Suspect arrested in Penich murder

A federal judge in Charleston, W.Va., denied bail Monday to a West Virginia woman charged with… A federal judge in Charleston, W.Va., denied bail Monday to a West Virginia woman charged with murdering a Pitt student last year.

Kenzi Noris Elizabeth Snider, 20, was arrested March 1 and is being held at South Central Regional Jail near Charleston. The FBI said she confessed last month to killing Pitt student Jamie Lynn Penich, 21, after a night of partying in Seoul, South Korea where the two were exchange students last year.

Penich’s fiance, Jeff Gretz, said he was shocked to learn of Snider’s arrest and said that he talked to Snider, with whom he had become close since Penich’s death, the day before her arrest.

Gretz said he had no suspicions that Snider, at the time a student at Marshall University in West Virginia, was involved in the murder until he heard that she had confessed.

Snider and Penich met in South Korea, where both were spending the semester studying at Kiem Yung University in Taegu. Gretz said Snider had been in e-mail contact with him and also with Penich’s sister, Janelle Penich, and that Snider had visited him in Pittsburgh to talk about the murder.

“We all knew she was the last one to see Jamie alive,” he said. “We had questions about what she was doing, what happened. I never suspected a thing.”

Penich and seven friends were on a weekend trip to Seoul to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day when Penich was beaten and stomped to death on March 18, 2001. Police initially focused the investigation on U.S. military servicemen who may have danced with Penich at Nickleby’s bar earlier in the evening. The manager at the Kum Sung Motel, where Penich was killed, reported seeing a man leave Penich’s room around the time of the murder.

In her confession, Snider reportedly said that she killed Penich in a fit of rage after Penich came on to her. Gretz said he doesn’t think that’s possible.

“I don’t know Kenzi, but I know Jamie, and that doesn’t sound like Jamie,” he said. He described Snider, who he said he got to know well on her visit to Pittsburgh, as a woman with low self-esteem.

“She’s got serious issues,” he said. “I was let down [when I heard that was the motive]. We all wanted to know what could possibly have gone down. Then we find out that was it, that was the motive.”

Penich’s father, Brian Penich, said he thinks that Snider concocted the story to make the murder justifiable.

“She’s had a year to figure this out,” he said.

Gretz believes that the stress of carrying around her lie became too much for Snider.

“I honestly think she couldn’t lie about it anymore,” he said. “She decided ‘If I’m going down, I’m going to take as many people with me as I can.'”

Gretz can also explain the discrepancy between the motel manager’s statement that she witnessed a man leaving Penich’s room and Snider’s confession. The manager, according to Gretz, described a blond man wearing a plaid shirt, khakis and boots. Gretz said a photo taken of Snider and Penich on the day of the murder shows the nearly 6-foot-tall Snider standing next to Penich wearing clothing similar to that described by the motel manager.

Korean officials have 60 days to file the paperwork requesting Snider’s extradition. Brian Penich has made it clear that if Snider is convicted, he wants the Korean courts to hand down the severest of penalties – death by hanging.

Gretz is less picky about the ultimate punishment.

“Life in a Korean prison is fine with me,” he said.

A year’s worth of questions have been answered for Penich’s family, but Brian Penich said that Snider’s arrest has renewed the feelings he had after his daughter’s death.

“It’s like starting all over again,” he said.