Suitcase murder trial: only witness for defence takes the stand

A forensic psychiatrist has revealed antidepressants dissolved in juice were used by a woman to kill her two children in Auckland in 2018.

Warning: This story contains details about mental health and suicide that my disturb some readers.

Hakyung Lee is on trial at the High Court at Auckland, charged with the murders of her children Minu and Yuna Jo, who were aged 6 and 8 at the time of their deaths in 2017.

She is representing herself in court along with two standby counsel, Lorraine Smith and Chris Wilkinson-Smith.

Lee’s lawyers called their first and only witness in her defence, who has described her children’s last moments.

Lee admitted causing her children’s deaths and putting their remains in suitcases in storage, but argued she was not guilty by reason of insanity at the time of the murders, following a “descent into madness” after the death of her husband Ian Jo from cancer in late 2017.

Psychiatrist: Hakyung Lee believed killing children was ‘morally right’ – Watch on TVNZ+

The Crown argued her actions after killing the children – hiring a storage unit, moving the bodies, changing her name and returning to Korea in late July 2018, flying business class – proved she was aware of what she was doing, and knew it was wrong.

Smith gave a brief opening on Thursday morning, reminding jurors that the law assumed every person was sane until proven otherwise.

“No person shall be convicted of an offence by reason of an act done or omitted by him or her when labouring under natural imbecility or disease of the mind to such an extent as to render him or her incapable of understanding the nature and quality of the act or omission, or of knowing that the act or omission was morally wrong,” Smith said.

‘A curse upon the family’

Lee’s defence then called their first and only witness, forensic psychiatrist Dr Yvette Kelly, who took jurors through a report she completed on Lee’s sanity.

Kelly said Lee met the criteria to be found not criminally responsible by reason of insanity.

“It was because she didn’t know it was morally wrong. Her thoughts were such at the time that she thought the act was the right thing to do by her children.”

Lee suffered from clinical depression, Kelly said.

Kelly met with Lee a number of times, and gave jurors some further details about Lee’s background.

The court had heard earlier Lee’s father died in New Zealand when she was 18, while she was studying in Korea.

Kelly said Lee felt guilty about her father’s death, going on to say it was her fault. When asked by Kelly why that would be, Lee could not explain herself.

She said Lee also felt undue responsibility for her son Minu’s cleft palate, and was blamed by both sides of her family.

Kelly told jurors about the cultural pressures Lee faced. She spoke with another expert of Korean descent, who provided insight into what she would have faced from her family.

“She said her mother and her mother-in-law attributed this aberration to her doing,” she said.

Kelly said Lee also blamed herself for her husband’s death, but again could not explain why.

“Again, she felt responsible for his death. She said if she had not married him, then he would not have died,” Kelly said.

“She never provided that explanation, she could not provide it – she just kind of knew that it was her fault.”

Kelly said her Korean colleague told her this again could be linked to cultural pressures Lee faced.

“It is not unusual, if a family experiences unfortunate events, for someone to be blamed for that, and that someone could be seen as being a curse upon the family,” she said.

“[The Korean expert] went as far as to say that he would not have been surprised if someone verbalised that to her.”

During interviews, Lee confessed to Kelly she was not eating or sleeping well while her husband was ill, and repeated she had wanted to die with him.

Kelly said Lee felt she was unable to look after her children and believed she was not a good mother.

“She was pretty concerned about the possibility of her children finding her having suicided, and described that it was possibly going to be an impulsive act.”

Kelly said Lee did not look for help from anyone – her mental distress making her believe she could not, describing it as hopeless.

Lee was making plans to move back to South Korea with the children about the same time she was looking at hiring a storage facility.

Kelly believed she was the first person Lee described the murders to, and said she felt it was the first time Lee admitted it to herself also.

“She said she was getting worse and worse, no improvement, getting worse, suicidal thoughts getting worse… She described not being able to get joy from anything that she normally got joy from.”

Lee was suffering from anhedonia, a form of depression where someone no longer feels joy from things they used to, Kelly said.

Kelly said Lee told her giving children the drugs was spontaneous – she decided it was her time to die, and that the children should come with her for their own wellbeing.

“She described the deaths of the children as being secondary to her own death, the deaths of the children not the goal.”

Lee had been prescribed nortriptyline by her GP for problems sleeping in 2017. She admitted to giving the children the antidepressant which led to their deaths.

Lee gave the children the nortriptyline, Kelly said, and gave herself enough she thought to overdose.

“She woke in the early afternoon of the following day realising she had not died, and went to check on the children.”

Both of the children were unresponsive.

“At that point, she did not want them to be revived, she just wanted to die herself,” Kelly said.

Lee had no plan after the deaths, Kelly said.

“She said she wanted to bury the bodies, but she did not quite know how she could achieve that. That is where the suitcase idea came along.”

Speaking to Lee in 2025, Kelly said the accused wished her children were still alive, but could not say they would be better off if they were.

“She could not look back and go, ‘Maybe I should have done this, maybe I should have done that.’

“She says that she now sees that killing the children was the wrong thing to do, though she could not be sure that they’d be better off, but at the time she felt it was the right thing to do.”

Defendant ‘hated herself’

Lee told Kelly she changed her name from Ji Eun Lee to Hakyung Lee to “erase” every part of herself.

“She just hated herself so much that she wanted to be a different person, and part of that was changing her name,” Kelly said.

Kelly said the change did not help with Lee’s suicidal thoughts, and that she wished she hadn’t changed it.

When she moved to Korea after the children’s deaths in 2018, she had more suicidal thoughts, Kelly said.

In 2022, Lee eventually tried reconnecting with others, and began speaking to a man on an online dating app.

Lee met this man, but her interactions with him were traumatic, Kelly said.

The man started stalking her and eventually assaulted her. There was record of nerve damage resulting from an attack, Kelly said.

Kelly went through other suicide attempts and suicidal thoughts Lee experienced while in Korea, culminating in her admission to hospital.

She was diagnosed with major depressive disorder, and started on an antidepressant which seemed to help, but she continued to have suicidal thoughts and nightmares.

After her extradition to New Zealand in 2022, Lee was treated while in custody. In February 2024, Lee was admitted to the Mason Clinic so a legal report could be written, and was later discharged in March of that year back into custody.

Between March and September that year, Kelly said Lee experiencing auditory hallucinations, and her condition deteriorated. She began not taking her medication or seeing the prison GP.

“Ms Lee has segregated herself, voluntarily, in prison,” she said.

“She’s really seeing very few people and is alone all the time, and it’s not uncommon for people to start having voices or having auditory hallucinations in those kinds of environments…”

Kelly was cross-examined by Crown prosecutor Natalie Walker who reminded her of the Code of Conduct for expert witnesses.

She questioned her about evidence of Lee’s actions and interactions with others, like applying for a full driver’s licence after changing her name in June 2018.

“Did it make you reassess the conclusions you have reached about her sanity or otherwise during the time of the killings?” Walker asked.

“If somebody has a decline in function, such that they aren’t able to do tasks like that, then that might be further strength to the opinion that there is a major depressive disorder there,” she said.

“But I don’t think the absence of that difficulty excludes a major depression.”

Kelly said her opinion had not changed.

‘Glib’ statement questioned

Walker questioned comments made by Kelly in her earlier evidence. Kelly had said Lee’s husband Ian Jo was “clutching at straws” when travelling to South Korea to seek treatment for his cancer, which was ultimately unsuccessful.

“Is it a potentially too glib statement for someone in your position to make, doctor?” Walker asked.

“I disagree,” Kelly replied. “I think that these are incredibly difficult matters, and I think that this is an incredibly emotive environment, and I think we’re all doing our best to get through an incredibly difficult situation.”

Walker pressed Kelly about more details that had been recorded inaccurately.

“Do you accept, Dr Kelly, that even though they may seem like small matters, the detail matters somewhat when we are relying on your opinion in a case like this?”

At times the details mattered, Kelly replied, but said she did not think details like the day Lee went to the Gold Coast did.

Later, Walker grilled the psychiatrist on how she reached her conclusion that Lee was in mental psychological denial at the time she killed her kids.

“I can’t give you everything,” Kelly said.

“Don’t you need to, doctor?” Walker interrupted. “Aren’t we entitled to expect that kind of rigour from you?”

Kelly said the clinical picture was more important than producing a blow-by-blow account of what happened.

Questioning further, the prosecutor also drilled into the account of the murders Lee had given Kelly.

Kelly had made an error in her report, Walker said, confusing if Lee had taken the antidepressant first before giving it to her children, or if it had been the other way around.

Walker asked if Kelly thought it was pertinent to know what order the pills were taken.

“I don’t think so,” said Kelly. “I think that the intent was the same.”

Kelly said the intent had been established Lee wanted to kill herself and the children, and the order pills were taken was not of particular concern.

The trial before Justice Venning continues.

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