A New Zealand woman has been convicted of murdering her two young children and hiding their bodies in suitcases for four years before they were discovered in a storage unit.
A jury at Auckland’s High Court on Tuesday found 45-year-old Hakyung Lee guilty of killing her son Minu Jo, 6, and daughter Yuna Jo, 8, in June 2018. Jurors rejected her lawyers’ argument that she was insane at the time of the killings. The verdict came just hours after deliberations began.
The children’s remains were discovered in August 2022 when the contents of an abandoned Auckland storage unit were auctioned online after Lee stopped paying the rental fees. Buyers opened the luggage and found the bodies inside.
Lee, a New Zealand citizen originally from South Korea and previously known as Ji Eun Lee, fled to South Korea after the murders and changed her name. She was extradited back to New Zealand in November 2022 to face trial.
Her defence team admitted Lee gave the children an antidepressant but argued she had “descended into madness” following the death of her husband. Prosecutors countered that although Lee may have been depressed, her condition did not meet the legal standard for insanity and that she acted with “cold calculation” to start a new life without her children.
Justice Geoffrey Venning ordered Lee to remain in custody until her sentencing on November 26. In New Zealand, murder carries a mandatory life sentence, with a minimum of 10 years before parole eligibility.
Lee had been allowed to watch much of her trial from another room due to its distressing nature but returned to the dock for the verdict, standing with her head bowed and her hair covering her face, according to local reports.
