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Hot On The Case

College Student Visits North Korea.. & Returned in a Coma

Hot On The Case

Breanna Heim

True Crime

5714 Ratings

🗓️ 1 August 2025

⏱️ 37 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. Give online therapy a try at betterhelp.com/HOTC and get on your way to being your best self.

In this week's episode of Hot On The Case, we unravel the haunting a mysterious story of Otto Warmbier, a bright college student whose curiosity led him to one of the most secretive & dangerous nations in the entire world.

17 months later Otto returned home.. in a coma.


#TrueCrime

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

Sitting quietly once you've made the house all shiny.

0:04.0

Down time can be just fine, playing bangers from the 90s.

0:08.0

Tea break.

0:09.0

Lunch break.

0:10.0

Maybe listen to the outbreak.

0:12.0

Sometimes it's not time for some tombola, right?

0:15.0

It's enjoying lasagna time, chilling with a book time, or time to visit your nan time go on play some other time put your phone down

0:23.8

tombola open for fun terms apply 18 plus gambleaware dot org

0:29.3

north korea is one of the most secretive and isolated countries in the entire world ruled for for generations by a mysterious, brutal dictatorship

0:40.5

built on propaganda, fear, and near total control over its people.

0:46.2

Their citizens are subjected to intense brainwashing from birth, taught to worship the ruling

0:53.3

Kim family as gods, and view the outside world,

0:57.2

but especially America, as their greatest enemy. Since 2017, the United States of America

1:03.2

have banned any of their citizens from going to North Korea, citing the serious risk of arrest

1:09.7

and long-term imprisonment of Americans.

1:13.0

This isn't just about the government being too careful.

1:16.3

This isn't fearmongering.

1:18.0

The risk of wrongful detention is just the least of your worries.

1:21.9

In 2015, a young American college student, just 21 years old,

1:29.9

traveled to North Korea for what was just meant to be a quick five-day trip over winter break. But instead of returning home with

1:36.7

stories of a strange trip, he was wrongfully arrested, used as a propaganda trophy, and sentenced to years and years of cruel and unusual

1:48.4

punishment.

...

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