Suitcase murder case: Accused tells judge ‘I didn’t do it’

The defendant at her first appearance at the Manukau District Court in November 2022. Photo / Dean Purcell

The woman accused of murdering her two children whose bodies were later found in an abandoned suitcase claims she is innocent.

“I didn’t do it,” the South Korean woman said in English, raising her hand to address a High Court judge at the end of the hearing.

“It’s the truth. I’m going to prove my innnocence,” she said, her identity remaining under a suppression order.

She appeared at the High Court in Auckland before Justice Graham Lang this morning, covering her face in her hands for most of the brief administrative hearing.

The Judge was leaving the courtroom at the end of the hearing when she raised her hands and spoke before she was taken away by security officers.

The 42-year-old was extradited from South Korea to New Zealand late last year after the discovery of her children’s remains.

An Auckland family made the grisly find after opening suitcases they bought in an auction for an abandoned South Auckland storage unit.

Police have said the children, who would have been between 5 and 10 when they died, had been dead for years when their remains were found.

The defendant was born in Korea, became a New Zealand citizen after moving here, and likely returned to Korea in 2018, according to Immigration records.

She has pleaded not guilty and is set to face trial in April 2024.

A judge declined her application for continued name suppression application in March, but her name remains suppressed pending her appeal to be heard in May.