A New Zealand woman was given a life sentence for tarnishing her two children and storing their bodies in storage units.
Hakyung Lee’s sentencing was announced on Wednesday after her sentencing in September 2018 for the heinous murders of her two children, ages 8 and 6, respectively. The case was referred to as the “suitcase murders” in New Zealand.
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Lee, who was born in South Korea, admitted to killing the children but entered a not-guilty blunder. One year after the children’s father passed away from cancer, the murders occurred.
The 45-year-old was sentenced to life in prison with a minimum non-parole period of 17 years, despite requests from Lee’s attorneys for a lower penalty.
He claimed that she had killed “particularly vulnerable” children.
However, he reportedly approved of Lee being put on hold for treatment at a supervised psychiatric facility, according to the New Zealand Herald newspaper.
You may not be able to bear having your children around you as a reminder of your previous happy life, Venning said. “You knew your actions were morally wrong.
As the judge handed down the sentence, Lee sat in court, bowing her head and keeping her eyes fixed to the floor.
Since New Zealand abolished the death penalty in 1989, life imprisonment is the most severe form of punishment available.
Lee, who claimed her husband’s death left her daughter Yuna Jo and son Minu Jo in agony, lacing their fruit juice with a prescription medication overdose.
Lee claimed she intended to commit suicide while the children were being cared for, but the timing was incorrect.
She placed her dead children in plastic bags before putting them in suitcases at a suburban storage facility close to Auckland, the largest city in New Zealand.
The bodies remained in storage until 2022, when a suspicious family broke into the contents of a sold-in storage locker.
“Deep descent” into mental illness
Police gathered the identities of the children, how long they had been dead, and ultimately who had killed them using DNA and other forensic evidence.
Lee, who had since changed her name and fled South Korea for her birth country, was eventually found and detained in Ulsan, a port city.
In New Zealand, she was sent to stand trial.
Lee, who had two attorneys to her, was represented throughout the trial.
Not whether Lee murdered her children, to whom she had confessed, but whether she knew that her actions were wrong, was the subject of the trial.
According to the attorneys, Lee’s husband, Ian Jo, passed away in 2017 after a “deep descent” into mental illness that led to her believing the only way to end her life was to kill her children and then herself, according to Radio NZ.
A forensic psychiatrist described Lee’s mental state, including suicidal thoughts, suicidal thoughts, and the belief that killing her children was the right course of action in her testimony for the defense.
Lee’s actions were criticized by the prosecution as being purposeful and aimed at concealing the bodies before fleeing the country.
The family of Lee was told at the sentencing hearing on Wednesday that the murders had left a lot of emotional scars.
Why didn’t she die by herself if she had wished to die? Choon Ja Lee, Lee’s mother, stated in a statement read to the court. Why did she bring her own children with her?
Lee’s brother-in-law claimed that the other grandmother of the children was still unaware of the murders because she had cancer.
According to a statement read to the court, Sei Wook Cho claimed that his “daily existence is a time bomb of fear” that the grandmother would discover.
