and gave me life, but she was not my mother.”

Lee-Ann Sabine.
Photo: Screenshot

Years later, Leigh's new Welsh neighbors found her to be charming, if eccentric, company. She was flamboyant, always had cigarettes and drinks on hand, and was an avid storyteller.

She told neighbors that her husband John had left her years ago.

“There was no doubt that she was an absolute storyteller,” said Detective Chief Inspector Gareth Edwards. “The stories of her life were completely mythical.”

She often mentioned to neighbors and caregivers that she had a “medical skeleton” wrapped in plastic in the community garden.

When the coffin was opened for fun after Leigh's death, the gruesome truth came to light: inside lay a mummified corpse.

“Every murder is unique, but this case was absolutely bizarre,” Edwards said.

Chief Inspector Gareth Edwards.
Photo: Screenshot

Eventually, a DNA match with a son from a previous relationship in England revealed that the body was John Sabine. A hair found in the layers of packing around the body was identified as that of Leigh, making her the prime suspect.

Meanwhile, a woman, Valerie Chalkley, contacted police in South Wales following a media appeal for information.

She recalled an unexpected conversation with her former neighbor Leigh Sabine in 1997, after they had had no contact for many years.

“She said, 'I killed him. I hit him with a stone frog because he was getting on my nerves.' I thought she was kidding me, that she might come out with statements that were completely ridiculous.”

But it was the truth – a brutal end to a sad story.

The children she and John abandoned all struggled in different ways in their adult lives. Steve, Lee-Ann and Jane are a testament to the resilience of the human spirit.

But the trauma of being abandoned continues to have an impact over the years.

“We thought we had done something to upset them. Why else would your parents drop you and run away?” Steve said.

The corpse next door will stream on TVNZ+ from September 2nd.