A New Zealand woman who murdered her two children and hid their bodies in suitcases at a storage facility has been sentenced to life in prison.

The sentencing of Hakyung Lee on Wednesday came after she was convicted in September for the grisly murders of the two children, aged eight and six, in 2018. The case was dubbed the New Zealand “suitcase murders”.

Lee, who was born in South Korea, admitted to killing the children, but pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity. The murders took place a year after the children’s father had died of cancer.

Judge Geoffrey Venning rejected calls by Lee’s lawyers for a lesser penalty, sentencing the 45-year-old to life imprisonment with a minimum non-parole period of 17 years.

He said she had killed children who were “particularly vulnerable”.

But

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