Woman acquitted of killing Penich
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) -- A former college student accused of killing Jamie Penich, of Derry Township, in South Korea in 2001 was acquitted of homicide charges today.
"It feels really, really good," said 22-year-old Kenzi Snider, who cried and hugged her mother, Heath Bozonie, when the verdict was read out in a Seoul courtroom.
Snider was acquitted in the Seoul High Court, and also had been acquitted by a lower court in June. Speaking on condition of anonymity, a prosecutor said he would consider whether to appeal the case to the Supreme Court. Prosecutors have a week to decide.
'I'll get excited when it's all over," said Snider, who was accused of beating to death 21-year-old Penich, a University of Pittsburgh student, over unwanted sexual advances. Both were exchange students in South Korea at the time of the killing in a Seoul hotel room on March 18, 2001.
Prosecutors had asked the appeals court to jail Snider for seven years on a manslaughter charge.
Snider was arrested by FBI agents in West Virginia in February 2002 and sent to Seoul in December that year, becoming the first U.S. citizen to be extradited to South Korea.
In acquitting Snider, the South Korean legal system refused to accept as evidence a confession she made to FBI investigators. Under South Korean law, confessions are only admissible if made to South Korean prosecutors. Also, Snider later argued that her confession was coerced.
Judge Jun Bong-jin of the appeals court said the confession was not "in accordance with Korean law" and that there was a high possibility that someone other than Snider committed the murder.
Jun cited a statement by the hotel owner that a white man with blood on his trousers was seen leaving the hotel around the time of the killing. He also said the hair recovered from the scene, and the size of the shoes believed to be those of the murderer didn't match Snider's.
"I pronounce the defendant not guilty because there is no evidence," Jun read in the verdict.
FBI and U.S. military investigators got involved after South Korean police thought American soldiers might be suspects. The hotel where Penich was stomped to death is in Itaewon, an entertainment district near the U.S. military headquarters in Seoul.
