A New Zealand woman is convicted of murdering her 2 children and leaving
their bodies in suitcases
[September 23, 2025]
By CHARLOTTE GRAHAM-McLAY
WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) — A jury in New Zealand on Tuesday found a
woman guilty of murdering her two children and leaving their bodies in
suitcases for years before they were discovered.
The verdict meant the jury at the High Court in Auckland rejected a
defense of insanity made by lawyers for Hakyung Lee, who fled to South
Korea after the killings before being extradited to face trial. The
swift verdict arrived hours after jurors were sent to deliberate on
Tuesday morning.
Lee was charged with killing Minu Jo, 6, and Yuna Jo, 8, in June 2018.
The children’s remains were found inside luggage at an abandoned storage
unit in Auckland in August 2022.
Lee, who is a New Zealand citizen, had traveled to South Korea and
changed her name in 2018, shortly after the children are believed to
have been killed. She was born in South Korea and went by the name Ji
Eun Lee previously.
The 45-year-old woman was extradited from South Korea in November 2022.
She denied the charges, with her lawyers arguing that she was insane at
the time of the murders.
Lawyers for Lee admitted she had killed the children by giving them an
anti-depressant medication, but they said the deaths happened after
their client “descended into madness," Lorraine Smith said. Lee had
always been “fragile,” said Smith, but her mental illness became worse
after her husband's death.
Prosecutors said that Lee had likely suffered from depression but that
it was not severe enough to support an insanity defense. In New Zealand,
such a claim requires a murder defendant to prove they were incapable of
understanding what they were doing or that it was wrong.
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Hakyung Lee stands in the dock at the High Court in Auckland, New
Zealand, Monday, Sept. 8, 2025. (Lawrence Smith/Stuff Pool Photo via
AP, File)
There was a “cold calculation” to Lee's actions, prosecutor Natalie
Walker told the court. Walker said Lee had killed her children out
of selfishness and planned to begin a new life without them.
The children’s remains were discovered after Lee stopped paying
rental fees for an Auckland storage unit when she ran into financial
difficulties in 2022. The locker’s contents were auctioned online
and the buyers found the bodies inside.
After Tuesday's verdict, Justice Geoffrey Venning ordered that Lee
remain in custody until she is sentenced on Nov. 26. Murder carries
a mandatory life sentence in New Zealand, with judges required to
set a prison term of at least 10 years before an offender can apply
for parole.
Venning said when the trial began on Sept. 8 it would be distressing
to Lee and granted her permission to watch the proceedings from
another room in the courthouse. She returned to the dock for the
verdict, and stood with her head bowed and her hair covering her
face, New Zealand news outlets reported.
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