Jack Newton claims that he discovered the nude corpse of his closest buddy lying on the side of Highway 81 in Oklahoma on September 4, 2023. He claims that he discovered the body in the dark of the early morning hours, by the glimmer of headlights.
After slowing down, he exited his vehicle and walked away.
“It just seemed like he was drunk, passed out on the side of the road when I first saw him,” Jack, 19, remembers talking about Noah Presgrove’s unexplained loss in an hour-long interview for the most recent cover story published by People, which was released on Friday and is available at newsstands.
Earlier in the day, Jack and Noah had been attending a party to celebrate the 22nd birthday of a buddy at a residence located outside of Terral, Oklahoma, which was around one mile distant.
At this point, Noah was passed, with a shattered spine and a cracked skull. He was wearing just a pair of slip-on shoes that did not match, and he was close wearing a pair of white shorts that were not harmed.
He was lying on his side at the time. “His knees were kind of pulled up to his chest a little,” adds Jack, pointing out that the 19-year-old who had graduated from high school only a few months before was “right by” the white traffic line along the side of the country road.
Many aspects of Noah’s passing, including what he seemed to be like when his corpse was discovered and what transpired thereafter, remain unknown despite the fact that more than a dozen interviews have been conducted with police officers, partygoers, friends and relatives, and other individuals who were present at the site.
There is still a great deal of uncertainty about the facts of his last hours, since there are conflicting stories, conjecture and hearsay, or the simple fact that the police have not yet completed their investigation.
On the other hand, documents and recordings that were examined by PEOPLE provide confirmation of some elements. These include the fact that Noah had left the party that he and Jack had attended before to his loss, and that he was first seen by passing motorists on Highway 81 on September 4 at around six o’clock in the morning local time.
The authorities, who arrived at the site in a short amount of time, originally believed that the case may be a terrible road accident, namely a hit-and-run, but their suspicions quickly became more pessimistic.
The fragments of a silver-plated chain necklace that Noah’s grandmother had given him and that he wore every day were strewn around in the vicinity of the bits and pieces of a tooth.
As a result, the base of his skull was broken in half. An eight-inch head incision had torn off a portion of his scalp, exposing the bone underneath it. In a subsequent autopsy, it was determined that he had died as a result of “extreme force injuries.”
At the time that Noah’s closest buddy arrived that morning, Tyler Hardy, a local truck driver who was one of two people who called 911, was already there at the site.
“Are you familiar with this young man?” Jack remembers Hardy questioning him about it.
It was Jack who remarked, “He is my best friend.”
It was necessary for Hardy to separate Jack from the buddy he had known from preschool and of whom he had been close throughout his time in middle school. According to Jack, the two were with each other virtually all the time.
When Jack was back in his vehicle alongside the highway that morning, he contacted his father, who he had intended to go fishing with later that morning, to change their plans and meet him at the scene instead. Jack had planned to go fishing with his father later that morning.
Following then, Jack describes the minutes that followed as “kind of blurry,” referring to the situation.
After spending a significant portion of that Labor Day weekend with a tight group of nine friends who had grown up together, the weekend was over. They drank, they went hog hunting in Jack’s ATV side-by-side, and by the time that Sunday night rolled around, the party had ramped up with a social media explosion, which extended to a group of teenagers and young adults from Texas who were strangers to Noah and the majority of the other people, according to Jack.
According to Jack, he went to bed on Monday, September 4, around two o’clock with the local time. He claims that before going to bed, he concealed his ATV keys in the bedroom and his thermal gun in his vehicle. This was done to ensure that no one would fire or drive while under the influence of alcohol.
However, Jack claims that around one hour later, Noah snatched the keys, and a number of people sped off on his ATV, which ended up flipping over due to the fact that no one was visibly harmed.
Jack was then informed by other partygoers who denied and disregarded interview requests that Noah got dissatisfied when two female friends allegedly rejected him in different instances.
According to the version of events that was subsequently related to Jack, Noah stated, “I’m going to go cool off.” Jack, however, notes that there are differing accounts of the events.
Regarding a particular aspect that is the subject of debate, he states, “Everyone I asked will tell you a different story.”
Following the ATV incident, Noah had changed into Jack’s wrestling shorts, which were white with splotches of red and gray. As he stepped out the door at around 3:30 in the morning, he slipped on two shoes that did not match, according to Jack, who revealed this information to PEOPLE.
The distance between their home and the road is quite close to half a mile. “No one anticipated that he would walk all the way to the highway,” Jack explains.
Another partygoer, whose father denied an interview request on her behalf, wrote on social media that Noah was “missing” along with two emojis depicting spiral eyes. This was done when Noah did not immediately return from the party.
(In a subsequent explanation of her post, she stated on Facebook that she had written the message in such a manner, “not knowing that the worst was going to happen.” without being aware that Noah will never return in the future.
According to Jack, a number of more partygoers traveled to the location in the hours that followed the discovery of Noah. These individuals were provided with the news of Noah’s loss when Jack briefly returned to the Terral residence with the information.
He claims that he told them to return before they got close to Noah’s corpse and waved them off before they got there.
A number of people, including Hardy, one of the people who called 911, a local sheriff who was there at the site that morning, and Jack, among others, have all said that Noah was nude and that Jack moved the shorts within a short period of time after arriving at the scene to locate Noah’s corpse.
Jack claims that he threw his shorts into his vehicle in order to increase the likelihood that they would be blown away by the passing traffic.
When everything was said and done, the shorts were folded next to Noah.
Both the Sheriff of Jefferson County, Jeremie Wilson, and Jack have said that the Oklahoma Highway Patrol, who was the primary agency involved in the inquiry due to the location where Noah’s corpse was discovered, has been informed of the change. However, they have not provided any other information while their investigation continues.
across the course of the last several months, an increasing number of locals have been speaking out and demanding answers about Noah’s situation. At the same time, an increasing number of individuals from all across the nation have begun to follow news of the peculiar issue.
In light of this, Noah’s family has expressed their gratitude for the fact that they are interested in discovering the truth. Additionally, it has contributed to the spread of stories and hypotheses that they consider to be useless and even unpleasant. Some of this has been directed against Jack as a target.
Jack Newton is now experiencing the double loss of his closest buddy and the neighborhood in which he grew up, according to his father, Caleb Newton, who said this in an interview with People magazine.
Caleb states, “He has the impression that they have abandoned him and turned their backs on him.” “Just over all of these falsehoods and accusations,” she said.
Both Caleb and Jack have expressed their skepticism over the possibility of any kind of foul play. However, several law enforcement authorities and independent experts have raised issues about the specifics of how Noah was discovered, despite the fact that state police have said that they are not investigating the loss as a homicide.
Even more attention has been drawn to the party that Noah attended before he passed away as a result of this.
“I can’t believe that any of them could even know that something happened and not say something,” Caleb adds, rebutting the notion that there may have been a severe crime.
“There was no evidence of any kind of a beating, and there was no evidence of any kind of the major things that everyone is talking about,” the investigator pointed out. Simply put, it is a fabrication,” he asserts.
Jack, on the other hand, is of the opinion that Noah may have been the victim of a bizarre accident that occurred at the beginning of a boisterous night.
According to my interpretation, it seems as if he solicited someone for a ride and then tumbled out of the back of the vehicle… No, I am not sure. “Something along those lines,” suggests Jack.
According to him, the “random people throwing around my name and running it down” who have expressed disbelief over his narrative “really don’t hurt my feelings too bad.”
He explains, “It’s just the people who have known me and Noah for a very long time and have been around ever since.” “Those are the individuals who have the ability to influence me.”