By Peter Omopo
September 12, 2025 | Agency Report – A South Korean woman, Hakyung Lee, is facing murder charges in New Zealand after admitting to giving her two children an antidepressant that prosecutors say led to their deaths.
Court records released Friday revealed that 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, Minu Jo (6) and Yuna Jo (8), in 2018, roughly a year after her husband’s death. She later left New Zealand and returned to South Korea.
The children’s remains were discovered more than four years later in peach-coloured suitcases inside an abandoned storage unit in Auckland, wrapped in plastic. The grim discovery was made by a family who purchased the contents of the locker at auction.
Lee was extradited from South Korea in November 2022 following a request from New Zealand authorities.
During testimony, pathologist Simon Stables cautioned that the advanced state of decomposition made it difficult to establish the exact cause of death. While nortriptyline was present, he said it was possible that “something else” contributed to the deaths.
Lee, who is representing herself but has two standby lawyers, faces the possibility of conviction unless her defence of insanity is accepted. Her lawyer, Lorraine Smith, told the court that Lee had spiralled into depression after her husband’s death in 2017 and contemplated a family suicide pact.
“She thought it would be best if the whole family died and they all took antidepressants,” Smith told the court. “But she got the dose wrong, and when she woke up, the children were dead.”
The trial continues in Auckland.
