WYOMING, Ohio — In what may be his final happy moments, Otto Warmbier smiles at the camera and playfully throws a chunk of Pyongyang snow.
The heartbreaking video was screened at the end of Warmbier’s funeral in his hometown of Wyoming, Ohio, on Thursday, running silently and in slow motion.
Some 2,000 mourners watched wordlessly as the tragic young American stood with local children and fellow tourists in the scuffed snow of a North Korean government plaza, his snowball slowly rising, then falling.
Warmbier, a University of Virginia undergrad and avid world traveler, would be stopped at the airport days later, in early January 2016, moments before his flight out of the rogue dictatorship.
His next videos would show him begging for his life — “Think of my family!” he sobbed — as he was tried and convicted of subversion, for allegedly stealing a propaganda banner as a souvenir.
He suffered a mortal head injury soon after being taken into North Korean custody to begin a 15-year sentence, and was flown home in a coma on June 13, dying at age 22 on Monday in a hospital in Cincinnati.
“He would always have some unbelievable story to share with us,” Warmbier’s fraternity brother said at the funeral of listening to his friend’s tales of travel adventure.
Despite his youth, Warmbier had already visited Galapagos, Israel and Cuba.
“I’ve been waiting for the last 18 months to hear his most grisly [story] yet,” the frat brother added. “Unfortunately, that story will never be shared.”
Additional reporting by Laura Italiano
