WELLINGTON: A New Zealand mother who murdered her two children and hid their bodies in suitcases has been sentenced to at least 17 years in prison on Wednesday (Nov 26).
Hakyung Lee, 45, was convicted on two murder charges over the deaths of her children, Yuna, 8, and Minu Jo, 6, earlier this year.
The children's remains were discovered in August 2022 in suitcases bought at a clearance auction. The suitcases had been stored in a warehouse for about four years, according to police.
Lee was arrested by authorities in South Korea and extradited to New Zealand to face murder charges in September 2022.
At her sentencing in Auckland on Wednesday, she was handed a sentence of life imprisonment with a minimum non-parole period of 17 years.
She will begin her sentence as a special patient under the country's mental health act.
Justice Geoffrey Venning said during sentencing that Lee's mental health was a major consideration in the case.
Venning said Lee had killed her children because she could not cope with the "responsibility and burden of caring" for them following her husband's death from cancer in 2017.
"You had relied heavily on him during your marriage. You could not cope when he became seriously unwell and perhaps you could not bear to have the children around you as a constant reminder of your former happy life which had been cruelly taken from you," Venning said.
"The circumstances which followed from your husband's death and led to you killing your children are properly described as tragic," Venning said.
"However, by its verdicts, the jury found you intended to kill your children and also that, while you were suffering from a depressive illness at the time, you knew that your actions were morally wrong."
Detective Inspector Tofilau Faamanuia Va'aelua said police wanted to acknowledge the investigation team for what was a "challenging" case.
"They worked diligently to bring about justice for these innocent young children," Va'aelua said in a statement after the sentencing.
The children would have been 16 and 13 today, Va'aeulua said.
"Our thoughts are with the wider family today for the tragic loss of these two young children." - dpa
