Hakyung Lee is on trial in the High Court at Auckland. File photo. Photo: RNZ / Nick Monro
Warning: This story mentions suicide and deals with mental health and child homicide.
The detective investigating the murders of two children in Auckland three years ago has told the court police couldn't find any CCTV of the defendant in the storage facility where the bodies were hidden.
Hakyung Lee is on trial in the High Court at Auckland, charged with the murders of her children, Minu and Yuna Jo.
Her standby counsel claims Lee was insane at the time of the killings, while the Crown argues her actions after the murders prove she knew what she was doing.
Lee admits causing her children's deaths and putting their remains in suitcases in storage, but argues she is not guilty by reason of insanity at the time of the killings, following a "descent into madness" after the death of her husband Ian Jo in late 2017.
The court on Wednesday heard more agreed facts about Lee's travel.
It covered holidays discussed in the trial, including Lee's family trip to the Gold Coast, in Australia, shortly after her husband's death, a trip to Seoul, South Korea, on Christmas Day 2017, and other trips back to the Gold Coast and to Queenstown, with her children.
Finally, the agreed facts went over Lee's solo business class flight to Seoul in July 2018, shortly after the Crown said she murdered Minu and Yuna.
Detective Sergeant Ryan Singleton gave the court an overview of the police investigation into the children's murders later on Wednesday morning.
He spoke about power records obtained for a final reading for Lee's Papatoetoe property, checking bank records from transfers between Lee's New Zealand and Korean bank accounts, and reconstructing the drive times between Lee's property and the storage locker where the children's remains were hidden.
Singleton was asked by Crown Prosecutor Natalie Walker about CCTV footage at the storage facility.
Hakyung Lee. File photo. Photo: RNZ / Nick Monro
"We learned that they'd replaced their hard drive in November or December 2021, so the hard drive that would've been present in around 2018 had been removed and destroyed, or couldn't be located," he said.
"So any footage that might have shown Lee taking these trips to Safe Store wasn't available?" Natalie Walker asked.
Singleton said that was correct.
Walker asked Singleton about Lee's mother, Choon Ja Lee, who went to the Auckland Central and Hamilton police stations in an attempt to find her daughter.
The court heard earlier the two had lost contact after the death of Lee's husband.
"On both dates, Choon Ja Lee didn't specify any specific safety concerns with police regarding Lee or her children's safety that would cause them to report her as a missing person," Singleton said.
Singleton spoke about filing two charges of murder against Lee in August 2022, along with an arrest warrant, to start the process of her extradition from South Korea.
He was briefly cross-examined by Lee's standby counsel, Chris Wilkinson-Smith, who asked if they had found any Nortriptyline, the antidepressant drug Lee admitted to giving the children, which led to their deaths, at the storage locker.
Lee had been prescribed Nortriptyline by her GP for problems sleeping in 2017.
"Can you confirm there was no Nortriptyline medication located ... and no leftover packets of empty Nortriptyline?," Wilkinson-Smith asked.
Singleton said that was correct.
Wilkinson-Smith also confirmed with the detective that Lee had no prior criminal convictions.
Photo: Lawrence Smith/ Stuff Pool
The last witness of the day was senior digital forensic analyst Damian Govender, who went through data found on a family PlayStation.
Crown Prosecutor Natalie Walker told jurors in her opening that playing Minecraft on a PlayStation may have been one of the last activities of Minu Jo and Yuna Jo before their deaths.
Govender told the court he examined the PlayStation offline. It had four profiles, two for the children named PrincessYuna35 and HeroMinu, one for Lee's husband Ian Jo, and one for Lee herself named pinkjasmine.
He said the latest system activity on the console showed an update installed for the video game Minecraft.
User data from a later examination revealed digital achievement trophies earned by the children's profiles on Minecraft.
"As my task was to identify the latest information, I identified these profiles had last had their trophy set last updated on the 27th of June 2018, respectively, this could either mean that either a trophy was earned that day, or that a trophy set synchronisation, or update with the Playstation Network occurred," Govender said.
Standby counsel Chris Wilkinson-Smith questioned Govender about obstacles in extracting PlayStation data. He asked about the fact that the console had been in storage for four years, and that the console's internal clock had drifted forward 59 minutes in that period.
Wilkinson-Smith asked Govender about PlayStation data recorded on the day Lee and her children flew back from a trip to Queenstown, the latest system activity.
Govender said for an update to occur, the machine had to have an internet connection at the very least, and noted that while an update could happen with the console in an idle state, it was commonly done while fully powered on.
"Is it fair to say we can't know, when that installation happened, what, if anything else, was happening on that machine?" Wilkinson-Smith said.
"In my opinion, I would say that the installation did happen, it's just that we don't have the time that that happened," Govender replied.
He said, however, the PlayStation didn't necessarily need a person using the controllers for the installation to take place.
The court went through efforts taken by police to retrieve PlayStation data directly from manufacturer Sony, including a form sent by the company for police to request access.
Lee's defence are expected to open their case on Thursday.
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