New Zealand mother jailed for life over ‘suitcase murders’ of her children

Hakyung Lee gets life sentence with a minimum non-parole period of 17 years for murdering her two children and hiding their bodies in suitcases at a storage facility.

A New Zealand woman who murdered her two children and hid their bodies in suitcases at a storage facility has been sentenced to life in prison.

The sentencing of Hakyung Lee on Wednesday came after she was convicted in September for the grisly murders of the two children, aged eight and six, in 2018. The case was dubbed the New Zealand “suitcase murders”.

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Lee, who was born in South Korea, admitted to killing the children, but pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity. The murders took place a year after the children’s father had died of cancer.

Judge Geoffrey Venning rejected calls by Lee’s lawyers for a lesser penalty, sentencing the 45-year-old to life imprisonment with a minimum non-parole period of 17 years.

He said she had killed children who were “particularly vulnerable”.

But he approved compulsory treatment at a secure psychiatric facility, with the condition that Lee would return to prison once deemed mentally fit, according to the New Zealand Herald newspaper.

“You knew your actions were morally wrong … perhaps you could not bear to have your children around you as a constant reminder of your previous happy life,” Venning said.

Lee showed little emotion as she sat in court, bowing her head with eyes fixed to the floor as the judge handed down the sentence.

Life imprisonment is the harshest punishment available in New Zealand, which abolished the death penalty in 1989.

Lee, who said she was stricken with grief following her husband’s death, killed her son Minu Jo and daughter Yuna Jo by lacing their fruit juice with an overdose of prescription medication.

Lee said she had planned to kill herself alongside the children, but got the dose wrong.

She wrapped her dead children in plastic bags before stuffing them into suitcases that were then hidden at a suburban storage warehouse on the outskirts of Auckland, New Zealand’s largest city.

The bodies sat in storage until 2022, when an unsuspecting family pried open the contents of an abandoned storage locker they bought at an auction.

‘Deep descent’ into mental illness

Police used DNA and other forensic evidence to piece together who the children were, how long they had been dead, and ultimately who had killed them.

Lee, who had long since changed her name and fled the country for her native South Korea, was eventually tracked down and arrested in the port city of Ulsan.

She was extradited to face trial in New Zealand.

Lee represented herself during the trial, supported by two lawyers.

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.

The lawyers told the court that the death of Lee’s husband, Ian Jo, in 2017 triggered a “deep descent” into mental illness that made her believe the only answer was to kill the children and then herself, Radio NZ reported.

A forensic psychiatrist testified for the defence about Lee’s mental state, describing depression, suicidal thoughts and a belief that killing her children was the right thing to do.

But the prosecution argued Lee’s behaviour was calculated, pointing to her efforts to hide the bodies before fleeing the country.

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. “Why did she take the innocent children with her?”

Lee’s brother-in-law said the children’s other grandmother was sick with cancer and still did not know about the murders.

Sei Wook Cho said his “daily existence is a time bomb of fear” that the grandmother would find out, according to a statement read to the court.

“It was my late brother’s will that I protect them,” read the statement. “They were our hope for the future. This is an ongoing sentence from which I can never be paroled.”