New Zealand woman guilty of murdering 2 children, hiding bodies in luggage

A woman has been found guilty by a New Zealand court of murdering her two young children and hiding their bodies in suitcases for years, until their remains were accidentally discovered.

A jury at the Auckland High Court on Tuesday found Hakyung Lee, 45, guilty of the double murder after just two hours of deliberations, rejecting an insanity defence made by her lawyers.

Lee was found guilty of killing her six-year-old son, Minu Jo, and eight-year-old daughter, Yuna Jo, in June 2018, several months after her husband died from cancer.

Justice Geoffrey Venning ordered that Lee remain in custody until her sentencing on November 26.

Murder carries a mandatory life sentence in New Zealand, with judges required to set a prison term of at least 10 years before an offender can apply for parole.

The New Zealand case garnered international headlines in 2022, when the children’s remains were found inside luggage at a disused storage facility in Auckland, after Lee stopped paying rental fees for the unit due to having run into financial difficulties.

Mum of children discovered dead in suitcases found guilty of murder after chilling trialhttps://t.co/M1UXLO9JYx

— Newstalk ZB (@NewstalkZB) September 23, 2025

The shocking discovery was made when the contents of the storage unit were auctioned online and the buyer took possession, finding the bodies inside suitcases.

Lee, who represented herself in court with the aid of two standby counsels, had argued that she was insane at the time of the killing.

Public broadcaster Radio New Zealand (RNZ) said Lee’s standby lawyer, Lorraine Smith, had argued that the death of Lee’s husband had led to a “deep descent” into insanity and the killing of her children.

Crown Prosecutor Natalie Walker said that Lee’s actions after the killing of her children were “calculated”, and she knew what she was doing, RNZ reported.

Lee, who is a New Zealand citizen, had left for South Korea after the killings in 2018 and changed her name. Following the discovery of her children’s bodies, she was tracked down and extradited from South Korea in November 2022.

“I suggest this shows her thinking rationally, even clinically, about taking her children’s lives and then covering up her heinous crimes,” Walker said, according to RNZ.

“It was a selfish act to free herself from the burden of parenting alone,” she said.

“It was not the altruistic act of a mother who had lost her mind and believed it was the morally right thing to do – it was the opposite,” she added.

When the trial began on September 8, Justice Venning had said that it would be distressing to Lee and granted her permission to watch the proceedings from another room in the court.

On Tuesday, Lee returned to the dock and stood with her head bowed and her hair covering her face as the verdict was announced, New Zealand news outlets reported.