Killer mum who dumped her two dead children in suitcases at storage facility finally sentenced

A New Zealand mother who killed her children and put their bodies in suitcases left inside a storage unit for four years has been sentenced to life imprisonment.

Hakyung Lee, 43, faced the High Court in Auckland on Wednesday for sentencing after she was found guilty in September of murdering her two children.

The sentence comes more than seven years since the children were killed, and nearly three years since their bodies were discovered. 

In June 2018, Lee gave eight-year-old Yuna Jo and six-year-old Minu Jo an overdose of prescription medicine. 

She stuffed their bodies into two suitcases, which she abandoned at a storage facility in Auckland.

The children’s remains were then found inside the luggage at an abandoned storage unit in August 2022.

Lee, who is a New Zealand citizen, travelled to South Korea and changed her name in 2018, shortly after the children are believed to have been killed.

Justice Geoffrey Venning sentenced Lee to life imprisonment on Wednesday, which will begin as a special patient under the Mental Health Act.

Lee, who kept her head down during the hearing, her long hair covering her face, must serve a minimum of 17 years in jail before she is eligible for parole.

Justice Venning said that while Lee suffered from severe depression, the murders were ‘deliberate and calculated’, and she understood the moral wrongfulness of her actions.

He rejected Lee’s claim that she acted impulsively, and said her organised actions, including changing her name, buying a suitcase, tidying up affairs and sitting a driver’s test, as clear evidence of planning.

Lee’s mother and brother-in-law gave victim impact statements during the sentencing hearing, New Zealand website Stuff reports.

Grieving grandmother Choon Ja Lee said she had been labelled ‘mother of a murderer’ by members of her church.

She added that she ‘deeply regretted’ not taking her daughter to a counsellor after returning from a trip to Australia in 2017.

‘If I had taken her at that time this tragedy might have been prevented,’ Choon Ja Lee said.

‘It felt like a pain that cut through my bones or as if someone was gouging out my chest I wanted to be free from suffering but had no one to lean on.’ 

In a separate statement, Sei Wook – Jimmy – Cho, described his sister-in-law’s cruel deception and how it had devastated his family.

‘We genuinely believed she was moving to start a fresh life away from New Zealand. Instead of a reassuring call…the truth shattered our family,’ he said.

‘I carry a heavy agonising guilt…I feel like I failed to look after my niece and nephew.’

The bodies of Yuna and Minu were discovered after Lee stopped paying rental fees for the Auckland storage unit when she ran into financial difficulties in 2022.

The locker’s contents were auctioned online and, when the buyers took the suitcases home, they found the bodies inside.

The court heard both children were fully clothed and individually wrapped in multiple layers of plastic bags.

Evidence showed Lee changed her name, moved belongings into storage, including the suitcases, and fled to South Korea in 2018.

Cutting contact with friends and family, Lee was later found by her mother at a hospital after being admitted for mental health treatment in 2022.

She was arrested in September 2022 in South Korea and extradited to New Zealand following a formal request that she return to the country to face court.

During the subsequent trial, Lee’s defence team argued the mother-of-two was afraid she would take her own life and her children would find her inside their home.

Her husband, Ian Jo, died more than six months before Lee murdered their two children, following his cancer diagnosis in 2017.

The defence argued Lee’s mental health was fragile, which pushed her to ‘descend into madness’ and kill her children. 

However, Crown Prosecutor Natalie Walker told the court the steps Lee took after killing her children were consistent with wanting a new life on her own.

Crown prosecutor Natalie Walker told the court, ‘the thought of a life parenting her children alone’ may have been too much for Lee.

Following a more than two-week trial and about three hours of deliberation, the jury returned a unanimous verdict, and Lee was found guilty on both counts of murder. 

On Wednesday, Ms Walker argued for a sentence of life imprisonment after saying there was no evidence of Lee’s suicidal thoughts and attempts apart from her own reports.

‘Her most likely diagnosis was that she suffered from a major depressive disorder or grief disorder,’ she said.

Walker told Justice Venning the evidence suggested Lee deliberately killed the children perhaps to free herself from parenting alone before she hid the crime and left for South Korea.

Lawyers Lorraine Smith and Chris Wilkinson-Smith, who assisted Lee as she represented herself, claimed she lives in a world of shame in prison, where she is threatened, taunted and ridiculed, factors they argued increased her suicide risk.

Mr Wilkinson-Smith argued against life imprisonment, requesting Lee be sentenced to some time in a secure facility initially to support her mental health.

‘Now she is a convicted murderer the risk of suicide increases,’ he said.

Justice Venning ruled in favour of the prosecution and rejected that Lee tried to kill herself.

‘Your actions were organised and considered over a number of days,’ he said.