Stream the True Crime Docuseries So Disturbing Viewers Are Warning Each Other: “What the h–l is that?!”
“Just because someone comes across as eccentric, it doesn’t mean they’re instantly a murderer,” says one of the residents of Beddau, a quiet village in South Wales, before diving into a story so strange, so layered, and so disturbing that people are warning each other about it on social media.
The frenzy online is all thanks to a 2024 three-episode docuseries that begins with a discovery almost too bizarre to be believed: a decaying body wrapped in 40+ layers of plastic, found lying in the garden between two modest apartments. The neighbors who found it were initially told by the eccentric elderly woman in their building that the bag contained a plastic medical skeleton. That woman was Leigh Sabine, a flamboyant former cabaret singer from New Zealand known for her fishnet tights, red lipstick, and love for the word “darling.”
But Sabine is dead. More specifically, she’s been dead, and the body in the garden seems to be a few weeks old. Now available on BritBox, The Body Next Door is quickly becoming social media’s latest obsession, with viewers calling it “the craziest sh*t [they’ve] ever seen!!!” Meanwhile, on TikTok, creators like Christie Boschman (@thatdocumentarygirl) are summing up their viewing experience with a straightforward “What the hell is that?!”
With no identification, no dental records, and no missing persons reports, it seems like this body just fell out of the sky. But that’s not the most bizarre part of this docuseries. There’s also a slew of abandoned children, false identities, and a web of secrets stretching across not one, but two continents. For those of you who have seen The Perfect Neighbor, a documentary Dread Central’s Chad Collins called “the most pulse-racing, upsetting documentary of the year,” you’ll probably notice some similarities between the two women at the center of each of these stories.
Could this have been a single, full-length documentary instead of a three-part docuseries? Absolutely. But what I personally enjoyed here is getting to know the neighbors and feeling the gravitational pull of Leigh Sabine herself. If I were in that building, I probably would have been one of the neighbors who helped deep-clean her apartment after she passed away. Hell, I probably would have taken one of her trinkets, too. Who can resist an ornamental stone frog?
Watch the trailer below:
What emerges here is a portrait of a person who was, in many ways, larger than life, but whose dreams and secrets may have destroyed others along the way.
So if you want to find out what viewers are talking about online, you can find The Body Next Door streaming now on BritBox. And if you love true-crime or movies about eccentric old ladies, let me know on Instagram and X: @ashjenexi.
Categorized: Streaming News
