Man who discovered Oklahoma teen Noah Presgrove’s naked body on desolate highway breaks his silence

The driver who first came across 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 September 4 on a deserted stretch of US-81 near Terral, Oklahoma.

He was last seen alive about a mile away during a four-day 22nd birthday party with friends over Labor Day weekend that was extensively documented on social media.

Gulfmark Energy field supervisor Tyler Hardy was the first known person to find the teen’s body, calling 911 at 5:53 a.m.

Hardy spoke with local police at the scene and said he had been interviewed three times by Oklahoma Highway Patrol detectives but is only now speaking publicly.

“I was the one who found the body, so yeah, I can say 100 percent that no one tampered 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 to an early shift when he saw something in the headlights of his Ford F-150 work pickup.

He stopped 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 had a bullet hole in his head,” he said.

He said Presgrove’s body was in a fetal position, completely naked except for mismatched shoes, wearing white shorts in 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 described 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 instead murdered elsewhere and his body dumped on the highway.

Hardy remained with the body when an Oklahoma Petroleum Allies semi-truck he was behind in Terral, about two miles south, turned around and returned to the scene.

“I called it and so did the truck driver, we were on the phone with them at the same time,” he said.

“We didn’t leave the scene until about 10 a.m. and there was no one there tampering 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 Noah, and he told me who it 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 – only a small amount of blood came from his ears and on the top of his head, where part of his scalp had been torn away to the bone.

Presgrove’s best friend called his father Caleb Newton around 6:05 a.m. to tell him the news, and he rushed to the scene of the accident, about 40 minutes down the highway from his home in Comanche.

By this time, police had arrived at 6:18 a.m. and covered Presgrove’s body with a tarp or sheet and folded the shorts next to his body on the side of the road.

Jack said he woke up ready to go fishing and was told his best friend was missing.

“I thought maybe he got a ride or something, Noah’s done that before. He got angry and left,” he told DailyMail.com.

‘He wasn’t someone you normally worry about. I didn’t really think about it.’

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 please bring me a hat? Someone tampered with mine after I went to bed,” he wrote. Caleb replied “okay.”

Jack assumed Presgrove was doing well and headed to the lake. He drove north until he saw the semi-trailer and pickup truck on the side of the road.

Oklahoma’s chief medical examiner, Leonardo Roquero, ruled Presgrove died of “multiple blunt force injuries,” but how he died was “undetermined.”

His autopsy report, released May 13, details extensive injuries to the teen’s upper body, including 10 broken ribs, severe skull, neck and spinal fractures, internal bleeding, brain and organ damage, and cuts and abrasions all over his body.

There was one extensive skull fracture across his head, “which split the middle base of the skull in two,” and two smaller ones, with police investigators describing his head as “collapsed.”

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 only wearing mismatched shoes. A pair of shorts were found a few feet from the deceased and are believed to be his,” Roquero wrote.

‘In addition, three pieces of a white metal chain and part of a tooth were present a few meters from the deceased.’

Roquero noted that there was “a black ink drawing of a stick figure on the side of the right thigh.”

The shorts he was wearing were undamaged, despite the abrasions on his buttocks, and the slip-on shoes had grass and other debris 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 on the highway, about 30 feet from his body.