An evil mum who killed her two young children and left their bodies in suitcases for years has been found guilty of murder.

Hakyung Lee, 45, then fled New Zealand for South Korea where she changed her name, but continued to pay rental fees for the storage unit in which she had dumped the luggage. The bodies of Minu Jo, six, and eight-year-old Yuna Jo were discovered in August 2022, four years after they were killed.

Lee, a New Zealand citizen, was extradited from South Korea months later and, following a trial at the High Court in Auckland, a jury convicted her of two charges of murder. Within hours of deliberation, jurors rejected her lawyers' defence of insanity.

The mum will now be sentenced at the same court on November 26. Murder carries a mandatory life sentence in New Zealand, with judges required to set a prison term of at least 10 years before an offender can apply for parole.

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When the verdict was returned today, Lee stood with her head bowed and her hair covering her face. Lee had permission to watch the trial from another room in the courthouse as her lawyers said it would be distressing for her. However, she returned to the dock when the jury returned their verdict today.

Lee murdered her kids in the spring of 2018 and was charged in June of that year. The children’s remains were found inside luggage at the abandoned storage unit in Auckland in August 2022 when Lee was unable to pay for its rent.

By this stage, the defendant had travelled to South Korea and changed her name. The mother was born in South Korea and went by the name Ji Eun Lee previously. After Lee was extradited from the country in November 2022, she denied the murder charges.

Lawyers had argued the woman she was facing mental health challenges at the time of the murders. The children were killed seven months after Lee’s husband died from cancer. However, this argument was rejected by the jury following the trial, which began on Monday September 8. Sitting at High Court in Auckland, the Justice Geoffrey Venning ordered Lee remain in custody until she is sentenced in November.

Her case comes after a dad from North Carolina was found guilty of second-degree murder and serious child abuse in the horrific death of his 12-week-old daughter. Nicholas Shane Stephenson, 37, tortured, abused, neglected and starved his baby girl, Riley, to such an extent her "skin was loose on her body." He was jailed on Friday.