Ahn Young-joon/Associated Press
	Kenzi Snider, right, is embraced by her mother, Heath Bozonie, after being imprisoned for six months. Seoul District Court Justice Kim Nam-tae ruled earlier in the day that there wasn't enough evidence to convict Snider of killing Jamie Lynn Penich at a Seoul motel in 2001. "It's justice," said Snider through tears, after tightly hugging her mother. "I feel really good."

Kenzi Snider would be free to get on with her life if her acquittal in the murder of a University of Pittsburgh student had come in America.

But Snider, 21, was tried and acquitted in Seoul, South Korea, where prosecutors have seven days to appeal the not-guilty verdict and attempt to reverse it.

Relatives of the victim, Jamie Lynn Penich of Derry Township, were stunned by the not guilty verdict.

Seoul District Court Justice Kim Nam-tae decided yesterday that the only evidence against Snider was her confession, which she said was coerced by FBI agents in the United States.

Penich's family never expected the judge to discount the validity of Snider's confession and let her go.

"It's a shock. We're very disappointed," Patricia Penich, Jamie's mother, said yesterday.

The Korean system -- which permits prosecutors to appeal not guilty verdicts and perhaps try an exonerated defendant twice for the same crime -- is all that gives the Peniches hope.

"We're waiting on what the prosecution comes up with," said Patricia Penich.

Snider, who was a student at Marshall University in Huntington, W.Va., and Penich met in March 2001 in an international studies program in Seoul.

They became friendly enough in a couple weeks to appear together in a number of photographs. They also socialized together on what turned out to be the last night of Penich's life.

After drinking and dancing with U.S. servicemen at a nightclub on St. Patrick's Day 2001, Snider helped Penich back to her hotel room.

FBI agents said Snider admitted during interrogations that she exploded in a fury after Penich made a sexual advance.

Then, by the prosecution's account, Snider kicked 20-year-old Penich to death. Penich's roommate, a woman from the Netherlands, said she slept through the violence.

The investigation into Penich's death initially seemed to focus on soldiers who had danced with the women at the nightclub. But more than 10 months later, from Feb. 4 to Feb. 6, 2002, Snider was interrogated by FBI agents in a Huntington, W.Va., motel room.

A month after that, the bureau announced that Snider had confessed.

Snider, though, said FBI agents and U.S. Army officers hounded her in interrogations. During the three days that she was questioned in Huntington, she said, she ended up saying what the FBI wanted to hear -- namely that she was guilty.

She testified during an extradition hearing in December 2002 that she was innocent, and that her confession had been coerced by zealous investigators. Snider's defense lawyers made the same argument at her trial, convincing Kim to acquit her.

An FBI spokesman said the bureau would not comment on Snider's claims of coercion, given that an appeal of her acquittal is possible.

Edward Weis, an assistant federal public defender in Charleston, W.Va., who represented Snider after her arrest, said the prosecution had no case against her until she broke down during the three days of interrogations.

"To my mind there was no evidence of her guilt other than the confession," Weis said yesterday.

The Penich family believed Snider's confession to be truthful with one important exception. Patricia Penich said it was Snider who made a sexual advance toward her daughter, not the other way around. After Snider was rebuffed, she became enraged enough to kill, Patricia Penich said.

"Jamie turning her down was what she could not take," Penich said.

Snider was freed from prison yesterday, but she cannot leave South Korea with the possible appeal hanging over her.

Regardless of whether the criminal case against Snider is appealed, the Penich family could sue her in civil court.

Robert Potter, a Pittsburgh lawyer who represents the Peniches, said he has filed a document in Allegheny County Common Pleas Court that would prevent the statute of limitations from expiring in a wrongful death lawsuit.