The mother accused of killing her two children and leaving their bodies in a New Zealand storage unit for four years has been found guilty.
Warning: This story contains details which may be distressing for some readers.
Hakyung Lee, 43, gave her two children — eight-year-old Yuna Jo and six-year-old Minu Jo — an overdose of prescription medicine in mid-2018.
Their remains were discovered inside two suitcases abandoned at an Auckland storage facility four years later, in August 2022.
Lee, who changed her name and flew to South Korea after their deaths, admitted to killing her children but argued she was not guilty by reason of insanity.
Her assistant counsel said Lee had spiralled after her husband's death from cancer in 2017, and believed killing Yuna and Minu was the "morally right" thing to do.
After just over two weeks of trial, the jury deliberated for about three hours before returning a guilty verdict on both counts of murder.
Lee stood with her head down and gave no reaction as the jury delivered their verdict.
She watched the trial unfold from a separate courtroom, alongside an interpreter, and following proceedings via a video link.
Not an 'altruistic' killing by mother of two
Earlier this week, the court heard Lee's decision to kill her children was not an "altruistic" act by a grieving widow.
Lee's husband, Ian Jo, died more than six months before Yuna and Minu were killed.
This, her defence team argued, left Lee afraid she would take her own life and the children would find her inside their home in the Auckland suburb of Papatoetoe.
Sometime in June of 2018, Lee admitted to giving the children a dose of the prescription drug nortriptyline mixed in juice.
"[Ms Lee] said she gave the children the medication," Ms Walker said, referencing testimony by defence witness Yvette Kelly.
"The children drank the juice and then they became drowsy from the medication and they toddled off to their own beds … and went to sleep there and then."
The medication had been prescribed to her the previous year after she told her GP she was having trouble sleeping.
Crown prosecutor Natalie Walker told the court, "the thought of a life parenting her children alone" may have been too much for Lee.
She described Lee as isolated and dependent on her husband prior to his death.
"The steps she took [after the children's deaths] are consistent with her wanting a new life on her own and a new name," Ms Walker said.
"The Crown suggests that when she gave her two young children nortriptyline, it was a selfish act to free herself from the burden of parenting alone," Ms Walker said.
"It was not the altruistic act of a mother who had lost her mind and believed it was the right thing to do; it was the opposite."
Children's remains found after storage facility auction
The bodies of Yuna and Minu were found in 2022, after payments lapsed on the unit at Safe Store Papatoetoe.
The contents of the storage unit were sold at auction to a family who took the suitcases home, where police were called after the cases were opened.
Both children, the court heard last week, were fully clothed and each wrapped in multiple layers of plastic bags.
Minu was wearing a pair of underwear with "Wednesday" on the front, something the Crown pointed to as a potential indicator of what day the children were killed.
A post-mortem report found the four years between their deaths and the discovery of their remains meant it was difficult to know their exact cause of death, according to reporting by RNZ.
A forensic pathologist said he was unsure whether the children had died because of the medication or if the dose had been used to incapacitate them before "death by another means" was inflicted.
The court also heard of PlayStation data accessed by investigators, which the Crown said was the best evidence of the children's last day alive.
Both "HeroMinu" and "PrincessYuna" received a Minecraft trophy on June 27, 2018.
After that date, there was no evidence of the console being played with again, and their mother's transaction history showed no more purchases relating to the care of children.
[papatoetoe]Lee then applied for a change of name, moved her belongings, including the suitcases, to the storage unit, and left the country, cutting off all contact with friends and family.
She was found by her mother and her mother's pastor after being admitted to hospital for mental health treatment in South Korea in 2022.
When asked about her children's whereabouts, she told them: "I have no children."
