Woman Murdered Husband and kept His body for 18 years.

The body of a man who is believed to have been murdered by his wife was “mummified” in more than 50 layers of sheeting and plastic bags before being hidden at their home for 18 years, an inquest heard. Accountant John Sabine – last seen in 1997 – died after suffering a single blow to the head with an ornamental stone frog that was kept next to the couple’s bed, a coroner was told. His wife, former cabaret singer Leigh Anne Sabine, was named as the “main suspect” in a police probe into Mr Sabine’s death after he was last year identified as a mystery skeleton found in the garden of their apartment block in a Welsh village. Mr Sabine’s “mummified” body had been wrapped in dozens of layers of plastic sheeting, roofing felt, bin bags and shopping bags that were tied up with green string and elasticated rope, the hearing was told. His body, which was still wearing his Marks and Spencer pyjamas, was only discovered 18 years later, three weeks after 74-year-old Mrs Sabine died from cancer and her home was being cleared out last November. Mr Sabine was 67 when he was last seen alive at the couple’s home in the village of Beddau, near Pontypridd, South Wales. A post-mortem examination carried out by forensic pathologist Dr Richard Jones found the cause of death was blunt force trauma to the head, although the date of Mr Sabine’s death was unknown. Dr Jones said: “The frog had a projecting eye and hind leg. These features were lined up with the fractures. “A single blow from this item could have accounted for all the skull fractures. They are severe injuries and can easily account for death. “The frog weighed 1.1kilo and was 14 centimeters long. The shape of the frog matched the fractures.” The stone frog was shown as evidence to the inquest. Dr Jones said the body was wrapped in “many layers of heavy-duty material” such as roofing felt, as well as shopping bags and bin bags tied with green string. He said: “The decomposed body was clad in Marks & Spencer pyjamas. “It was relatively well-preserved because of a process known as ‘chemical mummification’, which occurs in certain circumstances. It can persist for years or even centuries.” See Also: Man wrongly convicted in 1957 Illinois murder released Tests on his body showed he had drunk alcohol before his death, but would have been below the drink-drive limit. The inquest heard Mrs Sabine told a neighbour she had bought a “medical skeleton” while she was training to be a nurse. But, shortly before Mrs Sabine’s death from cancer in October last year, she asked the neighbour to help move it from the garden shed to the attic. After Mrs Sabine’s death, neighbours began moving her belongings. They cut the packaging around the skeleton before they realised it could be human. The inquest heard that a few months before she died, Mrs Sabine was having her hair done by hairdresser Bernadette Adamiec when she told her: “People are going to talk about me after I have gone. I could be famous.” When Ms Adamiec asked why, she replied: “Because of the body in the bag.” Police Community Support Officer Gareth Bishop said he was called to the house after the discovery of the skeleton and described “a strong rotting smell, like from a compost bin”. The discovery was made 25 days after Mrs Sabine died of brain cancer in October 2015.