A mother who murdered her two children and hid their bodies in suitcases stored inside a rented locker has been sentenced to life imprisonment in New Zealand.
Hakyung Lee, a New Zealand citizen originally from South Korea, was found guilty earlier this year of killing her children in a crime that has become known as the “suitcase murders”.
High court judge Geoffrey Venning sentenced Lee to life imprisonment with a minimum non-parole period of 17 years, saying she had killed children who were “particularly vulnerable”.
Lee killed her children, Minu Jo and Yuna Jo, aged six and eight, with an overdose of prescription medication in 2018. The bodies were not found until 2022, when an unsuspecting family pried open the contents of an abandoned storage locker they bought in an auction.
Lee, who had long since changed her name and fled the country for South Korea, was extradited to face trial in New Zealand.
The sentencing hearing on Wednesday heard how the murders had left deep emotional scars on Lee’s family.
“If she wanted to die why didn’t she die alone?” Lee’s mother Choon Ja Lee said in a statement read to the court.
The trial hinged not on whether Lee had murdered her children – which she had confessed to – but whether she knew her actions were morally wrong. Her lawyers had argued she was not guilty by reason of insanity and that the death of her husband in 2017 sent her into a depressive spiral.
A forensic psychiatrist testified for the defence about Lee’s mental state – describing depression, suicidal thoughts, guilt, and a belief that killing her children was the right thing to do.
But the prosecution had argued she knew what she was doing, pointing to her efforts to hide the bodies before fleeing the country.
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