A woman who claimed she had a fake skeleton in her apartment was later discovered to actually be harboring the remains of her dead husband.
Leigh Ann Sabine lived in the Welsh village of Beddau, Pontypridd where she would repeatedly tell her neighbors about an old medical skeleton she had tucked away somewhere in her apartment - a nod to her professional career as a nurse.
However, when she passed away in 2015 after a battle with cancer, all of her belongings - including the old bag of bones - were dumped in a communal area where fellow neighbor, Michelle James, stumbled across the skeleton she had heard so much about.
Wondering if she could use it to scare someone, she was shocked to discover that the item was not a medical skeleton at all - instead, it was the remains of a real body.
"Me and another neighbor wanted to get the skeleton and sit it on a friend's settee to give him a shock when he got home," Michelle recalled as per the Daily Mail.
“We took two kitchen knives and headed out to the patio but were surprised how well wrapped up the thing was," she continued. “The knife cut through the plastic but then hit cardboard and finally tin foil."
Michelle then revealed that she was disgusted to see a "pool of black sludge" pour out of the bag.
"[The sludge] poured out, all over my hands and arms. And we were hit by the worst smell you can imagine," she said.
“I started screaming: 'It's a body, a real body,'" she added.
The authorities were called to the scene and weirdly enough Michelle was arrested on suspicion of murder due to how recently it seemed as though the body had been wrapped up.
The mom-of-three pleaded with the police while she was in a holding cell, stating that she had nothing to do with this and it had to be related to Leigh Ann.
The outlet reported that during her three days in custody, Michelle was shown gruesome images of the contents of the rolled-up bag.
There was a skull with a dent where the head had been caved in, which led officers to believe that someone had used a blunt object to kill this person.
After further investigation, it was confirmed that the bag contained the remains of Leigh Ann's husband John, who was last seen alive in 1998.
It is still unknown exactly when he died.
The story has gained popularity on social media after Sky released a documentary on it called The Body Next Door.
"The Body Next Door is a wild ride," wrote one user on X, while another added: "If you have Sky, highly recommend The Body Next Door. Thought it was going to be a regular body-under-the-patio situation but then holy s***. Bonkers, well worth a binge."
A third also stated that it had "more twists than fiction," adding that people should really give it a watch if they like "real-crime documentaries."
The Body Next Door is available to watch on Sky.
