Yahoo News Noah Presgrove’s Siblings Say His Autopsy Report 'Leaves a Lot of Things Up in the Air’
“An accident occurred, and we don’t know what that accident is," Presgrove's brother tells PEOPLE of the teenager's death, which remains shrouded in mystery
Courtesy of Madison Rawlings
Noah Presgrove at his senior prom in 2023.A medical examiner’s summary report obtained by PEOPLE said that Noah Presgrove died of “multiple blunt force injuries,” but the cause of those injuries remains unknown
His brother tells PEOPLE that while he agrees with authorities that he does not think his brother was murdered — he can't imagine anyone wanting the widely popular and "loving guy” dead
“An accident occurred, and we don’t know what that accident is, so the next approach is figuring out how the incident played out," he adds
Noah Presgrove’s senior year was filled with all the mile markers leading up to adulthood. The four-sport high school athlete celebrated his wrestling team’s senior night with his parents, went to prom in a suit with an aqua bow tie and cowboy hat and started thinking about his future.
And then, just months after graduation, the Oklahoma teenager’s body was found on the side of Highway 81. He was naked, except for slip-on Hey Dudes, one of which was not even his, according to his family.
A medical examiner’s summary report obtained by PEOPLE said that Noah, 19, died of “multiple blunt force injuries,” but the cause of those injuries remains unknown — and his family is filled with questions about what happened to him.
“It still leaves a lot of things up in the air,” brother Dailen Presgrove says of the autopsy report. “An accident occurred, and we don’t know what that accident is, so the next approach is figuring out how [it] played out.”
Courtesy of Madison Rawlings
Noah Presgrove (center) with his father, Victor Presgrove (left) and mother, Kasey Elliot (right), at his wrestling team's senior night.When Noah was found dead on Labor Day 2023, his naked body was curled in the fetal position and blood pooled by his head.
He had multiple broken ribs, chunks of hair gone and several missing teeth, which investigators had found close to his body, ticking each off with an evidence marker, according to family who were at the scene and reviewed the full autopsy report, which has not yet been publicly released.
“The investigation is not over,” Sarah Stewart of the Oklahoma Department of Public Safety confirmed to PEOPLE in an emailed statement Thursday, May 2. However, following “numerous interviews” investigators do not believe that Noah was murdered, she says.
Courtesy of Madison Rawlings
Noah Presgrove during his senior year of high school.Eight months after his death, Noah’s siblings, Dailen and Madison Rawlings, who both spoke to PEOPLE following the initial release of the autopsy findings, say they're still looking for answers about Noah’s death.
Dailen, 24, says that while he agrees with authorities that he does not think his brother was murdered — he can't imagine anyone wanting the widely popular “goofy, loving guy,” dead — he still believes there is more to the story of his brother’s death than has yet been told to authorities.
Over the Labor Day holiday, Noah had been at a house party in Teral, OK, his siblings tell PEOPLE, noting that the party lasted four days.
Investigators have collected data from partygoers' phones, recovering Snapchats, videos and text messages about the party, but they still have not been able to nail down a timeline of Noah’s last few hours, according to his brother.
Oklahoma’s Department of Public Safety and the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner did not immediately respond to PEOPLE’s request for additional comment on the open death investigation and full autopsy report.
Courtesy of Madison Rawlings
Noah Presgrove (in the gray) during a high school wrestling match.Noah, who ran track and cross country, as well as playing football and wrestling, “was a jokester, but never at somebody else’s expense,” Dailen says.
“He was the class clown and the most likely to get detention,” his brother adds with a laugh. “But also the most popular, the most athletic. He was a jokester, but never at somebody else’s expense.”
Noah — who grew up in Stephens County, OK. with his sister, Rawlings, and their younger brother, D.J. — spent summers with their grandmother at a nearby lake, tubing and water-skiing.
Courtesy of Madison Rawlings
Noah Presgrove at the beach during the summer of 2022.At 17, Noah became emancipated and was living with his grandmother at the time of his death.
With five more siblings, including Dailen, on his father’s side, the brothers became closer when Dailen began working at Comanche High School for Noah’s senior year.
“Between class periods, I got the chance to see Noah going throughout the hallways,” Dailen says of what would ultimately be his brother’s final year of life. “I got to spend more time with him and build that brotherhood.”
Often, Noah could be seen in a beat-up red truck that had a penchant for stalling out, but, his brother says that “instead of paying to go get it fixed, he would push-start it everywhere he went.”
After graduating in 2023, Noah took a gap year while he tried to figure out his next move, according to his sister. He could not afford college without a full-ride, so he looked into wrestling scholarships, as well as a career in welding, or working on a shrimp boat in Texas.
Madison Rawlings/GoFundMe
Noah PresgroveNow, instead of thinking about Noah's future, his family is left wondering what happened at that party.
“It doesn’t make sense that the investigation has been going on for so long, and there were so many people around, and, yet, there’s still so much uncertainty,” Dailen says. “And it doesn’t make sense that a good person like Noah is gone in such a cruel and unknown way.”
After Noah’s death, Dailen says friends “all over the county congregated at the burial site immediately afterwards and lined their vehicles up on the road” for a commemorative burnout “and they probably went through a dozen or more tires altogether doing it.”
The tight-knit community also set up several fundraisers in Noah’s name. After funeral expenses were covered, the family decided to put that money back into the community, setting up what they hope to be an annual scholarship fund for students and graduates of Comanche High School.
Applicants were asked to write an essay describing themselves, their future plans and their version of “good character.”
It’s a scholarship, his family says that honors his memory, as well as the future he did not get.
“One of the great things about Noah,” says Dailen: “It didn’t matter what group you fit into — or who you were — you got along with Noah.”
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