Hakyung Lee, the mother guilty of killing her two children and hiding their bodies in suitcases, has been sentenced to life in prison with a minimum non-parole period of 17 years in court today.
She will be held as a special patient for mental health treatment.
While sentencing Lee, Justice Geoffrey Venning said: “Even though you were suffering from a serious depression, the steps you took immediately prior to killing the children on 27 June, the method of killing them, and the steps you took immediately after showed a clearly measured approach to killing the children and then to cover up your actions so that you could leave New Zealand and establish a new life in Korea.”
Today’s hearing at the Auckland High Court marked the end of a case that garnered international attention, following the harrowing discovery of the remains of Lee’s two young children in a storage locker.
Prosecutors argued for life in prison with a minimum parole period of 21 to 23 years, saying Lee’s actions in the wake of the murders showed intent. It was argued that she perhaps wanted to relieve herself of the burden of raising the children, so she killed them.
The defence argued for a finite term of imprisonment, saying she was suffering from mental health issues stemming from the death of her husband when she murdered the children.
The murder investigation into the deaths of Yuna, 8, and Minu Jo, 6, was launched four years after they died in 2018. Their bodies were discovered compacted into suitcases at a facility in Auckland’s Clendon Park on August 11, 2022.
The remains were found by a family who had bought the contents of the abandoned locker in an online auction. Just over a month later, Lee was arrested by the authorities in South Korea and later extradited to New Zealand to face murder charges.
Lee defended herself at trial, but did not speak in court. Her counsel argued the murder of her children was the culmination of a “descent into madness” that began with the death of her husband from cancer in 2017.
Suitcase killings: The desperately sad evidence that brought the jury to tears
She admitted to killing her children and hiding the bodies, but argued she was insane at the time.
Her counsel said Lee had fallen into a deep depression after her husband’s death, becoming isolated and suicidal. Lee believed it was best if the whole family died together. Using the antidepressant Nortriptyline, Lee attempted to kill herself and the children. She was prescribed the drug in 2017 after Jo’s death.
Lee had got the dose wrong and woke up to find her children dead. She wrapped and hid their bodies in suitcases and left them in a storage locker. She changed her name and left New Zealand for South Korea.
After years of no contact with Lee or the children, she reappeared at a psychiatric ward in 2022, where her mother found her via a Hamilton-based pastor.
Months later, the bodies were found, and Lee was extradited.
Prosecutors argued Lee’s actions in the wake of her children’s deaths showed she knew what she was doing, and that it was wrong.
The jury found Lee guilty of the murders in September this year.