Hakyung Lee appears in Auckland High Court. Photo: Lawrence Smith/ Stuff Pool
Warning: This story mentions suicide and disturbing content
The jury in the trial of a woman accused of murdering her two children and hiding their bodies in suitcases has retired to deliberate on the verdict.
Hakyung Lee, 45, has admitted to killing Minu Jo and Yuna Jo in 2018, and concealing their bodies in suitcases in storage. Her defence argues she is not guilty by reason of insanity.
Lee, who is representing herself assisted by stand-by counsel, has been sitting in an empty courtroom with her interpreter and appearing through audio-visual link throughout the trial, apart from an appearance in person at the High Court in Auckland on the first day of the trial.
Her defence rests on her "descent into madness" after her husband died from cancer in November 2017, and that she wanted to kill herself and her children to spare them the pain of a parentless life.
Justice Geoffrey Venning told the jury of six men and six women that it was up to the Crown to prove that Lee was guilty beyond reasonable doubt for the murders, and the jury must make up their minds on the murder charges before they went on to consider the insanity issue.
If the jury found Lee guilty of the murders, the onus was then on Lee to show on "the balance of probability" that she was insane when she gave drugs to the children, Justice Venning said.
"The balance of probability is a lower standard than beyond reasonable doubt," Justice Venning said, reminding the jury that their job was to decide whether it was more probable than not that Lee was insane at the time of the killings.
Justice Venning told the jury that Lee's self-representation, her silence and reliance on stand-by counsel, and her demeanour throughout the trial were "irrelevant" to the case, and that the jury must not let those aspects influence their decisions.
He said the fact Lee had not given evidence herself during the trial did not add to the case against her, and that she had no legal obligation to give evidence personally.
Lee's standby counsel argued she was insane at the time of the killing. The Crown argued she knew what she did was wrong.
For the past two weeks, jurors at the Auckland High Court have heard legal arguments on Lee's sanity, and the events leading up to and after the deaths of eight-year-old Yuna Jo and six-year-old Minu Jo four years ago.
Crown and defence lawyers summed up their arguments on Monday.
Lee's standby counsel, Lorraine Smith, described her earlier struggle with mental illness as a young immigrant to New Zealand.
"She is now split between two cultures - the Korean world and the new culture in Auckland," Smith said. "Those stresses in her final year of schooling were severe enough to come to the attention of the authorities and this is a period of deep mental illness."
Smith said Lee later enjoyed a "golden period", in which she found community in her church and met husband Ian Jo, but that ended with Jo's cancer diagnosis and eventual death in 2017, when standby counsel said Lee descended into a living hell.
"From the evidence that you have heard, you can safely conclude that Jasmine went from a long period of normal and healthy mental health, and then, beginning in 2017, there was a deep descent into her becoming mentally ill," she said.
Smith said Lee barely coped in a very dark time in her life, and irrationally believed the only answer was to kill herself and her children.
She told the jury Lee's mental health indisputably changed.
"How does Jasmine Lee go from mother, father, two children, to taking her children's life and become the woman who has appeared on our screen in this courtroom over the last two weeks. The answer is in two words - mental illness."
Lee accepted she caused the deaths of Minu and Yuna, and that she alone was responsible for wrapping their bodies in layers of plastic, before putting them in suitcases.
Crown prosecutor Natalie Walker told jurors Lee's actions after the murders were not the behaviour of a mentally impaired person.
Walker said the timeline of events from Wednesday, 27 June - when the Crown said she killed her children - onward showed this, including changing her name and moving to Korea.
"I suggest this shows her thinking rationally, even clinically, about taking her children's lives and then covering up her heinous crimes," Walker said.
Under the Crimes Act, a person is presumed sane until proven otherwise.
Walker said the onus to prove Lee was insane lay with the defence.
"The Crown suggests that, when she gave her two young children nortriptyline, it was a selfish act to free herself from the burden of parenting alone," she said. "It was not the altruistic act of a mother who had lost her mind and believed it was the morally right thing to do - it was the opposite."
Walker said jurors did not have to be sure of why Lee killed her children as they decided their verdict, but said the evidence heard may already contain the answer.
"Perhaps the thought of a life parenting her children alone, without her husband, was too much for Ms Lee," she said. "She was dependant on him and already socially isolated when he died.
"The steps she took from 27 June, 2018, onwards are consistent with her wanting a new easier life, on her own, under a new name."
Where to get help:
- Need to Talk? Free call or text 1737 any time to speak to a trained counsellor, for any reason.
- Lifeline: 0800 543 354 or text HELP to 4357.
- Suicide Crisis Helpline: 0508 828 865 / 0508 TAUTOKO. This is a service for people who may be thinking about suicide, or those who are concerned about family or friends.
- Depression Helpline: 0800 111 757 or text 4202.
- Samaritans: 0800 726 666.
- Youthline: 0800 376 633 or text 234 or email talk@youthline.co.nz.
- What's Up: 0800 WHATSUP / 0800 9428 787. This is free counselling for 5 to 19-year-olds.
- Asian Family Services: 0800 862 342 or text 832. Languages spoken: Mandarin, Cantonese, Korean, Vietnamese, Thai, Japanese, Hindi, Gujarati, Marathi, and English.
- Rural Support Trust Helpline: 0800 787 254.
- Healthline: 0800 611 116.
- Rainbow Youth: (09) 376 4155.
- OUTLine: 0800 688 5463.
If it is an emergency and you feel like you or someone else is at risk, call 111.
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