A woman, identified as Hakyung Lee, has been declared guilty of murder for the deaths of her two young children, eight-year-old Yuna Jo and six-year-old Minu Jo. The verdict was reached in the High Court on Tuesday. The court learned that in June 2018, Lee gave her children a lethal dose of prescription drugs before placing their bodies in suitcases and leaving them in a storage facility in Auckland.
After abandoning New Zealand, Lee flew to South Korea, where she assumed a new identity and severed ties with acquaintances and relatives. The bodies remained hidden until August 2022 when the storage fees went unpaid, leading to an auction of the unit’s contents, revealing the gruesome discovery.
Due to the prolonged period before the bodies were found, a forensic pathologist faced challenges in determining the exact cause of death. The children were discovered dressed and wrapped in multiple layers of plastic bags. It remains uncertain whether the drug overdose directly caused their deaths or if it was used to sedate them before other means were employed.
Following her escape to South Korea, Lee was eventually located by her mother in a hospital in 2022, where she was receiving mental health treatment. When asked about her children, she denied having any. Subsequently, she was arrested and extradited back to New Zealand for trial.
During the legal proceedings, Lee’s defense team argued that her mental illness absolved her of criminal responsibility, attributing her actions to a breakdown after her husband’s death in 2017. The defense claimed that Lee perceived killing her children as a morally justifiable act to avoid leaving them behind to find her dead.
However, the Crown Prosecutor, Natalie Walker, countered this argument, asserting that Lee’s conduct reflected careful planning and rational decision-making. Walker argued that the murders were premeditated and not the result of mental delusion but a calculated effort to evade the responsibilities of single parenthood.
After a brief jury deliberation following a two-week trial, Lee was convicted on both murder charges. She was remanded in custody by Justice Geoffrey Venning for a mental health evaluation before sentencing, scheduled for November 26. In New Zealand, a murder conviction carries a mandatory life sentence, with a minimum non-parole period of 10 years.
During the trial, Justice Venning recognized the emotional strain on Lee and permitted her to participate remotely via videolink from a separate courtroom, with translation assistance.