Two suitcases, two children: a quiet Auckland case that asked loud questions
On an ordinary Auckland morning, the city’s hum was pierced not by sirens but by an ache that felt far older than the hours on the clock. Two small suitcases—unremarkable, canvas, zippered—sat in a storage unit in south Auckland, the kind of place where people tuck away summer gear or the last of a life they’re trying to leave behind.
Inside those suitcases were the remains of Yuna and Minu Jo. Eight and six. Children by any measure. Absent for years; found, shockingly, three to four years after their deaths. The discovery set off a chain that would take Hakyung Lee—born in South Korea, a naturalised New Zealand citizen—back across the seas to stand in an Auckland courtroom, accused and ultimately convicted of the unthinkable.
What the trial asked—and what it could not answer
The sensational part of the case was not whether Ms Lee had taken her children’s lives. She had already admitted that. The court grappled with a thornier, more ancient question: did she know, in the hours and minutes she acted, that what she was doing was wrong?
Under New Zealand law, sanity is the default assumption. If a defendant insists they were not responsible by reason of insanity, the burden of proof rests on them. The defence painted a picture of a woman unravelled by grief: her husband’s death in 2017, a descent into depression, suicidal ideation, and a conviction—according to testimony—that killing the children might be, perversely, the kindest course.
“Depression can alter moral judgement,” said Dr. Amelia Chen, a forensic psychiatrist who testified for the defence. “There are patients who truly believe ending a life is a mercy when their perspective has narrowed into pain. That does not make the act any less tragic, but it complicates culpability.”
The prosecution offered a stark counterpoint. They pointed to the steps Ms Lee took after the killings: the concealment of the bodies in suitcases, the distance she put between herself and her New Zealand past, including a name change and eventually leaving the country. In their view, these were not the actions of someone who could not grasp the moral weight of her deeds.
“Ms Lee deliberately, and in sound mind, deliberately murdered Minu and Yuna and the right verdict is guilty of murder,” prosecutor Natalie Walker told the jury in her closing summary.
After two hours of deliberation, the jury returned a guilty verdict. Justice Geoffrey Venning, addressing the court, acknowledged the human complexity the case exposed. “It’s natural to feel sympathy for the young children who were killed. It’s also natural to feel someone should be held responsible for their deaths,” he said, adding that some jurors may also feel sympathy for the defendant.
Silence, exile and the weight of migration
Lee sat through the three-week trial between a translator and a security guard, a figure with her head bowed and hair falling over her face. Though she technically represented herself, she never spoke a word in court. Her silence became part of the story—an inscrutable mask, a sign of surrender, or something else entirely.
For many observers the case also tapped into the quieter, cross-cultural currents that often swirl around migrant communities: isolation, stigma around mental illness, the pressure to appear composed in a new country. “We see people here who struggle alone,” said Sang-min Park, a community elder in Auckland’s Korean neighbourhood. “They don’t tell their neighbours. They don’t want family shame back home. That secrecy can be deadly.”
New Zealand’s Korean community is vibrant—churches, restaurants, small businesses—but it has its shadows. A combination of cultural expectations and linguistic barriers can make accessing mental health support harder, especially for older migrants or those fearful of legal or social consequences.
Law, mercy and a nation watching
The sentence looming for Lee is severe: under New Zealand law, murder carries a maximum of life imprisonment with a non-parole period of at least ten years. Yet the court also has mechanisms beyond prison; she may first be detained in a mental health facility under a compulsory treatment order, depending on psychiatric assessments.
These legal options force us to ask difficult questions: should punishment and treatment sit on opposite ends of a spectrum, or can they be braided together? “We have to balance community safety, justice for the victims, and a humane response to mental illness,” said Professor Laura Mitchell, a criminologist who has studied filicide cases in Australasia. “No single answer will satisfy every moral instinct.”
Numbers can flatten what feels like an unresolvable human dilemma, but they also help set context. Research into filicide—when a parent kills their own child—has repeatedly shown that it is rare but not unheard of, and often linked with mental health crises. Studies suggest that while fathers commit a larger share of child homicides in some regions, mothers are more likely to be involved in cases where a psychiatric condition plays a central role.
Faces in the courtroom, echoes in the street
Neighbors remembered Yuna and Minu in fragments: a small hand waving, a bicycle left in the driveway, a knock on a door that no longer came. “They were quiet kids,” said Maria Te Rangi, who lives two blocks from the storage facility. “You could tell someone looked after them, even if there wasn’t much laughter.”
For those who have lost children in other circumstances, the case conjured familiar grief and anger. “There’s so much sorrow,” said Detective (ret’d) Mark Harris, who has investigated child homicides and their aftermath. “You want to demand answers, but you also have to support the living—family, neighbours, and the community’s trust.”
What are we meant to do with this story?
This is not just a criminal case; it is a mirror. It asks us to inspect how societies care for the most vulnerable among us—the small children with suitcase-sized funerals—and how they care for the people who care for them. How do we prevent isolation from spiralling into catastrophe? How do we make mental healthcare accessible across languages and cultures? What does justice look like when the lines between illness and intent blur?
We can begin with small, practical responses: expand outreach in immigrant communities, create culturally and linguistically appropriate mental health services, invest in social supports for grieving parents. We can also admit that these solutions require money, political will, and a willingness to confront taboo topics.
Remembering Yuna and Minu
At the heart of this legal and moral tangle are two children whose names now carry the weight of headlines. They are not just statistics; they were fingers sticky with jam at breakfast, shoes scattered in a hallway, a bedtime story with a dog-eared page.
In quiet moments, the case will continue to ripple—through a courtroom where a sentence will be passed next month, through a community that will attempt to stitch itself back together, and through conversations that might finally reach the people who feel they must suffer alone. What kind of country do we want to be when the most private of tragedies becomes public? How do we turn shock into change?
As you read this, ask yourself: who in your neighbourhood is carrying a burden in silence? Who might need a knock on the door, a translation, a listening ear? The law will do its work, but the living are the ones who must carry forward the lessons—and the memory—of Yuna and Minu.
