New Zealand
Children’s bodies in auctioned suitcases: the police track down relatives of the dead
Police investigators in Auckland, New Zealand, at the home of the family who bought the suitcases containing the human remains. The family is not suspected in the case.
© Dean Purcell/New Zealand Herald/AP/DPA
After the discovery of two children’s bodies in auctioned suitcases in New Zealand, the police may have a first clue to the family of the dead.
Almost a week after the discovery of two children’s bodies in two suitcases in New Zealand, police in South Korea have tracked down a woman who may be related to the children. As the South Korean police announced on Monday, it is a New Zealander of Korean vote who has been in South Korea since 2018. Police said they would work with investigators in New Zealand.
New Zealand police review surveillance footage
The suitcases containing the remains of the two children had apparently been stored in a storage room in New Zealand for years. Because the warehouse’s owner could no longer be traced, its contents—a trailerload of household items—had been auctioned off last week. An unsuspecting family had won the bid and opened the suitcases. The family from a suburb of Auckland is not a suspect in the case, as the New Zealand police made clear last week.
According to the New Zealand police, the children had probably died several years ago. When they died, they were between five and ten years old. In order to clear up the case, the investigators have now evaluated hours of recordings from surveillance cameras. Because the children died so long ago, important passages could have been deleted long ago. The warehouse where the suitcases were kept and the family home to which they were taken after the auction were also thoroughly examined by forensic investigators.
The family who bought the suitcases asked for their privacy to be respected, police said. She received support in processing her trauma. A neighbor of the family told The New Zealand Herald newspaper that he was currently looking after their house. The family left Auckland because of the media hype surrounding the gruesome discovery in the suitcases.