Hakyung Lee appears in the High Court in Auckland in November, 2022.
Photo: RNZ / Nick Monro
Warning: This story mentions suicide and deals with mental health and child homicide.
The police officer who extradited a woman accused of murdering her children and hiding their bodies in suitcases back from South Korea says she told him she did not do it.
Hakyung Lee is charged with the murders of her children Minu and Yuna Jo.
The bodies of the six and eight-year-old were discovered in suitcases almost four years after they were killed, when a family bought the contents of an abandoned storage locker in an Auckland auction.
Lee, who was born Ji Eun Lee, is representing herself in the trial in the High Court at Auckland, assisted by two standby counsel.
She admits causing her children’s deaths and putting their remains in suitcases in storage, but argues she is not guilty by reason of insanity at the time of the killings, following a “descent into madness” after the death of her husband Ian Jo in late 2017.
‘So many questions’ on extradition to NZ
On Tuesday, jurors heard from Detective Sergeant Sung Kyu Hwang, who escorted Lee after she was arrested and extradited from South Korea in 2022.
Detective Sergeant Hwang told the court he met Lee at the airport gate, before they boarded a plane back to New Zealand.
“I could see her panicking, and breathing with a paper bag on her mouth,” he said. “I saw a doctor assisting her to calm her down, and I saw Lee taking her medication.”
Lee told Hwang she was concerned about media coverage on her arrival to New Zealand, and was reassured steps would be taken so she was not exposed to reporters.
His duty was to safely escort her back to New Zealand, Hwang told her.
Hwang read Lee her rights on the plane in both Korean and English. Neither of them slept on the 11-hour flight back to the country.
Sat at the very back of the plane, Lee told Hwang she had “so many questions”.
“I was accused of something that I have not done,” Lee told him. “Nobody in Korea has told me about the details of the case, except that my children have been murdered and I am being accused of murdering those children.”
She said she had told Korean authorities she wanted to return to New Zealand as soon as possible and hold a funeral for the children.
Crown prosecutor Natalie Walker clarified Lee was travelling back in Hwang’s custody under an arrest warrant, rather than volunteering to return.
Hwang said Lee told him she was innocent, and made comments about committing suicide.
“I know who did it, but it does not matter,” she said.
“Proving innocence does not change anything, whether I get found guilty or not does not change anything. I just want to say that I did not do it, and I want to die in New Zealand along where my husband and children are.”
Lee told him her children were in an institution or an orphanage in New Zealand, Hwang said.
She told Hwang she had made a suicide attempt, which she reported to the police.
“Why would I reveal myself to the police if I killed my children?” she asked him.
Hwang said they arrived back in the country just after midday. He escorted Lee to an unmarked van and read her her rights once again in English and Korean.
At the police station Lee spoke with a lawyer, and agreed to give a DNA sample to police.
Hwang had also examined a Sony laptop found in the same storage unit as the children’s remains.
He said he found a number of internet searches about hotels and flights to the Gold Coast, twice to Korea and to Taupō, and noted searches relating to children were at a minimum.
Lee’s standby Counsel Chris Wilkinson-Smith cross examined Hwang, asking more about the laptop and in particular Lee’s searches for renting storage.
Wilkinson-Smith took Hwang through a record where Lee had searched for storage facilities in November 2017.
Photo: Supplied
‘My heart is always with you’
Earlier that morning, jurors heard from a friend of Lee whose evidence was read by Crown prosecutor Natalie Walker.
In the statement, Eun Kyung Christine Cho said she was one of Lee’s close friends, with whom she kept in regular contact, before Cho moved to Australia.
She said the friendship was perfectly normal, talking every few months on a messaging platform and catching up with other friends.
Cho said she did not think Lee had any problems with her mental health.
“From what I know, Ji Eun did not suffer from any mental health issues,” she said. “She was always bright, smiley and joking around, just like any other normal person.”
Lee did not reveal to Cho her husband Ian Jo was sick with cancer, she said.
When Cho discovered Lee’s husband had died, she messaged her hoping to console her friend.
“You know that my heart is always with you right?” she wrote. “My dear sister, my heart aches when I think of your pain. Text me whenever you want to talk, I’ll call you right away.”
The pair met on the Gold Coast shortly after Jo’s death, and went to dinner.
“She looked normal. I think she did not accept the fact her husband had passed away,” Cho said.
“Initially she did not want to talk about her husband. I think she wanted to forget about her husband’s death.”
Photo: Lawrence Smith/ Stuff Pool
Cho said she had to ask several times before Lee spoke about Jo’s death.
While dining, Lee told Cho she wished the plane she and her family flew to Australia on would crash, so she and her children could “die together”, saying she would have been less sad if her children had died instead of her husband.
“I did not take this as anything unusual, I just thought it was part of the grieving process that she was going through,” Cho said.
After Lee returned to New Zealand, Cho said the two messaged one another in the following months.
Then, in June 2018, the messages stopped.
Cho messaged Lee again over the next five months, repeatedly with no reply. She asked if she had changed her name after noticing it was different on the messaging channel.
In her last message in November, she checked in with Lee after not hearing from her.
“Sis.. Are you doing alright? I am starting to get worried.”
The trial continues on Wednesday.
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