DERRY TOWNSHIP, Pa. -- The parents of an exchange student killed in Korea almost a year ago said they want the woman charged in her slaying put to death.

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Penich Murder Suspect Arrested

Jamie Lynn Penich, a University of Pittsburgh student, was beaten to death in a Seoul motel room on March 18, 2001, while she was an exchange student at Keimyung University in Daegu, Korea.

Kenzi Noris Elizabeth Snider, 20, a fellow exchange student from St. Cloud, Minn., has been charged in Penich's murder and Korean officials are seeking her extradition.

"I won't have closure until she's swinging from the gallows," Penich's mother, Patricia Penich, said Saturday, WTAE's Chris Glorioso reported. "I want to see her die the same way she killed Jamie."

Although South Korean law provides for a death penalty by hanging, the last executions in there were held in 1997, shortly before the election of President Kim Dae-jung. Kim was once sentenced to death under a past military-led government; the sentence was commuted under pressure from the United States.

Penich had traveled to Seoul with several other exchange students to celebrate St. Patrick's Day when she was killed.

Snider, a junior who withdrew from Marshall University in West Virginia after Penich's death, faces an extradition hearing March 11.

Penich's parents said they will be at that hearing.

"This whole year has been focused on finding the person who did this to Jamie," Patricia Penich said. "We'll do whatever we have to do."

Snider was arrested at a friend's apartment Thursday. Investigators said she admitted killing Jamie Lynn Penich, saying she was angered by a sexual advance Penich had made toward her, according to an affidavit.

Penich's family members are infuriated by Snider's story, saying Jamie Lynn Penich would not be involved in a homosexual relationship. Her grandmother, Sue Sherback, called Snider a "sly, vindictive liar."

"If any sexual advances were made, they were made by Kenzi," she said.

Patricia Penich and her husband, Brian, said their hope is that Snider is executed, or at least jailed in Korea.

"I think her being in a Korean prison would be just as hard," Brian Penich said.

"The tougher the conditions are, the better we'd feel," Patricia Penich said.