South Korean police on Thursday arrested a woman accused of murdering her two children, whose bodies were discovered in two suitcases bought at an auction in New Zealand.
The National Police Agency said the suspect is a South Korean woman in her 40s with New Zealand citizenship. Her spouse died of sickness in New Zealand, Yonhap News Agency reported.
She was arrested in Ulsan for the murder of her two children, aged seven and 10, in 2018 in Auckland. The bodies of the children were found by a family who purchased the suitcases on Aug. 11.
Police said the suspect fled to South Korea after the alleged murder and has been hiding ever since. She will face extradition screening in Seoul High Court and New Zealand will have to submit a request for her extradition, police said.
“I didn’t do it,” the woman said to reporters while she was being escorted by police.
Her arrest came as New Zealand police requested the assistance of South Korean police to locate the suspect.
Detective Inspector Tofilau Faamanuia Vaaelua told New Zealand media on Aug. 18 that the children were believed to have been dead for “a number of years.”
Authorities said the family who purchased the suitcases were not related to their deaths.
Rebecca Zhu contributed to this report.
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