A New Zealand woman is accused of killing her two children, aged 6 and 8, in 2018 and leaving their bodies in suitcases for four years. Her trial began Monday.

A 44-year-old New Zealand woman of South Korean descent is accused of killing her two children, aged 6 and 8, and stuffing their bodies into suitcases stored in a storage unit. Her trial began Monday in the High Court in Auckland, New Zealand, reports Radio New Zealand. It is expected to last a month.

According to court documents, it all began with the death of the accused's husband in 2017. Before his death, she allegedly indicated that she intended to kill herself and her two children if the man died. She allegedly murdered them between late June and late July 2018, before wrapping each of their bodies in plastic. "She placed each body in a separate suitcase and placed them in black plastic bags to conceal them," the documents state.

She changes her name and leaves the country

She stored everything in Auckland in a storage unit with other items. According to our colleagues, the mother then changed her name and left the country for South Korea. She continued to pay for the unit until she ran into financial difficulties in April 2022. It was ultimately the auction of the unit's contents that revealed the existence of the two bodies, four years later.

Once the remains were identified, the forty-year-old woman was arrested and detained in South Korea in September 2022. She was then extradited to New Zealand two months later. The trial, originally scheduled for 2024, was adjourned. Since the beginning of the proceedings, the defendant, who is representing herself, has maintained her innocence. She also indicated that she would plead not guilty at the start of the trial.

Even today, the cause of death of the two children remains undetermined. Several elements corroborated by the autopsy report tend to indicate that she may have administered the sleep medication that had been prescribed to her husband. But the medication could potentially have been associated with strangulation, suffocation, a head injury, etc.