Otto Warmbier's Coroner Report Contradicts Parents’ North Korea Story

Otto Warmbier’s death was caused by lack of oxygen and blood to the brain, according to a coroner’s report released Wednesday. The report also had some information that ran counter to his parent’s account of his injuries.

Warmbier was a University of Virginia student who was detained in North Korea and was sentenced to 15 years of hard labor in 2016 for allegedly stealing a poster from a hotel in Pyongyang. Warmbier was visiting North Korea en route to study abroad in China.

He was medically evacuated to the U.S. in June and died six days later at the age of 22.

The coroner said that the death was caused by an unknown injury that had happened to Warmbier more than a year before his death. The coroner performed an external examination and not a full autopsy at the request of his parents.

“We don’t know what happened to him and that’s the bottom line,” said the coroner, Dr. Lakshmi Kode Sammarco.

The manner of death is listed as “undetermined.” Sammarco also said that the student had no clear signs of torture, something that his parents and President Donald Trump insisted on.

“Great interview on @foxandfriends with the parents of Otto Warmbier: 1994 - 2017. Otto was tortured beyond belief by North Korea,” tweeted Trump after Warmbier’s parents gave their first television interview on Fox Tuesday.

By the time the young student arrived back in the U.S. he had been in a coma for over a year. His medical team at the University of Cincinnati Medical Center said he suffered an extensive loss of brain tissue that mirrored the injuries of cardiopulmonary arrest. Warmbier was in a state of unresponsive wakefulness before he died.

“They destroyed him,” said his mother Cindy Warmbier on Fox. “I almost passed out but I got it together, and I rode in the ambulance with him, 'cause I did not want him to be alone anymore. He'd been alone for way too long. And we stayed with him and loved him as best as we could.”

Otto Wambier’s father, Fred Wemabier described his son’s bottom teeth looking like they had been rearranged by a set of pliers, but the coroner refutes that.

“The teeth are natural and in good repair,” read the report.

Sammarco also addressed the issue in a press conference Wednesday, saying the parent’s statement was a “surprise.”

“I felt very comfortable that there wasn't any evidence of trauma [to the teeth or jawbone],” said Sammarco.

Another discrepancy between the accounts revolved around scars.

“How do you get a scar that covers the entire top of your foot?” Cindy Warmbier asked. “[The coroner] said it had to be an open wound for months and months and months.”

The report described a large scar on Otto Warmbier’s foot and a group of smaller scars but does include a description of a wound being open for months.

North Korea claimed that Otto Warmbier had gotten a case of botulism and entered the coma after being given a sleeping pill. North Korea also claims that they did not torture Otto Warmbier and that they were in fact, the victims.