Fowle was on his way home after negotiators left Pyongyang. The White House welcomed Fowle’s release and thanked Sweden for helping arrange his departure from North Korea. There was no immediate explanation for the release of Fowle, who was quickly whisked off to the US territory of Guam before beginning the journey back to his wife and three children in Miamisburg, Ohio. He had been imprisoned after he left a Bible in a nightclub in the hope that it would reach North Korea’s underground Christian community.