A mother who murdered her two children and stuffed them into suitcases stashed inside a storage locker has been sentenced to life imprisonment in New Zealand.
Warning: This story contains details that may be distressing for some users.
Hakyung Lee, a New Zealand citizen originally from South Korea, was found guilty in September of killing her children — eight-year-old Yuna Jo and six-year-old Minu Jo — in a grisly crime dubbed the country's "suitcase murders".
Justice Geoffrey Venning sentenced Lee to life imprisonment with a minimum non-parole period of 17 years, but ordered that she be treated as a special patient under the Criminal Procedure Mentally Impaired Persons Act.
Justice Venning went through Lee's background and the timeline leading up to the children's death.
He said Lee's mental health played a major role.
An updated psychiatric report had been carried out before sentencing, which indicated Lee was likely suffering from an atypical depression and prolonged grief reaction at the time of the murders.
Justice Venning concluded Lee killed her children because she could not cope with the burden and responsibility of caring for them after her husband's death, influenced by her depression.
"You relied heavily on him during your marriage, you could not cope when he became seriously unwell, and perhaps you could not bear to have the children around you as a constant reminder of your former happy life, which had been cruelly taken from you," he said.
On Wednesday, Lee sat in the dock, silent, with her head hung low, as she had done throughout her trial.
Lee represented herself in court during the trial, but the 45-year-old watched it unfold from a separate courtroom at the High Court at Auckland, aided by her interpreter.
She gave Yuna and Minu orange juice laced with prescription medicine in mid-2018, before placing their bodies, clothed and in plastic bags, inside two suitcases.
Lee then moved the suitcases, along with her belongings, into a rented storage unit in Auckland, changed her name and left for South Korea.
Their remains were discovered four years later, in August 2022, when payments to the facility lapsed, and the items inside were auctioned off.
'No will to live'
Lee was extradited to face trial in New Zealand and admitted to killing her children, but argued she was not guilty by reason of insanity.
Her assistant counsel said Lee had spiralled after her husband's death from cancer in 2017 and claimed she believed killing Yuna and Minu was "morally right".
Lee's husband, Ian Jo, was diagnosed with oesophageal cancer in 2017 and died in November of that year.
Following his diagnosis and during his treatment, Lee told multiple people she was going to kill herself and her children if he died.
After his death, Lee's mother, Choon Ja Lee, said her daughter stopped eating and had "no will to live".
"I told her, if you really want to follow your husband, go by yourself, and I'll take the kids,'" Choon Ja Lee told the court.
The family went on multiple holidays, where Lee spent large amounts of money and booked luxury hotels.
Sometime in April 2018, Lee admitted to giving her children a dose of nortriptyline, mixed in juice.
"[Ms Lee] said she gave the children the medication," Crown prosecutor Natalie Walker said, referencing testimony by defence witness Yvette Kelly.
"The children drank the juice and then they became drowsy from the medication and they toddled off to their own beds … and went to sleep there and then."
The medication had been prescribed to Lee the previous year after she told her GP she was having trouble sleeping.
Ms Walker described Lee as isolated and dependent on her husband.
"The Crown suggests that when she gave her two young children nortriptyline, it was a selfish act to free herself from the burden of parenting alone," Ms Walker said.
"It was not the altruistic act of a mother who had lost her mind and believed it was the right thing to do; it was the opposite."
Ms Walker pointed to the children's age and vulnerability as factors setting a minimum sentence, describing it as a gross breach of trust.
"Being only six and eight [years old] at the time they were killed, their vulnerability was heightened by the fact that it was their sole surviving parent who killed them, having recently lost their father."
After just over two weeks of trial, the jury deliberated for about three hours before returning a guilty verdict on both counts of murder.
Under New Zealand law, the mandatory sentence for murder is life imprisonment, with a non-parole period of at least 10 years.
Court hears of impact on family
Today, the court heard a statement from Lee's mother, Choon Ja Lee, read aloud by a Crown lawyer in Korean and English.
She described the anguish after learning what had happened to her grandchildren
"It felt like a pain that cut through my bones, or as if someone were gouging out my chest," she said.
"I wanted to be free from suffering, but I had no one to lean on."
Choon Ja Lee said she had trouble sleeping, turning to alcohol to help.
She said she was ostracised by her church community after news broke of her daughter's actions.
"The treatment I received was unexpectedly cold. They did not welcome me but avoided me, and I was met only with glances that showed they did not wish to speak to me," she said.
"I came to the realisation that among the church members I had been labelled as the mother of a murderer."
She also spoke about how she wished she had acted sooner.
She said she deeply regretted not taking her daughter to a counsellor, introduced to her by a friend.
"I keep thinking that if I had taken her at that time, this tragedy might have been prevented."
Despite it all, she said she still hoped her daughter would eventually be released from prison on parole.
Heavy, agonising guilt
Ian Jo's brother, Jimmy Sei Wook Jo, was in the courtroom, but also had his statement read aloud by a lawyer.
"This situation is something I would expect to read about in a novel or watch in a TV series," he said.
"I never imagined such a profound tragedy would ever befall our family."
He said he found it difficult to be near Asian children the same age as Minu and Yuna.
"When I see them, I feel overwhelmed, as though they will ask me, 'Why didn't you stop this?'''
He carried a heavy, agonising guilt, he said.
He said he dared not tell his own mother about what happened, for fear it would kill her.
"It was my late brother's will that I protect them.
"This is an ongoing sentence from which I can never be paroled."
ABC/AFP/RNZ
