• Hakyung Lee was found guilty of murdering her children and hiding their bodies in suitcases.
• The jury convicted her after just two hours of deliberation, rejecting her insanity defense.
• The bodies were discovered in 2022 inside luggage auctioned from a storage unit.

A jury in New Zealand found Hakyung Lee, 45, guilty of murdering her two young children, Minu Jo, 6, and Yuna Jo, 8, shortly after their deaths in June 2018. Their bodies were concealed for years until they were discovered in August 2022 inside suitcases purchased at a storage unit auction in Auckland, glowing with public interest when reported internationally, according to South China Morning Post, India Times, and Al Jazeera.

Lee fled to South Korea following the killings, changing her name and living under the radar until her extradition in late 2022. During the court proceedings, Lee's lawyers argued she suffered from mental illness exacerbated by her husband's death in 2017, claiming this impacted her judgment at the time of the murders. However, the jury dismissed her plea of insanity, concluding she understood the nature of her actions, according to India Times, CBS News, and Al Jazeera.

During the trial, the prosecution presented evidence of Lee's calculated actions following the murders, with Crown Prosecutor Natalie Walker stating that Lee's behavior was driven by "selfishness" as she planned to escape the responsibilities of motherhood. Lee's defense had claimed mental breakdown after personal losses, while the prosecution argued she could not prove insanity as defined under New Zealand law, which requires a complete inability to discern right from wrong, according to South China Morning Post, CBS News, and India Times.