Ann Sabine's daughter speaks: 'I don't know who my mother was'

Jane Sabine has revealed she is struggling to come to terms with the bizarre double life of a mother who dumped five children in New Zealand nearly 50 years ago. Photo / Facebook

A daughter of a British woman suspected of murdering her husband and stashing his body in her flat says her mother only contacted her once in 30 years after a family tragedy.

Ann Sabine is believed to have killed her husband John in 1997 and hidden his body for 18 years before his skeleton was discovered dumped in her home's neatly manicured
back garden after she died in October.

The Daily Mail is reporting New Zealand-based Jane Sabine, abandoned here with her siblings in the 60s by parents Ann and John, has revealed the final and only conversation she had with her mum soon after her brother Martin took his own life.

During the phone call in 2000, Ann, also known as Lee, revealed Jane's father had died.

Jane told the newspaper her mother then dropped a bombshell.

John Sabine is believed to have been murdered by his wife Ann. Photo / Supplied

She said, "I never really loved him," and I hung up. That was the only conversation I had with her in all that time."

Jane revealed she was struggling to come to terms with the bizarre double life of a mother who dumped five children in New Zealand nearly 50 years ago.

"I don't know who [my mother] was or where her head was at but all I know is I have spent my lifetime finding ways to deal with the abandonment.

"I have never in my life had any contact with these members of my family whatsoever. Just imagine that - no grandparents, no aunts, no uncles, no cousins.

"The things I am learning about what she did and how she was - it's so hard to process and I need to be around people who can help me with that in some way."

Since her mother's death in October and the subsequent police murder investigation, Jane said she had contacted a number of relatives in Wales, and was now hoping to travel to the UK to meet them.

The grandmother-of-five had turned to a social media crowd-funding page to raise the money for the trip.

Former British and New Zealand night club singer, Lee Jones, also known as Mrs Ann Sabine, who with her husband, John, put their children in a nursery home in 1969. Photo / Supplied

She also said the investigation into her father's death was now helping answer questions she had always had about her family.

She said: "It was something ugly which happened but this is something good which has come out of it and that's what I have got to try and focus on. The question I have asked myself my whole life is 'why?'"

After Ann died, aged 74, in October, police discovered John's skeleton dumped in the garden behind their house in Beddau, South Wales.

She is believed to have killed him in 1997, before starting a relationship with another man. A pre-inquest hearing found that John had died of serious head injuries.
His body may have been stashed in their flat for 18 years.