![\"Minu](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/hakyung-lee-suitcases-HVE74TTZTZCOTOW3NNWSWQOY24.jpg\")
<\/p>\nA forensic accountant has told the High Court at Auckland the spending of a woman accused of murdering her children and hiding their bodies in suitcases skyrocketed after her husband’s death.<\/p>\n
Hakyung Lee faces two charges of murder over the deaths of her children Yuna and Minu Jo in 2018.<\/p>\n
The bodies of Minu Jo and Yuna Jo, aged six and eight at the time of their deaths, were discovered in suitcases almost four years after they were killed, when a family bought the contents of an abandoned storage locker in an online auction.<\/p>\n
Lee’s standby counsel argued she was insane at the time following a “descent into madness” that began with the death of her husband Ian Jo from cancer in 2017.<\/p>\n
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Minu and Yuna Jo were six and eight years old when they died in 2018. (Source: 1News)<\/p>\n
The Crown, however, argued Lee’s actions after the deaths of her children – including hiring a storage unit, moving the bodies, changing her name and fleeing to Korea – showed she knew what she was doing, and knew it was wrong.<\/p>\n
In court on Monday morning, forensic accountant Andrew Yoon told jurors he had gone through the couple’s bank accounts.<\/p>\n
He said Lee’s total credit card spending went up by 1397% after her husband’s death, from about $800 a month in the roughly 10 months leading up to his passing to $11,992 a month in the eight months after, excluding funeral costs.<\/p>\n
“From the credit cards, they have purchased a lot of international flights and 5 star hotels overseas, and lots of expenses and shopping overseas, that was observed.”<\/p>\n
Lee took her children and mother to the Gold Coast in Australia shortly after her husband’s death, where her mother took notice of her expensive spending.<\/p>\n
Yoon was asked by Crown Prosecutor Jay Tausi about the travel expenses before this holiday and Jo’s death, between January and November 2017.<\/p>\n
There was $4071 spent, which included flights Ian Jo took to South Korea, Yoon said.<\/p>\n
Jurors heard earlier that Jo had gone to Korea for medical treatment, but came back after it was unsuccessful.<\/p>\n
Yoon calculated after Jo’s passing, Lee spent $33,593 – more than $4000 a month – on holidays and travel alone.<\/p>\n
Tausi and Yoon went through payments made by Lee to Safe Store, where the children’s bodies were kept until their discovery in 2022.<\/p>\n
Lee paid a total of $16,330 to Safe Store between July 2018 and April 2022, Yoon said.<\/p>\n