A few months before 74-year-old Leigh Ann Sabine died after battling brain cancer, she told her hairdresser that people were going to talk about her after she passed away because of “the body in the bag”. An alarming statement but one that mostly went ignored as a wild, silly made-up story, one of many that Leigh Ann was known for telling. But the true meaning of her words would be revealed about a month after her death when two of her best friends made a gruesome discovery.

It was well known that Leigh Ann had kept a fake medical skeleton - one that you might find on display at the doctor’s office - that she sometimes liked to place in her garden, move around her house or keep in her shed. She said it was a keepsake from her nursing days. Her friends thought it might be funny to use the medical skeleton as a prank, place it on one of their neighbour's doorstep and ring the doorbell to frighten them. They’d all laugh about it. Instead - they would be the ones frightened when they began to unwrap the medical skeleton and discover a perfectly mummified body. Now it was Leigh Ann who had the last laugh, as she had seemingly gotten away with murder.

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Sources:

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/may/19/woman-killed-husband-hid-body-never-caught-leigh-ann-sabine

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2016/05/20/for-years-a-woman-in-wales-said-she-murdered-husband-with-a-stone-garden-frog-no-one-believed-her-until-the-body-turned-up-in-the-garden/

https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/article/2024/aug/11/the-body-next-door-review-a-jaw-droppingly-addictive-true-crime-tale

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c628ez6zx0mo

https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/the-perfect-murder-leigh-ann-sabines-daughter-speaks-out-about-her-lost-childhood/GSFYUVG7TCAOHRSLU3W35Q6SDA/

We often think of DNA as one of the most solid, fool-proof pieces of evidence in a crime investigation, but our story tonight shows how that isn’t at all true. A female German serial killer, dubbed “the Phantom of Heilbronn” - or the woman without a face, was believed to be responsible for a slew of crimes across the country, including six murders. The hunt to find this evil monster made international headlines as police tried to identify the killer before they struck again. The Phantom of Heilbronn was said to have committed various offences, including theft, which puzzled the police. It’s not often a single criminal would have such a wide range of offences - so it was difficult to build a profile around who their suspect might be. Still, the DNA showed that these crimes were all linked by DNA evidence connected to one individual. Or so they thought. You can only imagine the shock and horror when it was learned that the woman this DNA belonged to - didn’t even exist.

Sources:

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2008/nov/09/germany-serial-killer

https://time.com/archive/6946145/germanys-phantom-serial-killer-a-dna-blunder/

https://www.nature.com/articles/543589b

https://www.iso.org/news/2016/07/Ref2094.html

https://www.smh.com.au/world/woman-without-a-face-leaves-german-police-in-the-dark-20081117-68dq.html

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Serial Napper will be taking a hiatus over the summer. Thank you for your support.