A South Korean woman on trial in New Zealand has admitted to administering antidepressants to her two children, whose bodies were later discovered in abandoned suitcases, but her defence argues she is not guilty of murder on grounds of insanity.
Court records released on Friday showed that Hakyung Lee “accepted that she gave her children nortriptyline, which led to their deaths,” state prosecutor Natalie Walker told jurors. Nortriptyline is a medication commonly prescribed for depression.
Police allege that Lee killed her children — Yuna Jo, 8, and Minu Jo, 6 — in mid-2018, a year after the death of her husband, before travelling back to South Korea.
Their remains were discovered in 2022 inside peach-coloured suitcases purchased at a storage facility in Auckland.
Lee was extradited from South Korea later that year to face trial in New Zealand.
During testimony, forensic pathologist Simon Stables cautioned that it was difficult to determine whether nortriptyline alone caused the children’s deaths due to the advanced decomposition of their bodies. “One could argue that it is the cause of death, or you could say that it’s in combination with something else,” he said.
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Lee, who is representing herself in court with standby counsel, has denied murder charges. Her defence lawyer, Lorraine Smith, told the court that Lee’s husband’s death in 2017 pushed her into deep depression.
At one point, Lee allegedly considered that “the whole family should die together” by taking antidepressants.
According to her statement, she miscalculated the dosage and awoke to find her children dead.
Her trial, which began this week, is expected to run for four weeks.