(LEAD) Usual suspect in Itaewon homicide cold case caught in U.S.

(ATTN: CHANGED lead and added details, ADDS comments of victim's mother from 9th para)
SEOUL, Oct. 11 (Yonhap) -- The key suspect in a cold-case murder that took place in Seoul's multicultural Itaewon district nearly 15 years ago is in custody in California pending extradition to South Korea, sources here have said.
"Arthur Patterson, then the 17-year-old son of a U.S. Army contractor, has been arrested on charges regarding the 1997 murder and undergone trial in a local court in California," a source from Seoul's prosecutors' office said Monday. He declined to be identified.
In April 1997, a South Korean college student surnamed Cho, 22, was stabbed to death at a Burger King outlet in Itaewon. Prosecutors named two suspects -- Patterson and 18-year-old Korean-American Edward Lee -- who had dined with Cho that evening. Both suspects admitted to witnessing the killing but each accused the other of being the culprit.
The court found Lee guilty of murder and sentenced him to life imprisonment in 1998, but he was acquitted by the Supreme Court the following year on a lack of evidence. Patterson was sentenced to 18 months in prison for possessing an illegal weapon and destroying evidence but was released early in 1999 as part of a general amnesty, after which he returned to his home in California.
Upon renewed interest in the crime sparked by the 2009 blockbuster film "The Case of the Itaewon Homicide" and complaints from the victim's family, authorities have reopened the case and requested Patterson's extradition from the United States.
"The trial in California is to decide whether to extradite the man to South Korea," the source said, adding, "Such trials for extradition take a long time in general, and it is hard to tell anything about the outcome as of now."
Another source from Seoul's Justice Ministry confirmed that Patterson "has been in custody in the U.S. due to his involvement in the case."
The investigation would be due to officially close in April 2012 when the 15 year statute of limitation expires, but the statute is immediately suspended if an offender leaves the country to evade punishment.
"I was devastated by the news that the suspect flew back home as prosecutors mistakenly failed to renew a travel ban on him," the victim's mother Lee Bok-su said in an interview with Yonhap News Agency on Tuesday. "I still shudder to think of the tragedy that killed my son."
"Patterson should stand before the South Korean court and pay the price for his crime," she stressed. "That is the only way to soothe my son's soul and defend the justice of the country."