The Hamilton County coroner examining Otto Warmbier found he had a collection of small scars on his body, but none appear serious enough to indicate he was tortured while he was imprisoned in North Korea.

Report: North Korea says Trump exploiting Otto Warmbier's death

The coroner’s report, which The Enquirer obtained Tuesday, only deepened the mystery of what happened to the 22-year-old University of Virginia student, who died six days after he returned June 13 to Cincinnati from more than a year in North Korean custody.

Warmbier’s parents, Fred and Cindy Warmbier of suburban Wyoming, appeared on national television Tuesday morning and broke their three months of silence over the death of their son.

Cindy Warmbier said: “They destroyed him.” Fred Warmbier accused North Korean officials of torturing their child to the point that “it looked like someone had taken a pair of pliers and rearranged his bottom teeth.”

After the Warmbiers’ morning appearance on Fox News, President Trump took to Twitter to observe, “Great interview on @foxandfriends with the parents of Otto Warmbier: 1994 - 2017. Otto was tortured beyond belief by North Korea.”

But the coroner’s postmortem examination of Otto Warmbier did not indicate the young man’s teeth had been disfigured. “The teeth are natural and in good repair,” the report said, and his nose and ears show “no remarkable alteration.”

The Enquirer left a message with Fred Warmbier Tuesday in an effort to reconcile the parents' comments with the coroner's report.

The Warmbiers’ television appearances – they later appeared on CNN as well – and the president’s Twitter comment occurred at a tense geopolitical moment.

Relations between the United States and North Korea have hit their lowest point in more than half a century. The reclusive Asian state has been test-firing missiles capable of carrying a nuclear warhead, and Trump has promised that the United States is prepared to retaliate against any threat.

More: Medical mysteries surround end of Warmbier's life

More:Otto Warmbier's parents: 'They destroyed him'

Deputy county coroner Dr. Gretel Stephens, with oversight by the elected coroner, Dr. Lakshmi Sammarco, conducted the examination and wrote the report. The cause of death, the report noted, was brain damage from a lack of oxygen “due to an unknown insult more than a year prior to death" -- insult, in this case, meaning an injury. The coroner limited the investigation to examining Otto Warmbier’s body because his parents declined an autopsy.

The coroner’s report of the young man’s “well-developed, well-nourished” body lists at least small 10 scars. At least half of them were pale, indicating they were older. Newer scars with bruising, such as one on his right side of his neck, could have come from medical treatment, such as for an intravenous line. Another at the top of Warmbier’s sternum is “consistent with a tracheostomy scar,” made to insert a breathing tube, although when that could have happened is not clear in the report.

Dr. Brian Peterson, coroner of Milwaukee County, Wisconsin, is president of the National Association of Medical Examiners. He reviewed the Warmbier report at The Enquirer’s request to clarify terminology, and he stressed he was not speaking directly about the case.

Some of the older scars look like something an athletic boy might acquire as part of growing up, he said.

“Hypothetically, could these things happen if you’re in a rough prison in North Korea? That might explain some of these things, but there’s nothing specific to show that,” he said.

In June, after Warmbier was released from North Korea and flown back to Cincinnati, he was taken to University of Cincinnati Medical Center where doctors ran tests. Days later at a news conference, the doctors reported that they found no broken bones or other signs of trauma. But the brain damage was extensive and severe.

An experienced globetrotter, Otto Warmbier went to North Korea with Young Pioneer Tours, a company based in China. He was arrested Jan. 2, 2016, in the capital of Pyongyang and accused of stealing a poster from a hotel. He was convicted and sentenced to 15 years at hard labor.

Nothing more was heard from Warmbier for 15 months. Three months ago, the North Korean government released him with a statement that Warmbier had contracted botulism, taken a sleeping pill and fell into a coma. The UC doctors used a newer term to describe his condition: a state of “unresponsive wakefulness,” when the brain is starved of oxygen.

The UC doctors said they found no botulism in Warmbier’s body. But even if the botulism explanation is true, the toxin cannot live in the body for a year. Treating botulism requires an antitoxin, not a sleeping pill.

The UC doctors also reported that a computer disc accompanied Warmbier from North Korea and contained a set of medical records, including scans from April and June 2016 that revealed his brain shrinking.

In June, Sammarco deferred ruling on the cause of Warmbier’s death to investigate further. Stephens signed the examination report Sept. 11.

After Warmbier’s funeral, North Korea denied torturing him and proclaimed puzzlement at his swift death after his return home. "Although we had no reason at all to show mercy to such a criminal of the enemy state, we provided him with medical treatments and care with all sincerity on a humanitarian basis until his return to the U.S."