A TRIAL in New Zealand has begun for a mum accused of murdering her two children and putting their remains in bags that were later sold at auction.
Hakyung Lee, a 44-year-old New Zealand Citizen born in South Korea, is facing two charges of murder over the deaths of Yuna Jo, eight, and Minu Jo, six, in 2018.
APHakyung Lee stands in the dock at the High Court in Auckland, New Zealand on Monday[/caption]
APNew Zealand police investigators work at the scene in Auckland on August 11, 2022[/caption]
APA family who bought some abandoned goods from a storage unit in an online auction found the bodies of two young children concealed in two suitcases[/caption]
Lee, who has maintained her innocence, fronted Auckland’s High Court where she refused to speak when asked to enter a plea on Monday.
Lee stood silent, shaking her head before a not guilty plea was formally recorded.
Justice Geoffrey Venning told the jury – made up of six men and six women – that the trial was expected to last four weeks.
It would also likely hinge on whether Lee was legally insane at the time of the alleged killings.
The children’s remains were reportedly discovered in August 2022 by an unsuspecting South Auckland family who had purchased the contents of an abandoned storage unit, including two suitcases, at a Papatoetoe auction.
Police later confirmed the buyers had no connection to the deaths.
The grim find came more than four years after the children are alleged to have been killed between June 23 and July 27, 2018.
Lee was arrested in South Korea’s Ulsan city in September 2022 following an Interpol red notice and what local authorities described as a “stakeout”.
She was extradited to New Zealand two months later.
At the time of her arrest, she was paraded before media with a jacket over her head and repeatedly cried out: “I didn’t do it.”
Lee, who was born Ji Eun Lee, has chosen to represent herself in court, though two lawyers – Lorraine Smith and Chris Wilkinson-Smith – have been appointed as standby counsel.
She has consistently denied the allegations, first entering not guilty pleas in 2023.
Her trial was initially scheduled for 2024 but adjourned until now.
The case comes with a tragic backdrop.
Lee’s husband and father of the two children reportedly died of cancer in 2017.
She later left New Zealand for South Korea in 2018, shortly after the timeframe prosecutors allege the children were killed.
Given the intense public attention, Justice Venning urged jurors to decide the case on evidence alone.
He said it was “likely that the case will be determined whether, at the time the children were killed, Ms Lee was insane.”
The prosecution is expected to open its case on Tuesday.
NewshubLee has always maintained her innocence[/caption]
APThe mum pictured leaving to the Seoul Central District Prosecutors’ Office at Ulsan Jungbu police station in Ulsan, South Korea, in 2022[/caption]
AFPThe Safe Store facility in Papatoetoe on August 19, 2022, where suitcases containing human remains were stored and later sold at an auction in Auckland[/caption]