In 2022, two dead children were found in suitcases in Auckland, after a family bought the suitcases at an auction with abandoned items from rented storage rooms. An autopsy soon revealed that the children, a girl and a boy, had died as early as 2018.
Now, the children's mother has admitted to murdering them. During the ongoing trial in Auckland, she is said to have stated that she gave the children, then six and eight years old, antidepressant medication that led to their death.
The accused woman left New Zealand for her home country South Korea in 2018, but was extradited to New Zealand in November 2022 after a request from the police.
In court, however, pathologist Simon Stables casts doubt over the statement that the children died from the mother's medicine.
It may have just sedated them, he says.
The children were found wrapped in plastic in separate suitcases, according to the police.
The defense claims that the mother suffered from mental illness at the time of the act and that she should therefore not be convicted of murder. The trial is expected to last four weeks.
