CHEYENNE, Wyo. (AP) — Cross-country traveler Gabby Petito was strangled, a Wyoming coroner announced Tuesday.

Petito, 22, died three to four weeks before her body was found Sept. 19 near an undeveloped camping area along the border of Grand Teton National Park in remote northern Wyoming, Teton County Coroner Dr. Brent Blue said in a news conference.

It wasn’t clear if the determination might lead to additional charges against Petito’s boyfriend and traveling partner, Brian Laundrie, who is considered a person of interest in her disappearance and remains unaccounted for.

Blue declined to say more about the autopsy or the case overall, saying he was prevented by Wyoming law that limits what coroners can release.

Petito had been on a cross-country trip with Laundrie, visiting Colorado, Utah and other states. She was reported missing Sept. 11 by her parents after she did not respond to calls and texts for several days while the couple visited national parks in the West.

Blue previously classified Petito’s death as a homicide — meaning her death was caused by another person — but had not disclosed how she was killed pending further autopsy results.

A “detailed analysis” led to his conclusion Petito was strangled, Blue said.

“Nothing is obvious in a case like this,” he said.

Blue said little more about Petito’s physical condition — including whether she may have been strangled directly by somebody’s hands, a rope or some other item — but noted when asked that she wasn’t pregnant.

The three to four weeks her body was believed to be in the wilderness, however, put her death around the Aug. 27-30 period investigators believe Petito and Laundrie had traveled to the area.

Petito’s case has led to renewed calls for people to pay greater attention to cases involving missing Indigenous women and other people of color, with some commentators describing the intense coverage of her disappearance as “missing white woman syndrome.”

The search for Laundrie has generated a frenzy, with TV personalities like Duane Chapman — known as Dog the Bounty Hunter — and longtime “America’s Most Wanted” host John Walsh working to track him down.

Petito and Laundrie posted online about their trip in a white Ford Transit van converted into a camper. They got into a physical altercation Aug. 12 in Moab, Utah, that led to a police stop, which ended with police deciding to separate the quarreling couple for the night. No charges were filed, and no serious injuries were reported.

Investigators have searched for Laundrie in Florida and also searched his parents’ home in North Port, about 35 miles (56 kilometers) south of Sarasota.

Federal officials in Wyoming last month charged Laundrie with unauthorized use of a debit card, alleging he used a Capital One Bank card and someone’s personal identification number to make unauthorized withdrawals or charges worth more than $1,000 during the period in which Petito went missing. They did not say to whom the card belonged.

Asked about the coroner’s determination, the attorney for the Laundrie family, Steven Bertolino, in a statement noted his client only faces the fraud charge in the case.

“At this time Brian is still missing and when he is located we will address the fraud charge pending against him,” Bertolino said.

In Florida, FBI-led search teams have been looking in a vast nature preserve for any sign of Laundrie. Weeks of searching in the swampy Carlton Reserve south of Sarasota — where Laundrie’s parents say he went after returning home from the West — have turned up nothing.

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Story: Mead Gruver

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — North Korean leader Kim Jong Un reviewed a rare exhibition of weapons systems and vowed to build an “invincible” military, as he accused the United States of creating tensions and not taking action to prove it has no hostile intent toward the North, state media reported Tuesday.

In an apparent continued effort to drive a wedge between Washington and Seoul, Kim also said his drive to build up his military isn’t targeted at South Korea and that there shouldn’t be another war pitting Korean people against each other.

Kim gave the speech Monday at the “Defense Development Exhibition ‘Self-Defense-2021’,” an event meant to mark the previous day’s 76th birthday of the ruling Workers’ Party. The event featured an array of new weapons, including intercontinental ballistic missiles that North Korea has already test-launched or displayed during a military parade.

“The U.S. has frequently signaled it’s not hostile to our state, but there is no action-based evidence to make us believe that they are not hostile,” Kim said, according to the official Korean Central News Agency. “The U.S. is continuing to create tensions in the region with its wrong judgments and actions.”

Calling the United States a “source” of instability on the Korean Peninsula, Kim said his country’s most important objective is possessing an “invincible military capability” that no one can dare challenge.

Kim accused South Korea of hypocrisy because it criticizes North Korea’s weapons development as provocations while spending heavily to increase its own military capabilities, including purchasing advanced U.S. stealth fighters. But he still said his military doesn’t target South Korea.

“I say once again that South Korea isn’t the one that our military forces have to fight against,” Kim said. “Surely, we aren’t strengthening our defense capability because of South Korea. We shouldn’t repeat a horrible history of compatriots using force against each other.”

North Korean state media photos showed Kim, clad in a dark suit, walking on a red carpet lined with big missiles mounted on trucks, passing by a multiple rocket launch system and watching jets flying in a formation.

Seoul’s Defense Ministry said South Korean and U.S. intelligence authorities were analyzing the North Korean weapons displayed but didn’t elaborate. Seoul’s Unification Ministry said Monday’s exhibition was the first of its kind since Kim took power in 2011.

Yang Wook, a military expert who teaches at South Korea’s Hannam University, said the weapons shown in the photos were largely what the North has already displayed during military parades. Among them was what appears to be a new ICBM that North Korea disclosed during a military parade last year but hasn’t test-fired, Yang said. That missile mounted on an 11-axel launch vehicle during the parade is considered to be the North’s biggest-yet ICBM.

South Korean media reported Monday’s exhibition also featured another ICBM and shorter-range missiles that North Korea has already test-launched.

“Basically, North Korea wants to send this message: ‘We’ll continue to develop new weapons and arm ourselves with nuclear force, so don’t slap sanctions with these as we can’t agree on the double standards,’” Yang said.

North Korea has sent mixed signals toward its rivals in recent weeks.

Last month, North Korea performed its first missile tests in six months, including nuclear-capable weapons that could reach targets in South Korea and Japan, including U.S. military bases there. But North Korea still restored dormant phone and fax channels with South Korea and said it’s open to restarting official talks with South Korea if conditions are met.

Some experts say North Korea is attempting to use South Korea’s desire to improve ties to pressure it to convince the United States to relax punishing economic sanctions on the North and make other concessions.

North Korea has long sought improved ties with the United States because it wants sanctions relief and a better security environment to focus on reviving its moribund economy. The high-stakes diplomacy between the countries fell apart in early 2019 after the Americans rejected North Korea’s calls for extensive sanctions relief in return for partial disarmament steps.

The United States has recently repeatedly offered talks with North Korea “anywhere and at any time” without preconditions. Kim has called such an offer “cunning” attempt to conceal U.S. hostility against North Korea, as he wants Washington to ease the sanctions or suspend its regular military drills with Seoul first before the talks can resume.

Despite its recent missile tests, Kim still maintains a 2018 self-imposed moratorium on long-range missile tests directly targeting the American homeland, a sign that he still wants to keep alive chances for future talks with Washington.

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Story: Hyung-jin Kim. Associated Press writer Kim Tong-hyung contributed to this report.

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — North Korea said Monday leader Kim Jong Un urged officials to overcome a “grim situation” facing the country and make stronger efforts to improve the food and living conditions of his people.

But state media didn’t mention any specific comments toward Washington and Seoul while reporting on Kim’s speech marking the 76th anniversary of the ruling Workers’ Party’s founding.

Nuclear negotiations between Washington and Pyongyang have stalled for more than two years over disagreements in exchanging the release of crippling U.S.-led sanctions against North Korea and the North’s denuclearization steps.

The country has ramped up its missile testing activity in recent weeks while making conditional peace offers to Seoul, reviving a pattern of pressuring South Korea to get what it wants from the United States.

Pyongyang’s official Korean Central News Agency said Kim during his speech on Sunday said his party is determined to achieve the economic goals set during the party’s congress in January, when he acknowledged his previous economic plans weren’t succeeding and issued new development plans for the next five years.

The agency said Kim confirmed the determination of the party to efficiently carry out the five-year plan to boost “the national economy and solving the people’s food, clothing and housing problems.”

The KCNA said Kim analyzed the “unprecedented difficulties” facing the North and called for the party’s single-minded unity in developing the state economy in face of the “grim situation.”

Analysts say Kim is facing perhaps the toughest moment of his near decade in power. He failed to win badly needed sanctions relief in his summitry with then-President Donald Trump in 2018 and 2019, then the coronavirus pandemic caused North Korea to close its borders and unleashed further economic shock after decades of mismanagement and sanctions over Kim’s nuclear weapons program.

The World Health Organization said last week some of its COVID-19 medical supplies had arrived at a North Korea port, an indication the North was easing one of the world’s strictest pandemic border closures to receive outside help.

Kim has so far rejected the Biden administration’s offers to restart dialogue without preconditions, saying that Washington must first abandon its “hostile policy,” a term the North mainly uses to refer to sanctions and U.S.-South Korea military exercises.

But the North in recent weeks have also restored communication lines with the South and said it could take further steps to improve bilateral relations if Seoul abandons its “double-dealing attitude” and “hostile viewpoint.”

Analysts say North Korea is using the South’s desire for inter-Korean engagement to drive a wedge between Washington and Seoul and to pressure the South to extract concessions from the Biden administration on its behalf.

Story: Kim Tong-hyung