SEVIERVILLE - The mother of a young Army private says she wants her daughter's killer "punished to the max."

The man accused of killing Pvt. Melissa Victoria Foster was arraigned Monday in Sevier County Circuit Court after being extradited from North Carolina last week.

Julio Enrique Fernandez remains in custody in the Sevier County Jail on a first-degree murder charge in connection with the death of Foster, whose body was found Nov. 14 in a Sevierville apartment Fernandez shared with two other men. Fernandez and his roommates are illegal immigrants from Honduras, according to authorities.

Fernandez became a suspect in the killing early in the investigation, detectives with the Sevierville Police Department said, but he fled East Tennessee. He was captured Feb. 14 in Raleigh, N.C., and had fought extradition, but he was returned anyway.

Teresa Hinton of Pigeon Forge, Foster's mother, said Monday she wants her daughter's killer punished to the fullest extent of the law, and advocates the death penalty.

Foster, 17, had enlisted in the U.S. Army after graduating high school, Hinton said, and had completed part of her basic training when she was injured.

Foster was sent home for a period of convalescence, and that is when she was killed.

Foster and Fernandez, whose age is reportedly between 19 and 22, previously had a rocky relationship. Hinton said her daughter had planned to attend a birthday party for her younger brother after she went to visit Fernandez that day. She never arrived at the party.

Fernandez faces a July plea date in the case. He will be tried by Judge Richard Vance. Judge Rex Henry Ogle, who presided over Fernandez' arraignment, appointed Sevierville attorney Joseph Baker to represent Fernandez.

Outside the courtroom Monday, Mary Gail Slagle, Foster's grandmother, said the county's "court system will not be good enough" to right the wrong done Foster.

"I have to begin to forgive this boy," she said, "for what he did. He has ripped something away from all of us."

Robert Wilson is a freelance contributor to the News Sentinel.

http://www.knoxnews.com/news/2009/apr/0 ... rs-killer/