New Zealand Woman Sentenced to Life for 2018 Child Murders

A New Zealand woman convicted of murdering her two young children in 2018 was sentenced to life imprisonment on Wednesday, with a minimum non-parole period of 17 years, at the High Court in Auckland.

Justice Geoffrey Venning ruled that Hakyung Lee, 45, a New Zealand citizen born in South Korea, would begin serving her sentence in a locked psychiatric facility under the country's compulsory mental health treatment laws. She will transfer to prison once deemed mentally fit, the judge said. The decision followed a jury's guilty verdict in September on two counts of murder, rejecting Lee's insanity defense.

Lee killed her daughter Yuna Jo, 8, and son Minu Jo, 6, by overdosing them on prescription antidepressant medication. The deaths occurred in 2018, the year after her husband, Ian Jo, died of cancer. Prosecutors described the acts as deliberate, noting Lee wrapped the children's bodies in plastic bags, placed them in suitcases and stored them in an Auckland storage unit. She then fled to South Korea, where she changed her name from Ji Eun Lee, before being extradited to New Zealand in November 2022.

The remains went undiscovered for nearly four years until 2022, when Lee fell into...