Particle.news
Download on the App Store

Hakyung Lee Gets Life Sentence With 17-Year Minimum for New Zealand ‘Suitcase Murders’

The judge ruled the 2018 killings were deliberate despite her depression.

Overview

  • Lee must begin her term as a compulsory patient in a secure psychiatric facility under mental health law and return to prison when clinically fit.
  • Justice Geoffrey Venning described the murders as deliberate and calculated and noted the children were particularly vulnerable.
  • A jury in September rejected an insanity defense after Lee admitted killing her children in 2018 by overdosing them with prescription medication.
  • The children’s remains were found in 2022 inside suitcases from an abandoned Auckland storage unit bought at auction.
  • Lee fled to South Korea, changed her name, and was extradited in 2022; relatives delivered anguished victim statements as police thanked South Korean authorities for assistance.