How was anybody able to make these determinations without an autopsy? In order to determine the cause of death, an autopsy is necessary. His parents prevented an autopsy so everything else is a guess. You can do nothing more than guess. An autopsy would have revealed the real cause of death and, even more, what had happened to their son.
Yeah, the parent’s clamoring to find out what happened
comes out ingenuous when they won’t allow an autopsy.
There is the possibility that Otto arrived home in such terrible condition (blind, deaf, coma like state, etc) from the torture and abuse he suffered in NK that the family decided to allow him to be sedated with morphine (which suppresses respiration) until he expired. The father mentioned that Otto was writhing when they first saw him, so that would be a reason to initially administer morphine.