The driver who first stumbled upon the body of a teenager who died mysteriously during a wild party has broken his silence.
Noah Presgrove, 19, was wearing only shoes when his body was discovered on a desolate stretch of US-81 near Terral, Oklahoma, on September 4.
He was last seen alive about a mile away at a four-day 22nd birthday party with friends over Labor Day weekend that was widely documented on social media.
Gulfmark Energy field supervisor Tyler Hardy was the first known person to find the teen’s body and called 911 at 5:53 a.m.
Hardy spoke with local police at the scene and said he was interviewed three times by Oklahoma Highway Patrol detectives, but is only now speaking publicly.
Noah Presgrove, 19, was wearing only shoes when his body was discovered on a desolate stretch of US-81 in Terral, Oklahoma, on September 4.
Gulfmark Energy field supervisor Tyler Hardy (pictured with his wife Mallory) was the first known person to find Presgrove’s body and called 911 at 5:53 a.m.
“I was the one who found the body, so I can say 100 percent that no one messed with Noah, I was the first person there,” he said.
“I know who and what I saw.”
The married father of two was driving south in the dark toward an early shift when he saw something in the headlights of his Ford F-150 work truck.
He stopped to take a closer look and realized he was looking at the body of a young man, dead on the side of the road.
“At first glance I thought he might have had a bullet hole in his head,” he said.
He said Presgrove’s body lay in the fetal position, completely naked except for mismatched shoes, with a pair of white shorts lying on the road about 25 feet away.
Crucially, Hardy said there was very little blood at the scene despite massive injuries to the teenager’s upper body, including three skull fractures.
A medical expert told DailyMail.com that with the injuries detailed in Presgrove’s autopsy report, there would have been a lot of blood at the scene.
Many friends, family and locals believe that Presgrove did not die where he was found, but was killed somewhere else and his body was dumped on the road.
Facing photographs of police chalk outlines showed where her body, marked by the white line, and at least one of her teeth, marked by the circle, were found.
Hardy stayed with the body while an Oklahoma Petroleum Allies truck that had been behind turned around on Terral, about two miles south, and returned to the scene.
“I called him and the truck driver too, we were on the phone with them at the same time,” he said.
“We didn’t leave the place until around 10 a.m. and no one was playing with anything.”
Less than 10 minutes after he and the trucker called 911, Presgrove’s best friend, Jack Newton, arrived.
“Jack was the only person who came up to Noah and told me who he was, until the Terral fire and the Jefferson County sheriffs showed up,” Hardy said.
Newton also told DailyMail.com that there was minimal blood at the scene: just a little bit coming out of his ears and on the top of his head, where part of his scalp was torn to the bone.
Presgrove’s body was found about a mile north along the highway from the small street where the party was held.
Presgrove’s body was found between the two chalk lines and the teeth inside the circles. In the background there is a monument in memory of the teenager.
Presgrove’s best friend called his father, Caleb Newton, around 6:05 a.m. to break the news, and he rushed to the scene, about 40 minutes down the road from his home in Comanche.
By then police had arrived at 6.18am and covered Presgrove’s body with a tarp or sheet and folded his shorts on the side of the road near his body.
Jack said he woke up ready to go fishing and was told his best friend was missing.
“I thought maybe they would take him away or something, Noah had done that before – he got angry and left,” she told DailyMail.com.
He wasn’t someone you normally worried about. I wasn’t really thinking about that.’
Jack was supposed to go fishing with his dad that day and texted him at 5:53 a.m., coincidentally the same time as the 911 call, to let him know he was on his way.
‘I’ll see you all at the lake. Can you bring me a hat please? “Someone messed with mine after I went to bed,” she wrote. Caleb responded “okay.”
Jack assumed Presgrove was okay and left for the lake, driving north until he saw the semi-trailer and pickup truck on the side of the road.
Jack Newton, Presgrove’s best friend, arrived shortly after Hardy and the trucker found the body and called 911.
Jack texted his father, Caleb Newton, at 5:53 a.m. to let him know he was on his way.
Oklahoma Chief Medical Examiner Leonardo Roquero Failed Presgrove died of “multiple blunt force injuries,” but “undetermined” how he suffered them.
His autopsy report released on May 13 details extensive injuries to the teen’s upper body, including 10 broken ribs, severe skull, neck and spine fractures, internal bleeding, brain and organ damage, and cuts and scrapes throughout. the body.
There was an extensive skull fracture running through his head, “splitting the middle base of the skull in two,” and two smaller ones, and police investigators described his head as “sunken in.”
Roquero wrote that “no vehicle parts or debris were observed at the scene,” indicating that Presgrove was almost certainly not hit by a car.
“He was naked and was only wearing shoes that did not match. A pair of shorts was found several meters from the deceased and was reported to be his,” Roquero wrote.
“In addition, there were three pieces of a white metal chain, as well as part of a tooth, several meters from the deceased.”
Presgrove was a high school football player until his graduation in May.
Roquero noticed that there was “a black ink drawing of a stick figure on the side of his right thigh.”
The shorts he was wearing were undamaged, despite scratches on his buttocks, and his slip-on shoes had grass and other debris lodged in them.
Presgrove had a blood alcohol level of 0.14, but there were no drugs in his system.
Confronted photographs of police chalk outlines showed that his teeth were found scattered across the road, about three meters from his body.
