Mother in New Zealand’s ‘suitcase murders’ case sentenced to life in prison
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Lee Hakyung killed her children Minu Jo and Yuna Jo, aged six and eight, with an overdose of prescription medication in 2018.
PHOTO: AFP
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AUCKLAND - A mother who murdered her two children and stuffed them into suitcases stashed inside a storage locker was on Nov 25 sentenced to life imprisonment in New Zealand.
Lee Hakyung, a New Zealand citizen originally from South Korea, was earlier in 2025 found guilty of killing her children
High Court judge Geoffrey Venning sentenced Lee to life imprisonment with a minimum non-parole period of 17 years, saying she had killed children who were “particularly vulnerable”.
The 45-year-old showed little emotion as she sat in court, bowing her head with eyes fixed to the floor as the judge handed down the sentence.
Lee killed her children Minu Jo and Yuna Jo, aged six and eight, with an overdose of prescription medication in 2018.
Stricken with grief following her husband’s death from cancer, Lee said she had planned to kill herself alongside the children but got the dose wrong.
She wrapped her dead children in plastic bags before stuffing them into suitcases that were then hidden in a suburban storage warehouse on the outskirts of Auckland, New Zealand’s largest city.
The bodies sat in storage until 2022, when an unsuspecting family opened the contents of an abandoned storage locker they bought in an auction.
Police used DNA and other forensic evidence to piece together who the children were, how long they had been dead and ultimately who had killed them.
Lee, who had long since changed her name and fled the country for her native South Korea, was eventually tracked down and arrested in the port city of Ulsan.
She was extradited to face trial in New Zealand.
The sentencing hearing on Nov 25 heard how the murders had left deep emotional scars on Lee’s family.
‘Time bomb of fear’
“If she wanted to die, why didn’t she die alone?” Lee’s mother, Madam Lee Choon Ja, said in a statement read to the court.
“Why did she take the innocent children with her?”
Lee’s brother-in-law said the children’s other grandmother was sick with cancer and still did not know about the murders.
Mr Cho Sei Wook said his “daily existence is a time bomb of fear” that the grandmother would find out, according to a statement also read to the court.
“It was my late brother’s will that I protect them,” read the statement. “This is an ongoing sentence from which I can never be paroled.”
The trial hinged not on whether Lee had murdered her children – which she had confessed to – but whether she knew her actions were morally wrong.
Her lawyers had argued she was not guilty by reason of insanity and that the death of her husband in 2017 sent her into a depressive spiral.
A forensic psychiatrist testified for the defence about Lee’s mental state – describing depression, suicidal thoughts, guilt and a belief that killing her children was the right thing to do.
But the prosecution had argued she knew what she was doing, pointing to her efforts to hide the bodies before fleeing the country. AFP
