New Zealand woman sentenced to at least 17 years for murdering her two children
A New Zealand woman convicted of murdering her two children and storing their bodies in suitcases for years was sentenced Wednesday to a minimum of 17 years in prison. Justice Geoffrey Venning told Hakyung Lee at Auckland’s High Court that she would begin her sentence as a patient in a locked psychiatric facility under New Zealand’s compulsory mental health treatment law and must return to prison once deemed well enough.
Lee, who was found guilty by a jury in September of killing 6-year-old Minu Jo and 8-year-old Yuna Jo in 2018, had her defense of insanity rejected. Her lawyers argued for a reduced sentence due to her mental illness, claiming she felt shame for her actions and faced threats and isolation in jail. Justice Venning said that while Lee was suffering from severe depression at the time, the murders were deliberate and calculated. In New Zealand, an insanity defense requires proving the defendant was incapable of understanding their actions or knowing they were wrong.
The children’s remains were discovered in 2022 after Lee stopped paying for an Auckland storage unit, which was subsequently auctioned online. Lee had fled to South Korea following the killings, changing her name, before being extradited to New Zealand for trial. She had been born in South Korea and previously went by Ji Eun Lee. During the trial, her lawyers admitted she had administered antidepressant medication that caused the deaths, saying her mental health deteriorated further after her husband’s death.
New Zealand law mandates life sentences for murder, with judges setting a minimum period before parole eligibility. In Lee’s case, that minimum was set at 17 years. At the hearing, the children’s uncle, Jimmy Sei Wook Jo, expressed his grief, saying he felt he had failed to protect Minu and Yuna. Lee’s mother also spoke of her enduring devastation, describing the pain as “cutting through my bones.” Police in New Zealand acknowledged assistance from South Korean authorities and noted that the children would have been 16 and 13 years old. Authorities extended their sympathies to the wider family for the tragic loss.
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