Posted 7:45 AM by Murph.

It looks like the "can be" decision will not be appealed:

Hello Everyone (a sad note from Kenzi's mother)

KENZI IS GOING TO KOREA to stand trial if Secretary of State Colin Powell signs the form. She is being held 30 days to allow her lawyer to contest the hearing results, but that would be a waste of time as the judge really had no other option under the guidelines of the extradition. Really, the hearing was mainly to get the information of the way the interrogation/interview was conducted into the public record so that it will go with her to Korea. That mission was accomplished.

Kenzi thinks this may even be the best course of events. She so wants to teach children and travel, and if it just gets dismissed (rather than her being proven innocent), then she may never be allowed to follow either dream. I just hope she is as lucky with her lawyer and the judges in Korea as she was in West Virginia.

I am reminding everyone to please write to all of your Congress People to get a law into effect that "No confessions be admitted into a court without the interview/interrogation being recorded." This whole business would not have happened to Kenzi if this kind of law were on the books now. Her interview/interrogation was not officially recorded in anyway (not even notes were taken by the FBI agents), and under illegal methods. But there is no written proof (maybe why no notes were taken, ha?).

This is not the end of the road, I am sorry to say. But if we can make something good come of this, protect someone else from having to live throught this senseless chaos, then Kenzi and her family will feel as if this was worthwhile, that there was a purpose.

Again I say, thank you for your support and notes. I do copy everything sent to me and mail it off to Kenzi. I just sent a big envelope off the other day filled with the kindest words.

Please keep praying for us!! Heath Bozonie

Just as an added bonus, so that you can all write to your Congresspeople, you can find your Senators listed by state, most of whom have webpages with e-mail addresses. The equivalent page for the House seems to be down at the moment, but you might have better luck. There's also a page for House members alphabetically, if the by-state listing doesn't work.

Posted 11:59 AM by Murph.

I apologize for the lapse in posting; I was out of town and away from a computer. In the meantime, Judge Taylor has decided that Kenzi can be extradited. Note that "can be" is different than "will be"; Kenzi can appeal the "can be" decision, all the way up to the Supreme Court, and, once "can be" is finalized, the question of "will be" is ultimately decided by Secretary of State Colin Powell. All that the extradition decision by the court means is that, if the trial were to be held in the US, there would be sufficient evidence to warrant a trial, and, therefore, there is sufficient evidence that the Korean government is justified in asking for a trial.

The Huntington Herald-Dispatch has the most detailed article. Another Herald-Dispatch article details the Korean justice system. The Associated Press mention of the verdict appears in several places as well.

Posted 6:58 AM by Murph.

An e-mail update:

Hello Everyone (a message from Kenzi's mother)

The judge is very busy (he is the only Federal judge here at the moment) and so the judging may wait until Friday. I need to wait just in case she gets out, as she has no money and no ID. But being as the extradition only needs a "maybe could have" for her to go, she probably will go.

The reason they wanted the hearing, as they did, is so the evidence could be on public record and the Korean lawyer would get it.

I was so hoping this would be over, but I think it just beginning as new stage. Thank you for all your support and I may need to ask for it again.

Sincerely, Heath Bozonie (Kenzi's mom)

Posted 12:51 PM by Murph.

Tomorrow is supposed to be the day when Magistrate Taylor's verdict is announced; in the meantime, Kenzi's mother has e-mailed around a summary of the case and trial:

Hello Everyone- (quite a long letter from Kenzi's mother)

This will be so much more than a note. I want to give a brief idea of all that has befallen Kenzi since the initial incident on 18 March 2001.

There are three main events, which took two to three days each to complete. They are (1) the Seoul weekend (16-18 March 2001), (2) the "interview" (4-6 February 2002) and (3) the hearing (2-3 October 2002). I am compiling the information I received in Seoul when I went to be with Kenzi after she called to tell me, and at the hearing just last week.


(1) The Seoul Weekend

Kenzi went to South Korea as an international student two weeks before the Seoul weekend. At dinner on Thursday night the students discussed going to Seoul and it was decided that anyone who wished to go was to be packed and ready in time to take the train on Friday. Seven students showed up. Kenzi brought one pair of walking boots and two pair of pants. The train takes about 5 hours (I think), they stopped at the Tourist Information Desk upon arriving in Seoul and the person there suggested their hotel. They played cards that evening. On Saturday they went sightseeing all day and then went to a St. Patrick's Day party in the evening. The student! s left in pairs from about 1-3 in the morning. Kenzi and Jamie were the last of the group to leave. Kenzi helped Jamie walk back to the hotel, and when in Jamie's room helped with the water temperature for her shower and Kenzi went to her room. She started to crawl into bed and then thought of checking on Jamie. She went back down the hallway, knocked on the door, entered to listen, heard the shower and left. She slept in the pants and shirt she had worn to the party.

At about 7-8 in the morning, there was a frantic knock on the door. The person who had roomed with Jamie was crying and calling that there was someone on her floor. Kenzi ran to see and found a body, covered with a black jacket, on the floor with blood all over. The students went to the hotel owner to call the police, but the police would not come. The university was called and the American Embassy (but they refused to help, too) and finally some students went to the police station for help. The students were herded into a room to await the detectives.

Detectives arrived, the students were questioned for about an hour, Kenzi identified the body using a small tattoo on Jamie's shoulder, and the three students who were nearest to the scene were taken off for questioning at police headquarters. Kenzi was put into a small isolation room for four hours before she was questioned for 15 hours that first day. She was then questioned for 12 hours the second day and 9 hours the third.

Witnesses stated that the voices of two men were heard in the room very early in the morning, at the same time that banging and moaning was heard. A man was seen leaving the room with blood on his pants. A bloody footprint was on the floor of the room. No blood was found on Kenzi's shoes, pants or shirt, nor were they wet.

The Korean Police Chief was very impressed with the students for their helpfulness during the interrogation, meet with them personally, served them tea, gave them back their passports and wished them well in their futures.


(2) This Interview

Three agents were involved in the "interview," not one of them was from the local FBI office.

(1) CID (Military Investigation) Sgt. Mansfield Three days after the case, we went away to a military school for 4 months. Upon his return, CID gave him the murder file and told him to find a criminal. He found some discrepancies in Kenzi's testimony: a) did she really see Vince when they left the bar, b) who turned on the bathroom light, c) who turned on which temperature of water for the shower, d) did she enter the room when she returned or just knock on the outside door, e) did she return at all (another student did not remember her getting up, but only remembered the final time she laid down), and f) how dressed Jamie was when Kenzi left the room.

(2) FBI Agent DeVittis He testified in court that he was not an interrogator at all, but was a polygrapher. However, the "window of opportunity" shut the first second he say her, because she had brought a friend with her. And even on the second day, when she came alone, that "window of opportunity stayed shut," but with all the windows closed, and even with him having no reason to be there, he stayed for the entire three days and asked most of the questions on days 2 and 3.

(3) FBI Agent Syung said and did little, but he did stand behind her fairly often.

Day One: The agents met and then called Kenzi to see if she would be willing to help them fill in some gaps. She readily agreed and went to the hotel where the agents were staying. They said the conference room was busy, and asked if she would mind going to a regular room. Sgt. Mansfield did most of the talking, and he spent the first evening (6 hours) asking general questions about how she was, how she was sleeping, and building rapport. When she was leaving, she was asked to write down exactly what she remembered, and to bring it with her the next day.

Day Two: She brought her statement and there were a few differences in the one she had given the year before in Korea. She had remembered that she had entered the room and listened at the bathroom door, heard the shower running, and left.

Agent DeVittis did most of the talking this day (remember he was not an interrogator, but a polygrapher). He brought up some discrepancies in the two statements and asked her to explain the differences. An example is: Kenzi said she saw Vince when she left the bar, and that she waved and then walked home. They said that that was not true, because Vince said he did not see her. This type of questioning went on for hours. She would make a statement and they would say it was not true. She could not answer all their questions and at one point, she stood up and said, "You're saying I killed Jamie? What evidence do you have?" She left the room for a few minutes and when she returned she asked, "Do I need a lawyer?" They assured her that she did not need a lawyer and said, "If you get a lawyer, we could not say that you cooperated fully." They said they just wanted new ideas to help them solve the crime. She then said, "If I did this think, I don't recall."

Remember that Kenzi had always wanted to find the murderer! She is very creative, imaginative and right-brained. As a family, we try to see all sides of an argument and can come up with three alternatives for any problem. She relaxes by using yoga and deep breathing. She wanted to know the truth.

They used all this against her and she entered a dream world. They would give her a situation, she would see a gray cloud, then it would thin and she would see a picture and describe it to them. By the end, she had no idea which were the real memories and which were from the dream-pictures.

The FBI agents did not keep notes, nor did they record any of this interview. Sgt. Mansfield did take some notes of his own while he was sitting behind them, but they were sketchy.

Day Three: They wrote up a version of the confession. She signed where she was told to sign. They fingerprinted and photographed her, gave her a candy bar and sent her home.


(3) The Hearing

Kenzi's lawyer, Mr. Weis, needed to apply a number of times for Discovery, and in the end only got about a quarter of the information the Prosecutors had. Once Sgt. Mansfield referred to they're being many lab reports, and Mr. Weis had only received one.


Professor Ofshe testified for the Defense. He is a sociologist who specializes in false memory syndrome and rational decision making to a false confession. (His testimony was really very interesting). He explained why a person would confess to a crime they knew they did not commit, and how an interrogator could manipulate a person into having false memories so they thought they had done the crime.

There are three parts to any confession: (1) the most dramatic Pre-Admission, (2) the break down, or Admission, and (3) the longest, least dramatic, but most important Post- Admission.

During Pre-Admission, the person is judging whether they can get through this all right without loosing too much of their life. Once they think that there is no escape; that there is too much evidence that proves them guilty, the person will confess. During this time, Kenzi was told that nothing would happen to her, that other known criminals were never extradited and that the sentences were very light anyway. Her statements of what she knew to have happened were continually challenged and "evidence" was given to prove that her memory was wrong and then a "correct" memory was suggested to her. Kenzi was more susceptible to this because of her ability to relax and her true desire to know the truth. ! Kenzi started to belief she was guilty.

The Post-Admission is the most important because that is where the witness testimony and the physical evidence are matched to the confession. In Kenzi's case, this never happened. Instead, the agents manipulated the evidence to fit their scenario, keeping some and discarding the rest. An example is the voices and noises. The noises were kept but the male voices were not.


The Confession: The main idea of the confession is that Jamie was the sexual aggressor, and when Kenzi was trying to fend her off, she accidentally hurt her. Then Jamie looked so uncomfortable crumpled in the bathtub, Kenzi moved her all over the place, dropping her, banging her head into walls, and dragged her into the middle of the sleeping area. Kenzi then got upset that Jamie was looking at her, so she smashed her face in and left a perfect impression of a bloody footprint behind.

The most amazing thing about this confession, is that after doing all this to the body, Kenzi got no blood on any of her clothes or shoes, left no DNA evidence on Jamie, nor was any DNA evidence from Jamie on Kenzi, and according to the records not one long blonde hair was left behind (even though it was not tied up).


We are still awaiting the judgment. I am confident that it will be clear that Kenzi should be released; that the extradition should be cancelled and that this must stop!!

I am going to start a letter writing campaign to Congress for a law that "NO confession can be admissible into any court record unless the interview/interrogation was recorded (audio or video)." There is nothing wrong with an interrogation as long as it does not become a crime in itself. If you wish, please send this to everyone on your mailing list and encourage them to pass it along. Please take the time to email all of your Congress Representatives. As a people, we must work toward "and justice for all."



Most Sincerely, Heath Bozonie

(In the interest of full disclosure, this doesn't look exactly as it did when I received it. After cutting and pasting from e-mail, I cleaned up some of the spacing and smart-quotes that a Microsoft mail reader puts into documents which Pine can't read. If anyone finds this offensive, I can post the direct cut-and-paste.)

Posted 9:53 AM by Murph.

Today's round-up of newspaper articles on Kenzi's extradition hearing:

• PittsburghLIVE.com
  
• Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
  

The Post-Gazette includes:

At the conclusion of yesterday's hearing, Magistrate Judge Maurice Taylor said he would rule by next Wednesday on whether to sign the extradition order.

Taylor must decide three questions of law: Whether an extradition treaty exists between the United States and South Korea; whether the alleged crime is covered by that treaty; and whether there is probable cause that the defendant committed the crime.

Posted 7:09 AM by Murph.

Kenzi's trial started yesterday, and it seems both my blogs have seen a lot of traffic due to it. Here's an update from Kenzi's mother, received this morning:

Dear Everyone (a note form Kenzi's mother)-

We finished one day of hearing, but it will be two more days for sure. One more day for testimony and the other for the verdict.

This is most interesting!! We are not done, and I am not 100% sure, but it sounds as if Kenzi thought they were asking for her help to figure things out (which the FBI had done before), she gave possible solutions that happened to match the facts and they took it as her confessing. She thought at one time they thought she had done it and asked if she needed to get a lawyer, and they just said she was helping them with ideas.

Isn't this a scary world??

Her lawyer is being just great! I am so impressed with his skill and preparedness. Kenzi is being looked after well. The judge is making sure that everything is fair and that all is thoroughly being understood. I am not afraid. Please keep us in your prayers and lift Kenzi tomorrow as she finishes her testimony.

Love to you all, Heath Bozonie

Also, newspaper articles on the first day of the hearing are available from:

• PittsburghLIVE.com
  
• Post-Gazette
  
• Huntington's Herald-Dispatch