Auckland is waking up to a verdict that feels less like closure and more like a fresh wound. On 26 November 2025, 45-year-old Hakyung Lee was sentenced to life imprisonment, with a minimum non-parole period of 17 years, for the murders of her two children, eight-year-old Yuna Jo and six-year-old Minu Jo. The case, described in court as “cruel” and “calculated”, has left a city searching for answers as much as justice, according to reporting from RNZ .
The children were killed in 2018, roughly a year after their father died of cancer. Prosecutors told the High Court that Lee, overwhelmed by grief and financial pressure, gave her children a fatal dose of prescription medication before carefully concealing their bodies inside suitcases. Those suitcases were then placed in a rented storage unit on the outskirts of Auckland, where they remained out of sight and out of mind for years.
The horror resurfaced in 2022, when an unsuspecting family won the contents of the abandoned unit at auction and opened the luggage, making the grim discovery that would eventually lead police back to Lee. She had already left New Zealand and was later arrested overseas and extradited to face trial. International coverage has described the case as one of the most disturbing in New Zealand’s recent history, with Associated Press highlighting the years-long gap between the murders and the discovery.
In the courtroom, Lee represented herself and argued that she was deeply mentally unwell, citing severe depression, isolation and suicidal thoughts after her husband’s death. But the jury, having heard weeks of evidence, rejected an insanity defence. To them, the careful steps she took to hide what she had done showed intent, planning and a clear awareness that it was wrong.
For Aucklanders, the case is not just about one family’s tragedy, but about a system that struggles to detect quiet, hidden crises behind closed doors. It sits uneasily alongside other disturbing investigations in the region, such as the Pukekohe bushland discovery case , and feeds a growing sense that the warning signs of danger are too often missed or ignored.
Child advocates say the story of Yuna and Minu is a painful reminder that vulnerability is not always loud or visible. A sudden withdrawal from friends, prolonged absence from school, a parent who stops answering calls or appears overwhelmed – these may be the first clues that something is going terribly wrong. When grief, financial stress and mental illness collide, silence can become lethal.
As Auckland mourns, two questions linger: could someone have seen this coming, and could anything have stopped it? There may never be simple answers. But if the deaths of Yuna and Minu force communities, agencies and neighbours to intervene sooner when a family appears to be slipping into darkness, their short lives will carry a legacy far beyond the courtroom’s final words.
