A mother accused of murdering her children and hiding their bodies in suitcases, in a case that has become known as New Zealand’s “suitcase murders”, has been found guilty by an Auckland court.
The bodies of Yuna Jo and Minu Jo, aged eight and six at the time of their deaths, were discovered inside suitcases bought at a storage unit auction in Auckland in August 2022. Authorities believed they had been dead for three to four years by the time their bodies were found.
Hakyung Lee – a 45-year-old New Zealand citizen originally from South Korea – was extradited from her home country in 2022, after a police investigation identified her as the mother of the two dead children.
Lee represented herself at the high court in Auckland but did not speak or answer any questions throughout the trial. She was assisted by two standby counsel, RNZ reported.
Throughout the three-week trial, Lee sat between a translator and a security guard with her head bowed, and her hair obscuring her face.
Lee admitted to giving her children the antidepressant medication nortriptyline, putting their bodies in the luggage and into the storage unit, but argued she was not guilty of murder by reason of insanity, brought on by a depressive episode after her husband died of cancer in 2017.
The jury at the Auckland high court found her guilty after just two hours of deliberations.
She now faces a maximum sentence of life in prison with a non-parole period of at least a decade under New Zealand law.
Standby counsel Chris Wilkinson-Smith had urged the jurors to return not guilty verdicts.
“She was a normal mother and then something went seriously wrong … she did something she would never contemplate doing. She would never harm her children let alone kill them.”
But Crown prosecutor Natalie Walker argued that Lee’s actions were a calculated act “to free herself from the burden of parenting alone”.
Lee hid the remains of her children, changed her name and moved to Korea, Walker said.
“I suggest this shows her thinking rationally, even clinically, about taking her children’s lives and then covering up her heinous crimes,” she said.
“It was not the altruistic act of a mother who had lost her mind and believed it was the morally right thing to do, it was the opposite.”
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