The driver who first stumbled upon the body of a teenager who mysteriously died 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 the Labor Day weekend that was heavily documented on social media.
Gulfmark Energy field supervisor Tyler Hardy was the first known person to find the teenager’s body, and called 911 at 5.53am.
Hardy spoke to local cops 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 5.53am
‘I was the one who found the body so yes I can say 100 per cent that nobody 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 darkness to an early shift when he spotted something in the headlights of his Ford F-150 work pickup truck.
He pulled over to take a closer look and realized he was looking at the body of a young man, dead by the side of the road.
‘At first glance I thought he may have had a bullet hole in his head,’ he said.
He said Presgrove’s body was lying in the fetal position, totally naked except for mismatched shoes, with a pair of white shorts lying on the road about 25ft away.
Crucially, Hardy said there was very little blood at the scene despite the teenager’s massive upper-body injuries, 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 Presgrove didn’t die where he was found and was instead killed somewhere else and his body dumped on the highway.
Confronting photos of police chalk outlines showed where his body, marked by the white line, and at least one of his teeth, marked by the circle, were found
Hardy stayed with the body as a Oklahoma Petroleum Allies semi-truck he had been behind turned around in Terral, about two miles south, and came back to the scene.
‘I called it in and so did the truck driver, we were on the phone with them at the same time,’ he said.
‘We did not leave the scene until around 10am and nobody was messing with anything.’
Less than 10 minutes after both he and the truck driver called 911, Presgrove’s best friend Jack Newton arrived.
‘Jack was the only person who walked up to to Noah, and he told me who it was, until the Terral fire and Jefferson County Sheriffs showed up,’ Hardy said.
Newton also told DailyMail.com that there was minimal blood at the scene – only a little coming out of his ears and on the top of his head where part of his scalp was torn away 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 teeth within the circles. In the background is a memorial set up for the teenager
Presgrove’s best friend called his father Caleb Newton about 6.05pm to break the news, and he hurried to the scene about 40 minutes down the highway 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 the shorts by 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 figured maybe he got a ride or something, Noah’s done that before – got mad and left,’ he told DailyMail.com.
‘He was not one you usually worry about. I wasn’t really thinking about it.’
Jack was supposed to go fishing with his father that day and texted him at 5.53am – coincidentally the same time as the 911 call – letting him know he was on his way.
‘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 replied ‘ok’.
Jack assumed Presgrove was fine and left for the lake, driving north until he saw the semi-trailer and pickup by the side of the road.
Jack Newton, Presgrove’s best friend, arrived soon after Hardy and the truck driver found the body and called 911
Jack texted his father, Caleb Newton, at 5.53am letting him know he was on his way
Oklahoma Chief Medical Examiner Leonardo Roquero ruled Presgrove died of ‘multiple blunt force injuries’, but how he got them was ‘undetermined’.
His autopsy report released on May 13 detailed extensive injuries to the teen’s upper body, including 10 broken ribs, serious skull, neck, and spine fractures, internal bleeding, brain and organ damage, and cuts and grazes all over his body.
There was one extensive skull fracture running across his head, ‘splitting the middle base of skull into two’, and two smaller ones, with police investigators describing his head as being ‘caved in’.
Roquero wrote that there were ‘no vehicle parts or debris observed on the scene’, indicating Presgrove was almost certainly not hit by a car.
‘He was naked and was only wearing unmatching shoes. There was a pair of shorts found several feet from the decedent and was reported to be his,’ Roquero wrote.
‘Additionally, there were three pieces of a white metal chain as well as part of a tooth present several feet from the decedent.’
Presgrove was a high school football player until his graduation in May
Roquero noted there was ‘a drawing in black ink of a stick-figure person on the side of the right thigh’.
The shorts he was wearing were undamaged, despite the grazes on his buttocks, and the slip-on shoes had grass and other debris lodged in them.
Presgrove had a blood alcohol level of 0.14, but no drugs in his system.
Confronting photos of police chalk outlines showed his teeth were found scattered across the highway, some a dozen feet from his body.