A woman has gone on trial in New Zealand accused of murdering her two children and leaving their bodies in suitcases for years before they were discovered.
Hakyung Lee – who is representing herself in court – denies the murders of six-year-old boy Minu Jo and eight-year-old girl Yuna Jo in June 2018.
Their remains were found by a couple who bought the contents of an abandoned storage unit in Auckland in August 2022.
She was extradited from South Korea to face the charges.
Stand-by counsel Lorraine Smith, who is assisting Lee in her self-representation, told jurors the mother was driven to insanity after her husband died of cancer in 2017.
Lee, who is a New Zealand citizen, had travelled to South Korea and changed her name in 2018, shortly after the children were believed to have been killed.
She was born in South Korea and previously went by the name Ji Eun Lee.
Lee, who is in her 40s, was arrested in September 2022 in South Korea and extradited to New Zealand two months later.
A jury was chosen on Monday for Lee’s trial at the High Court in Auckland, which is expected to take four weeks.
Prosecutors have been outlining their case on Tuesday and said they would call 40 witnesses.
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Lee did not speak during the hearing on Monday and shook her head, rather than answering through an interpreter, when asked how she pleaded to the charges.
Not guilty pleas were entered by Justice Geoffrey Venning, who is presiding.
Lee had granted consent in writing to be extradited after a formal request from New Zealand to return her to face trial, South Korean officials said at the time.
South Korea’s Justice Ministry said it had provided New Zealand with unspecified “important evidence” in the case.
