A woman in New Zealand who was convicted of murdering her two children and leaving their bodies in suitcases for years before they were discovered will spend at least 17 years in prison, a judge ruled Wednesday. Justice Geoffrey Venning told Hakyung Lee at the High Court hearing in the city of Auckland that she would begin her sentence as a patient in a locked psychiatric facility, under New Zealand's compulsory mental health treatment law, the AP reports. Lee must return to prison when she is well enough, the judge said. A jury in September found Lee guilty of the murders of Minu Jo, 6, and Yuna Jo, 8, rejecting a defense of insanity. Her lawyers on Wednesday argued for a reduced sentence because of her mental illness, saying their client felt shame for her crimes and had been isolated and threatened in jail.
However, the judge told Lee that while she was undoubtedly experiencing severe depression when she killed the children in 2018, her actions were deliberate and calculated, the news outlet Stuff reported. In New Zealand, a successful insanity defense requires a murder defendant to prove they were incapable of understanding what they were doing or that it was wrong. The children's remains were discovered after Lee stopped paying rental fees for an Auckland storage unit when she ran into financial difficulties in 2022. The locker's contents were auctioned online and the buyers found the bodies inside.
During the trial, Lee's lawyers conceded that Lee had killed the children by giving them an antidepressant medication, but attorney Lorraine Smith said the deaths happened after her client "descended into madness," local news outlets reported. Lee had always been "fragile," said Smith, but her mental illness became worse after her husband's death. Those convicted of murder in New Zealand automatically receive a life sentence, with judges setting a minimum period of at least 10 years before the defendant can apply for parole. Lee must serve at least 17 years, Justice Venning ruled.
,
uBlock 
,
and
Ghostery 
)
