After a drunken pub fight, an incident with police and a stay in South Korean jail, Private Second Class King was being taken to the airport last month to fly back to Texas.
But instead of travelling to Fort Bliss for disciplinary hearings, King snuck away, joined a Demilitarized Zone sightseeing trip and slipped over the border.
July’s incident came as relations between the two Koreas are at one of their lowest points ever, with diplomacy stalled and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un calling for increased weapons development, including of tactical nuclear warheads.
Earlier this month, the United Nations Command said North Korea had “responded” to efforts to discuss the case.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken confirmed at the time that contact had been made with the North Koreans, adding he still had no idea where King was or in what condition.
The two Koreas remain technically at war because the 1950-53 conflict ended in an armistice, not a treaty, and most of the border between them is heavily fortified.
But at the JSA, the frontier is marked only by a low concrete divider and is relatively easy to cross, despite the presence of soldiers on both sides.
Pyongyang has a long history of detaining Americans and using them as bargaining chips in bilateral negotiations.