Mother Killed Her Children and Hid Their Bodies in Suitcases Sentenced to Life in Prison

A New Zealand mother who killed her two children and hid their bodies in suitcases has been sentenced to life in prison.

Hakyung Lee, a New Zealand citizen originally from South Korea, received a life sentence with a minimum non-parole period of 17 years, according to ABC AU.

High Court judge Geoffrey Venning handed down the sentence on Tuesday, Nov. 25, stating that Lee, 43, killed her children when they were “particularly vulnerable,” according to The Guardian.

The bodies of Lee’s children, 6-year-old Minu Jo and 8-year-old Yuna Jo, were discovered four years after their deaths in a case that became widely known as “the suitcase murders.” Lee poisoned them with an overdose of a prescription medication in 2018, The Guardian reported.

According to ABC AU, she gave the children a lethal dose of the antidepressant nortriptyline mixed into orange juice.

After killing them, Lee concealed their bodies in suitcases, stored them in a self-storage locker, and later left New Zealand for South Korea, where she changed her name, The Guardian reported. The children’s remains were eventually discovered by a family who bought the contents of the storage unit at an auction. Lee was later extradited from South Korea to face trial in New Zealand in 2022.

The murders took place in the family’s home in Auckland’s Papatoetoe neighborhood, according to the New Zealand Herald. During the trial, defense lawyers Lorraine Smith and Chris Wilkinson-Smith argued that Lee’s actions were part of a failed murder-suicide. Prosecutors, however, pointed to evidence that she had already begun preparing an escape plan before the killings.

In the days leading up to the murders, Lee bought a lottery ticket, spent around $900 at a hair salon, and purchased a business-class plane ticket to South Korea, the outlet reported.

The killings occurred about a year after the death of Lee’s husband, Ian Jo, who died from esophageal cancer. Prosecutors said Lee’s mother told them her daughter had expressed suicidal thoughts both before and after her husband’s death.

“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,” Crown prosecutor Natalie Walker said in court, according to ABC AU.

“If she wanted to die, why didn’t she die alone?” Lee’s mother, Choon Ja Lee, said in a statement read to the court, ABC AU reported. “Why did she take the innocent children with her?”