A New Zealand mum has admitted to killing her two children and stuffing them into suitcases after her husband’s death from cancer.
Hakyung Lee, 45, is currently on trial for the murders of her son, Minu, 6, and daughter, Yuna, 8, who were found dead in June 2018 in Auckland, New Zealand.
She’s reportedly told lawyers she drugged the children with Nortriptyline, an antidepressant used for anxiety and sometimes nerve pain, which she was given in August 2017.
Her husband died of cancer in late 2017, leaving a cushy life insurance payout for the family, which she used on clothes, spa treatments and trips with her two children.
Prosecutors say the death of her husband sent Lee into a ‘spiral of madness’, with lawyer Lorraine Smith telling the court: ‘She was beginning to unravel as her descent into hell began. She felt it was best if they all died together.’
Lee divided up the medication between herself and her two children before they all fell asleep. Lee woke up – her children were dead, but she was still alive.
She’s pleading not guilty to their murders by reason of insanity, but her actions after the children’s deaths are facing harsh scrutiny.
Right after her children’s deaths, Lee changed her name and flew straight to South Korea, which the prosecution says proves she knew the killing was wrong and that she was not insane.
Her children’s bodies weren’t found until four years later, when a family which bought the abandoned storage shed where their bodies lay in suitcases found them in August 2022.
She came back to the country later in 2022 with a detective, whom she allegedly told: ‘I was accused of something I have not done. I know who did it, but it doesn’t matter.
‘I just want to say I did not do it and I want to die in New Zealand, where my husband and children are.’
Investigators later found out that Lee bought duct tape and bin bags from a shop days after her children’s deaths in late June 2018, before returning later to get a padlock and more bags.
To this day, it’s not known if her children died from a fatal overdose of the drugs in their system, or if they had been suffocated or killed in another way prior.
The trial continues.
In 2022, the body of a 12-year-old girl was found in a suitcase in Paris, after she vanished following classes at school.
CCTV footage later showed the girl entering the building with a woman in her 20s, before the woman was later seen leaving with a suitcase.
Police checked the basement of the family home and reportedly found tape and a pair of cutters, leading to suggestions of a potential kidnapping.
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