Otto Warmier’s Parents on Their Son’s Final Days: ‘North Korea Destroyed Him’

Otto Warmbier, the college student who was detained for 17 months in North Korea then died days after returning home in a coma, became a national tragedy, and sparked a highly needed debate on North Korean cruelty and punishment. Now, his parents opened up to Fox and Friends about their son’s final days, saying he was “howling” and “jerking” his body around.

“But now we see North Korea claiming to be a victim and that the world is picking on them and we’re here to tell you: North Korea is not a victim. They’re terrorists,” Fred Warmbier said. “They kidnapped Otto. They tortured him. They intentionally injured him. They are not victims.”

Apparently, Otto let out a “howling, involuntary, inhuman” sound while he was on the plane dropping him off in the U.S. It was so disturbing that his mom and sister needed to leave the plane.

Fred said he was “jerking violently” on a stretcher with a feeding tube out of his nose, and his mouth looked as through “someone had taken a pair of pliers and rearranged his bottom teeth.”

“They destroyed him,” Otto’s mom Cindy said. “Our image of Otto, as you know, was of someone just wonderful, beautiful inside and out. And to see how he came home was too much for us. 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 Warmier