A 42-year-old woman has been arrested in South Korea on two murder charges, after the bodies of two long-dead children were found in abandoned suitcases in New Zealand, authorities said.
Officials didn’t immediately say if the suspect was the dead children’s mother but New Zealand police had earlier told their South Korean counterparts that the mother may be living in the country.
The children’s bodies were discovered last month after a New Zealand family bought abandoned goods, including two suitcases, from a storage unit in Auckland in an online auction. Police said the New Zealand family had nothing to do with the deaths.
The children were between 5 and 10 years old, had been dead for a number of years, and the suitcases had been in storage for at least three or four years, according to police.
South Korean police say the woman was born in South Korea and later moved to New Zealand, where she gained citizenship. She returned to South Korea in 2018, according to immigration records.
South Korean police say it was suspected she could be the mother of the two victims, as her past address in New Zealand was registered to the storage unit where the suitcases were kept for years.
