A jury has been told traces of the anti-depressant drug Nortriptyline were found in the bodies of two children who it is alleged were killed by their mother, and left in suitcases in a storage unit in Auckland.
The trial of Hakyung Lee has opened in the High Court at Auckland on Tuesday.
The bodies of Minu Jo and Yuna Jo, aged six and eight at the time of their deaths, were found nearly four years after they were killed.
Crown prosecutor Natalie Walker said in her opening that Lee did not dispute causing the deaths.
Walker said the pathologist could not be sure whether they died from the drug, or whether they were incapacitated by it and killed by other means.
The levels of the drug inside their bodies also could not be determined due to the passage of time.
Stand-by counsel Lorrainne Smith, who is assisting Lee in her self-representation, told jurors the loss of her husband in 2017 drove Lee to insanity.
"At the time Hakyung Lee killed her children, was she sane or was she insane?," she asked jurors.
"On behalf of Ms Lee, it will be submitted that at the time she killed her children, she was insane and this should be the verdict in this case," Smith said.
"She has killed her children, but she is not guilty of murder, by reason of insanity."
