173: Teen House Party Turned Nightmare: The Very Suspicious Death of Noah Presgrove
01:02:26 Share

Hey, true crime besties. Welcome back to an all-new episode of Serialistly. Hey, everybody. Welcome back to an all-new episode of Serialistly with me, Annie Elise. Now, as you can tell, I am not in my normal set today if you are watching the video version of this. I am coming to you live from the Hamptons. Not live, but I'm recording this while I'm in the Hamptons. So I'm sitting on the bedroom floor right now of the house that we're staying at.

bringing you this case because I just couldn't wait. I needed to talk with you about this case. Not only is it one that so many of you guys have been requesting, but it is

is very, very bizarre. There are conflicting stories, there's Snapchat videos and photos, there are all sorts of weird players involved, possibility of leaning towards a cover-up. I mean, it's really hard to make heads or tails of this case, and so...

We started doing a deep dive into the research on it and I was like, you know what? I can't wait until I'm back home in my studio. I brought my recording equipment with me for a reason. I need to jump on the mic and I need to break this down with you guys. And I am so curious to know your thoughts as we get into it because it is one that has truly left me completely stumped and honestly kind of enraged and I don't know.

I'm gonna break it all down for you and then we can figure out together what makes sense, what doesn't make sense, and I guess just try to make sense of it together. So let's just jump right in. On September 4th, 2023 in Terrell, Oklahoma, it was the early morning hours. It was around 5:30 a.m. It was on a two-lane, very poorly lit highway with a 65 mile per hour speed limit.

and two different truck drivers noticed something very peculiar on the road, so they decided to pull over.

Once they pulled over, the truck drivers realized what they were actually looking at, and they immediately rearranged their truck so that they could shield what they had found from oncoming traffic. And then after that, they immediately called 911. Shortly after making that call, state troopers arrived at the scene, and they began to assess the situation and see what the truck drivers called in about. And it

it was a body. Police later learned that the body belonged to 19-year-old Noah Pressgrove. Noah had spent the past few days partying with his friends at a nearby home, celebrating a birthday and the Labor Day weekend. In fact, many of the teens from the party that Noah had been at also arrived on the scene that early September morning. Now,

Now Noah, Noah was curled into the fetal position and he was found completely naked aside from wearing mismatched shoes on his feet. An Adidas shoe was found on his left foot while a Hey Dude shoe was found on his right foot.

Both shoes were extremely dirty and had debris and grass stuck in the laces and just looked very disheveled. However, the Adidas shoe was much dirtier than the Hey Dude shoe. Noah's body also had very visible injuries.

There was road rash on various parts of his body. He had a stick figure written on his right thigh. It looked like somebody had drawn on it maybe with a sharpie marker. A chipped tooth was found on the road also with a clump of hair. There were also three pieces of white metal chain that was found plus another clump of hair was found on Noah's right butt cheek.

it was a pretty disastrous and alarming scene. Additionally, there was a pair of white shorts on the road near his body. There wasn't a lot of blood around Noah's body though. However, there was a small pool of blood found just a few feet away. Now with the way that Noah's body was found, just abandoned on the side of this busy road, police started developing a theory of how he died.

Initially, police thought that Noah's death was an accident and that it was the result of this alcohol-fueled weekend, this long, binging party weekend, that Noah was likely drunk, then wandered away from the party, found himself walking along the highway before then being hit by oncoming traffic.

So after the Oklahoma Highway Patrol finished investigating the scene, they ultimately ruled Noah's death as a tragic accident, the result of a hit and run. However, to many people, it didn't seem like Noah could have died from a hit and run.

I mean, there was hardly any blood found near Noah's body. Plus, there was no vehicle debris anywhere. And not to get overly graphic, guys, but if he was hit by this huge truck that was traveling at 65 miles per hour or so, a lot of people believed that his body probably wouldn't even be recognizable.

Not to mention that his shoes probably wouldn't still be on his feet. But in any event, that's what the police ruled. This was an accident, a hit and run. Noah's body was sent away for further examination and the case was closed. Or so everyone thought. Now this is the part of Noah's story where things start to get even more disturbing.

His autopsy results were published recently, back in May 2024, almost nine months after he was found dead on the side of the road. And what was revealed in this autopsy report did not align with the theory that Noah was killed by a car. In fact, this report revealed that something way more sinister may have happened. Noah's autopsy results were absolutely shocking. Noah had 10 broken ribs, broken upper and lower teeth,

The skin of the left side of his scalp was torn off to the bone. His fingertips were torn to the bone. His tongue was split. He had multiple fractured vertebrae, a broken neck, a skull fracture that split his skull in two, multiple other small skull fractures.

His head was also caved in, according to this report. His brain was bleeding. His lungs were punctured. He had extensive injuries to his heart, spleen, and stomach. He also had internal bleeding. And he also had road rash on his upper back, his left shoulder, left arm, left side of his torso, and both of his butt cheeks.

Noah's tox report was also released, and Noah had been tested for amphetamines, methamphetamine, fentanyl, cocaine, opiates, PCP, barbiturates, and also benzodiazepine. Now, he tested negative for all of the substances.

However, there was alcohol in his system, and his blood alcohol content was a .14. Now, in the report, the medical examiner ruled that Noah died from multiple blunt force injuries, although his true cause of death was, quote, "undetermined." Some of Noah's injuries and damage to his body was quite extensive. I mean, so bad that many of the injuries would have been fatal on their own. The pathologist ultimately found

In consideration of the circumstances surrounding the death, autopsy examination and toxicology result, the death of Noah Alexander Nichols is due to multiple blunt force injuries.

The decedent was found naked, wearing only a pair of shoes on the side of a highway on the morning of September 4, 2023. There were no vehicle parts or debris observed on the scene. At this time, what transpired on the body was found on the road having multiple blunt force injuries is unknown. Therefore, the manner of death is deemed undetermined.

We now know what caused Noah's death, but we don't know how he died. So like I said, these injuries were gruesome. But now many people felt like they just didn't line up with the idea that Noah died from a hit-and-run incident, especially due to the majority of the injuries being to his upper body, nothing on his lower half.

Alina Burrows, a former crime scene investigator, spoke with Law and Crime and gave her initial thoughts once this autopsy report came out. Take a listen. He has two different shoes on. He had some writing on his body, probably from the party. You know, broken teeth. I mean, there's a lot of damage here.

But there's no car debris. So does that rule out the possibility that this could have been an accident where he was hit and a vehicle took off, a hit and run, something like that?

Yeah, the injuries that we're looking at really, to me, rule out hit and run for a couple of reasons. One, when we look at the evidence, we're looking at the fact that he is wearing the two mismatched shoes, which the first thing everybody's going to be questioning is why is he wearing two mismatched shoes? It looks like he had exchanged shoes with a friend at the party. You know, as an investigator, the first thing

that piques my interest, why the mismatched shoes? And if he's wearing mismatched shoes, there's another set of mismatched shoes somewhere. But through a little bit of research, it looked like this was kind of a fun act with a friend. But one of those shoes is a slip-on style speed laced shoe called a Hey Dude shoe, right? That would come off very easily. So that's our first clue.

The second thing is that those shoes don't appear, according to the autopsy report, to have any damage on them. So that rules out dragging, right? We would expect to see some abrasions or some wear and tear on the shoe if that had occurred. So we would expect that he would have lost the shoe or we would see some damage on the shoe.

Then when we look at the injuries that he'd incurred, if we see a hit and run, if he'd been walking on the side of the road and he would have been struck by a vehicle, we would expect to see some fractured femurs, right? Legs, pelvis that were fractured. And what we lack here with his injuries, although they're extensive, is we don't have leg fractures. We don't have broken ankles. We don't have fractured pelvis.

All of his injuries really appear to be torso, head, neck. They're all pretty much waist up. Now, we do see some abrasions. We see some minor injuries waist down, but really everything is concentrated from the waist up. And when we lack those injuries,

you know, injuries or those, you know, damages on the shoes, that takes this in a very interesting direction. Since September 2023, Noah's family has received very few answers from law enforcement. For Noah's family, this has been especially frustrating, with their questions only growing day by day. They hoped that this autopsy report would answer many of the questions that they had, but it actually did the opposite.

Once I saw his face, it's just...

I just couldn't do it. So I had no idea about the hair. I can tell it's still so fresh in your mind. Oh, yeah. It just won't go away. It won't. And these kids--

They've been hanging out here for the last four or five years, you know, with that boy. And it's just, you know, hard to believe that you could have friends like that and they all just stabbing you in the back. I've talked to a few myself, only the closest ones that I feel like I could, but not really getting nothing out of them.

I mean, one of them I've gotten a couple stories, two different stories out of his mouth, you know, and another one I've gotten three different stories out of his mouth. So, you know, which story is true, you know? So now they have more questions than before, and they're kind of just left wondering what really happened at this party that Noah was at before his death. The party might actually be the unlock that would answer many of their questions.

But first we have to rewind a little bit more and talk about Noah. At the time of his death, Noah was 19 years old. He had just graduated from high school a few months before his death, and he had a very large combined family with multiple siblings, step-siblings, just very extensive.

For unknown reasons, he was emancipated from his parents at the age of 17 and then went to go live with his grandmother. But as you heard in a clip from a few minutes ago, Noah's legal name is Noah Alexander Nichols. However, he goes by the name Noah Pressgrove.

Now Noah himself, he was a very outgoing guy who was known for his just being spontaneous, his adventurous nature. He was funny. He loved to make people laugh. And honestly, he kind of just liked being the center of attention. He was also extremely athletic. He played many sports, including football, cross country, track, wrestling, and he loved spending time outdoors, skateboarding, and just being outside.

He wasn't really sure what he wanted to do after he graduated high school. He was planning on taking a gap year to really figure things out like a lot of kids I think do these days. He also couldn't afford college quite yet, but he had been searching for scholarship opportunities. He was also dabbling with the idea of joining the military, maybe becoming a welder, or even going to work on a shrimp boat in Texas. Now Noah grew up in the area of Duncan, which is a small town that is in the south central Oklahoma area.

The area is very rural with many small towns close to one another, and it has kind of that stereotypical small town vibe where everybody knows everyone. Now, unfortunately, there isn't much to do in that area, and that means that the local teenagers often find themselves getting into, you know, a little bit of trouble, drinking, partying, kind of like most kids do that age, and that's exactly what Noah was doing in the days leading up to his death.

On Labor Day weekend in September of 2023, 22-year-old Avery Combs was hosting a party at her home in the area of Terrell, Oklahoma. The party was celebrating a combination of things, Avery's birthday, Labor Day weekend, and also the end of summer.

Initially, Noah wasn't sure if he was going to attend the party. His family was planning to attend this three-day rock and metal festival in Pryor, Oklahoma called Rocklahoma, and Noah wanted to go with his family to this festival and also bring a friend with him. Some people say that this friend was his girlfriend, but it's never been confirmed whether Noah has a girlfriend or not, although in some of the police reports, there is somebody that is referred to as Noah's girlfriend. Nevertheless, this friend that he wanted to bring was only 16 years old.

Noah's family didn't know her family too well, and this music festival, like most music festivals, had a lot of alcohol, so they weren't sure that it would be a good idea to bring this friend along. So Noah decided to stay home instead and go to Avery's party in lieu of the music festival. Now let's talk about this party. This party wasn't like a normal one-night Friday night type of party. This party was over the course of multiple days, and it started Friday, September 1st.

Now news of this party was posted all over social media and throughout the weekend it's been estimated that about 40 people attended. There weren't necessarily 40 people there all at once but people were coming and going just as the weekend went on, that kind of thing. And while the party was actually going on, like many young kids and young adults do, a lot of these attendees were posting on social media.

So one of the most frustrating things about this party is that we don't really know exactly what happened between September 1st and September 4th, because nothing has truly been confirmed, and the details of the party have really just slowly been pieced together using social media.

And since Noah's death, multiple people from the party, and even their parents, have posted their own recounts of the weekend on social media, mainly posting on Facebook. Now using what was posted during the party and what was posted after the party, a general timeline of events has been put together.

Now, I just want to remind you guys, we don't really know if all of these things actually happened, and we will talk more about that here in a little bit, but here's what we do know. Noah drove himself to the party on Saturday, September 2nd, and for the most part, he enjoyed himself. At one point, he did text a family member saying that he wished that he was at that music festival, Rocklahoma, but overall, he seemed to have had a good time. So,

So Noah decided to drive home Saturday night. He had been drinking all day, but nothing is suggesting that he was overly drunk when he drove himself home. However, he did want to check in on his grandma, he wanted to clean up, and he apparently wanted to sleep off his hangover. So he was intoxicated to some extent.

The next day, Noah was contacted by some friends who convinced him to come back to this party. However, Noah said he couldn't drive himself because his truck had started leaking oil. He said that he would go to this party if somebody came and picked him up, but he also only wanted to go for a little bit. Now there are two different stories of how Noah got back to this party on Sunday.

The first story is that Noah's best friend, Jack Newton, picked him up, drove him directly to the party, and then dropped him off in the driveway. The second story is that a different friend picked up Noah, dropped him off at this truck stop, the friend left, Noah bought food at the truck stop, and then Avery Combs picked him up at the truck stop and brought him to the party. The party that was at her house, remember? So either way, Noah was back at this party on Sunday around 3 p.m.,

According to the party attendees, Noah was having a pretty good time while he was there. There was a lot of drinking going on at this party and you can see from all of the videos and photos posted to Snapchat that things were getting pretty crazy. Which, honestly, is to be expected when you have a bunch of teenagers kind of just getting obliterated and drinking profusely, celebrating the end of summer and not really having any rules in place. In total, between 3 p.m. and 10 p.m. that night,

Videos to Snapchat were posted of all sorts of different people dancing, playing drinking games, but there were also many pictures and videos posted of girls drawing on Noah's body. He was shirtless at the time. And this is something that I remember happening when I was young going to parties too. If somebody gets too drunk and passes out, it's like you take the Sharpie, you draw on them, people will draw like wieners on their face, things like that. And that's what these videos seemed to be depicting.

Noah was awake during this, but they were writing phrases like, Noah's hot, and they also did draw some penises all over his body, all using a marker. Then, at one point during this party, Noah allegedly walked in on two people engaging in oral sex.

Now this isn't confirmed, but the rumors are that Noah walked in on his friend Jack's dad, Caleb Newton, and that Caleb was receiving oral sex from another partygoer. At some point, it's believed that Caleb, Jack's dad, eventually went home. Although, like I said, this isn't confirmed, and there has been a lot of conflicting information about this incident, and whether it even happened, whether the dad Caleb was even there to begin with. It's very convoluted.

But then sometime between 10 p.m. and midnight, Noah and his friend Jack got into a fight.

they got into a fight over Jack's girlfriend, Carter Combs. Now, if that last name is sounding familiar, it's because Carter is Avery Combs' sister. Apparently, Noah and Carter were like huddled up in a corner, whispering to each other, talking just a little bit too closely for Jack's comfort, and Jack got really mad. So this caused a brief pushing incident, even a slapping fight between him and Noah and Jack.

an argument ensued. However, then both guys ended up cooling off and things went back to normal pretty quickly. However, the fighting didn't exactly stop there. And we're going to get into all of that as soon as we take a quick break and hear from today's sponsors. This episode of Serialistly is brought to you by Huggies. Now, I want to just tell all of you parents out there, whether you are a current parent, an existing parent, a future parent, or a soon-to-be parent, I'm with you.

And I wish I could give you all the hacks in the world. I really do. But I'm going to give you one that has just helped me tremendously. I remember my first encounter with diaper rash. It has scarred me for life. I was trying to make sure that my kids were comfortable. I tried to put them in the bathtub thinking it would soothe it, which it did like the complete and polar opposite. You know how it is too. Then you head online trying to find every single thing that will like save you in the moment of your new parenthood journey. And I wish that I found the Skin Essentials diapers from Huggies sooner.

The Skin Essentials diapers feature the Skin Protect liner and help protect against the top two causes of rash by managing moisture and runny mess. The wipes are thick, they have zero harsh ingredients for a great gentle clean. Pull-Ups Skin Essentials has also got your big kid covered too with a training pant that is ultra soft and breathable to help protect sensitive skin all throughout potty training.

I'm telling you, you guys, this is the hack you need to know about. You need to check them out. Learn more at Huggies.com. Once again, head to Huggies.com to learn more.

Okay, so Noah and Jack had just gotten into this argument because Jack didn't like that Noah was talking so closely to his girlfriend. They ended up moving on, getting over it pretty quickly. But then Noah got in a second fight with a different person. This person's name is Mikey. Mikey accused Noah of taking his phone, which Noah denied.

Mikey then put his finger in Noah's mouth, kind of like fish hooking his cheek. And because of that, Noah bit his finger. Both of these guys were drunk. So this short fight ensued, but then Mikey's phone was found underneath a couch cushion. So the fight ended. Now, at some point, a video to Snapchat was posted where Noah was seen playing the slapping game with another boy at the party and the slapping game. I guess that this is like a TikTok game where people try to repeatedly slap

one another as hard as they can. I don't know what kids are doing these days, guys. I never did that when I was growing up, but you know, TikTok has created some wild ass trends. But anyway, in this video, Noah asks another boy to slap him. The boy seems reluctant, but eventually slaps Noah and then runs away. In another picture of Noah, you can also see a boy in the

Now while guns are more common in rural areas like Oklahoma, when this video was released to the public, it was pretty alarming because guns, alcohol, and unsupervised teenagers are definitely never a good mix, right? Around midnight, Noah and a few other boys from the party went down and drove what's called a side-by-side vehicle. It's kind of like an ATV, something like that, like a little off-roading vehicle, and it's one that Noah's friend Jack brought to the party.

It's reported that Noah was driving and that he flipped the side-by-side, which caused a big accident. However, like most things in this story, it's unclear how bad this accident really was. Some people say that the vehicle flipped and Noah just received a scrape on his hand. But some say that Noah was actually standing on top of this side-by-side and because of that, he flew off of it.

And then some say that the vehicle actually rolled over, causing Noah to obtain severe injuries. So after this, people said that Noah went back to the party where he ended up being checked over by another party goer who happened to be a nurse. This person said that Noah was fine, that he wasn't injured too badly, and the party just really continued.

Supposedly, multiple girls from the party then helped Noah take a shower because he was very dirty from the side-by-side accident. He was also still very drunk, so apparently they were washing off the dirt, most of those marker drawings that were on his body, not all of them, but most of them, and just cleaning him up. After this incident, Noah was supposedly then running all around the house completely naked.

and the girls were apparently chasing him, trying to put clothes back on him. So they got Noah a pair of white shorts and then they brought him to bed. They brought him to Avery's room where Noah was asking to sleep in Avery's bed. There's a little bit of a debate too about whether Noah was trying to get Avery to sleep with him or whether he just wanted to truly sleep in her bed. There are also some rumors that around this time Noah learned that Avery had a crush on him and he supposedly called her a quote "fat nasty bitch"

But either way, the girls told Noah that he couldn't sleep in her bed, that he had to go sleep on the floor. Supposedly, this made Noah very upset, so upset that he wanted to leave and go for a walk.

He was still very, very drunk during this time as well. So he found one of his Adidas shoes, put it on, but he couldn't find the other. So because of that, he grabbed some random hey dude shoe that was on the floor and he put it on his other foot. Then he walked out of the house. He walked down the driveway of the home, which was about a half mile long, and it led directly to Highway 81.

the same highway that Noah was found along a couple of hours later. And here's where things begin to get a little bit messy, and everybody has different versions of events. At 3:41 AM, one of the girls who helped Noah shower posted another picture to Snapchat.

In the picture, the girl is smiling and she has a caption that says, "Well, Noah is missing." And like I mentioned earlier, videos and pictures were constantly posted to Snapchat all weekend. However, in a very interesting detail, posts to Snapchat suddenly stopped after this picture was posted.

Then, around 5:30 a.m., that truck driver saw Noah's body along the side of the road, but this particular one kept driving. However, the truck driver wanted to confirm what they saw, so they turned around, and by the time that the truck driver turned around, that's when that other truck driver was already near Noah's body, and 911 was eventually called. Now let's talk more about the scene when Noah was found.

because one of the most heavily debated items found by Noah is the pair of shorts that was found near him. Some say that the shorts were folded neatly on the side of the road when his body was found. Some say that they weren't. And some say that law enforcement officers folded the shorts.

It's unknown how the shorts got off Noah's body though. Some people have said that the shorts flew off his body when he was hit by a car. But if he was hit by a car, you would think that the shorts would be torn, would be dirty, something like that.

But that wasn't the case at all. They were in a relatively good condition when they were found. Not to mention, if he didn't have any injuries or damage to the lower half of his body, but the impact of a car was so severe to make his shorts fly off of him, how does that equate? Wouldn't there be some sort of pelvic damage? And that's just me asking the question. So one of the truck drivers who came across Noah on the morning he was found is Tyler Hardy.

He recently spoke out and he said, I was the one who found the body. So yes, I can say 100% that nobody messed with Noah. I was the first person there. I know who and what I saw. Jack was the only person who walked up to Noah and he's the one who told me who it was. That was until the fire department and the county sheriffs showed up.

As for the investigation into Noah's death, after finding Noah's body, investigators questioned other people who were at the party because they wanted to know all about the events that had taken place over the weekend. But, huge shocker, all the posts to social media had been deleted. And even more than that, all of the phones of the people who were at the party were completely wiped. Suspicious, right? Noah's friends all told different stories of what happened.

Carter Combs, Jack's girlfriend, even went as far as to say she didn't know who Noah was, that she had never even met him. Now obviously this is a lie, and she even eventually admitted that she did know who Noah was. But what's weird is that when her phone was searched, investigators discovered that she had deleted almost everything. She even deleted her boyfriend Jack's phone number. Which, why are you trying to hide that you have any sort of association with these people?

Now speaking of Jack, Jack claimed that he went to bed early, that he wasn't even awake when Noah crashed the side-by-side little ATV thing. He said he wanted to go get some sleep because he was going fishing with his dad the next morning. However, many people at the party claim that they never heard Jack talking about going fishing. Jack said that he left the house between 5.30 and 6 a.m. so that he could drive home to meet his dad.

He then drove right past the area of Noah's body. He noticed the investigators, he stopped, and he realized what happened. He then called his dad Caleb, who eventually arrived at the scene. And since the incident, in a Facebook post, Jack's dad Caleb wrote, "'We had a plan to fish that morning with me, my son, and my dad. Supposed to meet me at my house at 6.30. My son texted me at 5.53 saying that he overslept a bit and that he would meet us at the ramp and to bring him a hat.'

He couldn't find his hat to my knowledge. I don't think he knew that Noah was even missing yet then. And at about 6:05, I got a call that no parent ever wants to get. It was short and it was hard to understand him, but he had driven up on Noah. There were already a couple of vehicles there that had made the 911 call.

I called my dad and told him about the call and he said come pick me up on the way. We drove straight there. By the time we arrived there were several law enforcement and fire and rescue on the job. I went over to console my son. Yes, I was on the scene, but it was being treated as an accident, not a crime scene. We were all trying to piece together what happened.

Caleb then says that he called Noah's dad, that he told him what happened, and he claimed that he was the one who initially told law enforcement that Noah's injuries were too bad to be just this hit and run that they were claiming it to be. But some people at the scene say that they saw Caleb pick up Noah's teeth off the road and then put them in his pocket. But in another Facebook post since the incident, Caleb responded to that accusation, and he wrote...

The tooth that was on the road was not moved that I had seen. I watched a police officer circle it with white chalk. I pointed out a tooth to the police. I would not have picked that up ever. However, many people are doubting Caleb and Jack's stories because Jack has also posted things to Facebook that conflict with his original story. In a Facebook message, Jack wrote that Noah died around 4 a.m.,

But it's unclear how he knows this, because did law enforcement tell him this? Or was he there when Noah died? And also, in the same message, he says that he and some other friends went and they found Noah's body at around 5.15 a.m.

But obviously, that doesn't make sense either because if they found Noah's body at that time, why didn't they call the police? Why didn't Jack mention this to his dad when he texted him about their fishing trip when he texted him around 5:50 a.m.? Or, I don't know, maybe he meant 6:15 a.m. and he just wrote 5:15 a.m.? We don't know. Shortly after Noah's autopsy results became public,

On May 23rd, 2024, a boy who went to the party made a Facebook post with his story of what happened that morning. His name is Caden. And according to him, at around 5:15 a.m., Jack woke him up along with three other boys. And they were saying that Noah was dead. Now, that's an interesting detail because he's saying that it was 5:15 when he woke him up, which remember, 5:15 is also the time that Jack wrote in that Facebook message.

saying that he found his body at 5:15. But remember, then he texted his dad at 5:50 saying, "I'm on my way home, I overslept," but you're not mentioning that you just found your good friend's body? It's just not making sense. So Caden said that when Jack and these three other boys woke him up saying this, he immediately looked around for his "Hey Dude" shoes, but he could only find one.

He, along with the other boys, then drove in his red Cherokee truck to where Noah's body was. He said that the truck drivers who discovered Noah's body were already there. He also claimed that Noah was wearing black shorts, that Jack took the shorts off and then folded a pair of white shorts and placed them on the road. Now, Caden is the only person who has ever said that Noah was wearing black shorts.

Also, the truck drivers who initially found Noah said that they never saw that group of boys at the scene. Now, Jack has also said that the boys who went to go search for Noah when he went missing, that they took the side-by-side, the ATV car, while Jack was sleeping. And it was that same one that Noah had apparently crashed on earlier. Supposedly, they took this side-by-side, they found Noah, and then they went back to the house to alert the others.

But either way, what's so weird about this is there are so many different accounts of people finding Noah before these truck drivers. And here's another detail that gets weird. During law enforcement's initial investigation, they found two phones, both belonging to Noah.

Apparently, he had just bought a new phone before the party, so he brought both phones with him to the party. An analysis of these phones showed that around 5am, they pinged where Noah's body was found. But then, they pinged close to the house a short while later. Then, pinged back near Noah's body. Three different points, kind of going there, back, and back. Some people say that Noah left both of his phones in that side-by-side, in that ATV, after he crashed it.

and that the phones were both still in there when the boys used that vehicle to go search for Noah's body. Hence, why they pinged at the home, near Noah's body, then back at the home again. But again, if this happened, if they found him, why didn't anybody call 911? And to add to all of this confusion, as if there isn't already enough...

Apparently, after Noah's body was found, the partygoers started deep cleaning Avery's home. So much so that some people say that in the days after Noah's death, the home smelled strongly of bleach. Now what may come as a surprise to some people, maybe not to others, the home was never searched.

This was because law enforcement initially ruled Noah's death as a hit and run, therefore they didn't see any reason to search it. Avery Combs' mother, Stevie Howard, also lived in this home. She said that she wasn't at the party, but she did write on Facebook saying that the home was not deep cleaned. She said that they were just picking up beer cans, they weren't trying to hide a crime scene or anything like that.

Specifically, she wrote: Now, one of the parents who was involved in cleaning up that house was Caleb, Jack's dad.

Caleb said he went to the home to get Jack's side-by-side, the ATV thing. And when he got the vehicle, he said that there wasn't any damage to it, even though Noah supposedly had wrecked it.

So after getting the side-by-side, he supposedly collected all of the guns at the property as well. He has since claimed that he did this so that the guns could be returned to their owners. However, some people suggested that he collected the guns to hide evidence, even though nothing suggests that Noah was ever shot. Then while people were cleaning up the house, they supposedly found the t-shirt that Noah had been wearing. Apparently, the shirt was cut up, and then pieces of the shirt were given to various people as some sort of, I don't know, memento?

Some people, like Caleb, deny that this ever happened though. Noah's other belongings, like his wallet, have never been found. So in the months since Noah's death, rumors have of course swirled about what truly happened that night. Many people at the party have adamantly denied having any involvement in his death.

And the girl who posted that "Noah is missing" caption to Snapchat has since made a post which said: "I just want to make something clear. I posted this picture not knowing that the worst was going to happen, not knowing that Noah would never come back. It was normal for Noah to wander off. Nobody thought that he wouldn't be back. So don't even think for a second just because I posted that means that I know what happened to him because I'm just as clueless as everyone else. I'm sick of it.

Noah was my friend and I loved him very much. It hurts that people could even think that any of us could have done anything to hurt him. We all loved Noah.

Someone is really out there thinking that they got away with murder because you all are blaming us for something we didn't do. Now I thought that that last sentence, it could mean nothing, it could be me reading into it, but I thought that that last sentence was telling. Because is that alluding to her thinking that he was in fact murdered and that this was not a hit and run accident?

Let me read that sentence again: Unless I'm taking that wrong, it sounds like she also thinks that Noah was murdered and this wasn't just an accident.

but tell me what you think. Other people that were at the party made similar posts, but many people doubt their validity. In fact, many people think that Noah was killed at the party, and that his body was then dragged to the road, all so it could make it look like he was killed by traffic. Many of Noah's injuries also suggest that he was dragged. For example, his fingertips were completely shredded. He also had road rash all along his body. Now by far one of the biggest theories,

is that his friend Jack Newton killed Noah. People theorized that Jack and Noah were fighting about girls, specifically Jack's girlfriend Carter. During the argument, Jack got so upset that he ended up hitting Noah with a golf club, beat him to death, then dragged his body to the road. Some even say that Jack's father Caleb was also a part of this beating.

Now, there was that allegation that Noah walked in on Caleb, the father, receiving oral sex from one of the partygoers. So, if that allegation was true, would that...

lead to a motive to helping his son because he didn't want to get caught if the girl was, I don't know, like if he was cheating on his wife. Again, I don't know. I'm just talking out loud here, guys. But there was a lot more that was about to come out and I'm curious to know what you guys think of this case once I review it with you. So I'm just going to take a quick water break before we get into all that. We are going to hear from the last sponsors of today's episode and then we're going to go over everything.

We are currently gearing up for our fall merch launch, even though it's still summer. It takes some time, guys. And building this website has been so easy, all because I use Shopify. Shopify is the global commerce platform that helps you sell at every stage of your business, from the launch your online shop stage to the first real life store stage, all the way to the did we just hit a million order stage, which one day, right? Let's manifest.

Shopify is there to help you grow all along the way. Whether you're selling scented soap or offering outdoor outfits, Shopify helps you sell everywhere. From their all-in-one e-commerce platform to their in-person POS system, wherever or whatever you're selling, Shopify has got you covered. Shopify helps turn browsers into buyers with the internet's best converting checkout system, 36% better on average compared to other leading commerce platforms.

And sell more with less effort thanks to Shopify Magic, your AI-powered all-star. What I love about Shopify too is that no matter how big you want to grow, Shopify gives you everything you need to take control and take your business to the next level. Shopify powers 10% of all e-commerce in the U.S. and Shopify is the global force behind Allbirds, Rothy's, and Brooklinen and millions of other entrepreneurs of every size across 175 countries.

Plus, Shopify's award-winning help is there to support your success every step of the way because businesses that grow, grow with Shopify. Sign up for a $1 per month trial period at shopify.com slash serialously, all lowercase. Go to shopify.com slash serialously now to grow your business no matter what stage you're in. Shopify.com slash serialously. As

As someone who often delves into life's darker aspects on this podcast, I'm thrilled to share something uplifting for a change. On July 16th, 2024, we celebrate National Make Someone's Day Day, all thanks to Client Giant. This day is all about spreading kindness and fostering a caring community. Imagine the impact of a simple gesture like a heartfelt note, a thoughtful gift, or an act of generosity just making the world a little bit brighter. What a great idea, right?

Well, thanks to ClientGiant, the leader in automated client and employee care, they are getting the entire country involved. And if you've never heard of ClientGiant before, this is the company that automates thoughtfulness for businesses all year long, taking care of their clients and their employees on their behalf, all through automation, which honestly is just incredible. And in that spirit, it's now your turn to do something nice for somebody else for absolutely no reason at all. So join us on July 16th.

Perform an act of kindness, share your story with hashtag makesomeonesdayday, and inspire others. For more information, visit clientgiant.com slash makesomeonesday. After all, if you have the power to make someone's day, you would be crazy not to. So the rumors are swirling that Noah's friend Jack is responsible for this, right? There's even a rumor that they brought Noah to a barn, that they beat him up, then they burned this barn down after Noah's death.

But Jack's dad Caleb has denied all of these allegations and he also has denied ever being at this party in general. Apparently there were videos of people using golf clubs to hit golf balls at the party and that boy Caden has since stated that he saw a bunch of these golf clubs in the trash can when they were cleaning the house. But again, none of this is confirmed. However, going with this theory is the fact that Jack's family is supposedly very well known in the area.

Some say that they are extremely wealthy and that they are also friends with law enforcement. But like everything with this story, some say Jack's family isn't wealthy at all, that they're not well-known at all, so who knows what the truth really is there. Now another theory involved a group of boys called the Texas Boys.

The home where this party was held is near the Texas and the Oklahoma border, so some people from Texas had driven over the border to attend the party. Now this Texas boys theory is that after Noah walked away from the party, he ended up hitching a ride with the Texas boys in their truck. Some people say that these boys then decided to beat Noah up inside a barn and then drag Noah's body to the road.

Some say they pushed Noah off that moving truck, and some say that they beat him with golf clubs. But like I said, a lot of people are suspecting Jack Newton, whose story has changed quite a bit. In a Facebook post, he claimed that it was obvious that Noah was hurt while he was on the road because, quote, you could see where his head hit the ground. However, in a text message, he said, Bro, everyone that saw Noah at the viewing, including me, saw his face was beat up bad.

Then, in an interview with the Daily Mail, he went on to say,

Maybe Noah asked them for a ride or something, but even if something happened with them, it was accidental. But man, I just can't see any kids accidentally killing someone and not calling for help.

Those were good kids too. If that's what happened, they would have called for help and tried to get him help. They didn't really know Noah either, so they wouldn't have beef with him. So like I said, a lot of people think that either Jack was involved or that he knows more than what he's saying. However, many people who are close to Noah don't think that Jack could have been involved at all. They were best friends. And even some of Noah's family members don't think that Jack would ever hurt Noah.

In my heart, I just pray to God Jack has nothing to do with it, you know? I mean, because I love Jack, you know? But, you know, that was Noah's best friend. And where was he, you know? I mean, I hate to put that on him, but, you know, it keeps going through my head. They've done wrong, they've done wrong, and they need to stand up and be a man and admit it, you know, regardless.

I mean, if it was an accident, why didn't y'all just say it was and call 911? I have respect for the law enforcement, but I just don't feel like they're doing enough right now. They're not giving us no information. They're not giving us no hope. And it would be nice to have a little hope. It's not going to go away until this is resolved. We will not stop until it's resolved.

And that, you know, and I'm hoping that it will put pressure on them, you know, to let's get busy and get this figured out, you know. And I'm hoping it will. And there you come and you tell me what happened to my grandson. You can't get over it.

And I don't even know if I'll get over it then, you know? Most recently, Jack said that he believes that Noah was hit by a semi truck and that he has even taken a polygraph test. News Nation correspondent Alex Capriola has been gathering all of this new reporting today. He joins me live now from outside of Terrell, Oklahoma. Really remarkable reporting that you were able to get on both sides of this now what seems sort of pitched debate between these families. Tell me what you learned today.

Yeah, really interesting hearing both sides of the story, one from family, another one from a very, very dear friend. We did the interview separately because I didn't want any sort of contamination of the things that they were going to say to me and their accounting of the story, but really great details from the both of them. I'll show you just very briefly. This is the cross.

that now stands on the side of the highway. Jack Newton, that best friend who is at the very center of this conversation, is the one who actually placed these crosses here on the ground. The house where the party was, actually, is less than a mile away that way. So really the story goes, as they are trying to piece it all together, is that at some point Noah actually just walked down this road at some point and his body was found not far from here.

Let's begin with Jack's account, though, because Jack has a very different opinion about what happened than what his family members told me. And at the same time, he also shared new details about what it was like to have so much suspicion surrounding him and what it was like to pass a polygraph test. Take a listen. I ran over here, asked him if Noah was OK. And the semi truck driver had his hands on Noah like this. And so I just kind of-- and I could just tell, you know, that he was not OK. He was laying on his side.

I just had his eyes closed, you know. He had a cut on his forehead. Like, it wasn't just like terrible, like, I mean, it was just a cut on his forehead. The top of his hair was scraped off his head and there was blood on his ears. 100% of my heart think that he was hit. I think he got hit on the top of his head by a semi. And that shoot that was on good just stayed on, I don't know. I can't explain any of it, you know. - Is there any part of you that believes that he might've been beaten to death? - No.

No, he was not beaten to death. Why not? Because just the injuries, you just could tell he's not. I said, OK, I'll take the polygraph test. I took the polygraph test, and I mean, it was nerve wracking for us. I had these two things in my fingers. I had a butt pad and then my feet thing, and these things around my chest.

I mean, and I didn't even get to look at the guys. I was looking straight forward. He was talking to me, asking me questions. There's a lot of online chatter, and I think that's the reason why they're asking for you to take a polygraph test about you and your father. I mean, tell me about what that experience has been like for you to have to handle that type of discussion happening all around you. I think the reason that I got brought into it is because, I mean, going through high school, you did not hear Jack's name without Noah and Noah without Jack. I mean, we were just always together.

I mean, he lived with us for a while and we were just always at each other's houses. I think when everybody heard something happened to Noah, they just said, "What about Jack?" And just, I don't know. I don't know where all the crazy talks come from. Just sucks. - Do you feel good to kind of be past that a little bit with the polygraph test? - I mean-- - Actually, do you believe that you're past that or no? - People saying stuff, I mean, people are saying

Saying like it's easy to pass a polygraph and stuff like that. It's just I don't know. You can't really control people say about it. You know, you just know what you know. And I've given my I've put my personal number on Facebook and said if you want to talk about it, I'll talk about it. So what is these last seven months been like for you? I mean, it's always been the hardest time of life and on top of other people saying everything just been the hardest time of life.

And so if you could tell there from the very beginning of that interview, Jack was one of the very first people on the scene. He tells me that he was leaving to go fishing with his dad when he drove up the road, noticed all the activity, and then saw Noah's body right here, bloodied on the side of the road. Well, you know, Alex, fantastic interview and so telling.

But I'm still confounded by the other side of the argument, which seems to come from Noah's family. His brother spoke with you today and has a completely different version of what he thinks happened. Tell me what you learned.

Yeah, while Jack is of the train of thought that this is most likely an auto-pedestrian accident, a hit-and-run crash, which is something that law enforcement has virtually at least said that they have ruled out, from the brother's perspective, he feels like something much more sinister might have happened, that people at this party know something but just aren't saying it. It's odd because a lot of people say that it's very obvious that Noah's death did not happen on that road because where was the blood? Why were his clothes off?

How was he injured so severely? Why were his fingertips shredded down to the bone? Would that have happened if he was hit by a vehicle in a hit and run like the police say? And would he not have lower damage to the, you know, the bottom half of his body? Now take this for what you will because it is coming from the Daily Mail. But the Daily Mail had a doctor with very extensive emergency medicine experience, Dr. Stuart Fisher, review Noah's autopsy report.

He concluded that Noah suffered from intense injuries that made him think that he was the victim of a severe beating. Specifically, he said, "The poor kid never had a chance. These injuries are not amenable to surgery at all, not at the same time.

There are probably five and possibly up to ten potentially life-ending injuries. It's not just one. My guess would be injury by several different things at the same time, namely several different people at the same time. They would have had to keep going a lot longer than needed, like those cases where people are stabbed 50 times. It's very difficult to break a skull. Now some people also think that Avery Combs, the one who was throwing this party, needs to face some sort of punishment.

The party was at her house after all, and she was providing minors with alcohol. Avery, who used to post a lot on social media before Noah's death, has stayed very, very quiet since September 2023. But as I said, her mom Stevie has taken to social media so that she could defend her daughter and her timeline of events.

Many people have started prying into the family's history, and there are also claims that Avery's family is wealthy and influential, just like Jack's family. In a social media post, Avery's mom Stevie claimed that there was a video showing the girls giving Noah a shower, but that video cannot be found anywhere.

Some people claim to have seen the video and said that Noah was unconscious while the girls were showering him. Now this just leads to another theory, that Noah was severely injured from the side-by-side incident and that eventually he succumbed to those injuries, that he was dead while the girls were showering him and he was eventually moved to the road.

However, this conflicts with the story that the side-by-side incident was just a small rollover and nothing too extreme because if you remember, even Jack's dad said that the vehicle hardly had any damage on it, hardly even a scrape.

So the rollover incident couldn't have been that bad if there was no damage, right? In a conversation on Snapchat, one of the partygoers also mentions the side-by-side incident. And they say he flipped it. Like he turned it on its side, but then they flipped it back on its wheels. So the stories are obviously just all over the place, which has, of course, left Noah's family very, very confused.

They have received so few answers from law enforcement, so few that they've actually started a GoFundMe so that they could hire a private investigator. They also started a different GoFundMe to raise money as a reward for anybody who comes forward with any information. In an interview, Noah's sister Madison said, I never knew of Noah just being hated. Everyone out there seemed to really love Noah. He wasn't someone that really looked for problems. He

I know, like, the few times that he did fight, he was helping some friends that got into a situation. It was never him. I don't know any kind of enemy or anyone that would want to maliciously go after him in that way. I couldn't imagine anyone just being like, "Oh, that dude needs to be put down." That doesn't cross my mind at all. I believe that something happened. Like, there was an accident and the kids got scared. Whether it was when they were doing the fight club, whether it was when they were on the ATVs, whether it was, I don't know what, someone got mad.

Then in that same interview, Noah's cousin Lindsay stated, At the end of the day, what we do know is that he lost his life. He was found on the side of the highway and it appears that he was dumped there and that someone knows what happened and we want to know what happened.

Noah's older brother has also been very vocal about Noah's death and has appeared in many different interviews. Here's one that I think is very important to listen to, so take a listen. I thought he was in the hospital, you know, and so I come by and I pick up my dad and we start driving down there and it's only a 30-minute drive from Comanche, but that drive felt like two hours just sitting in silence. And then we show up and Jack and Caleb and

Jefferson County Sheriff was there and Noah was covered up on the side of the road with the tarp. And it was just kind of a good 10 minutes just staring at fields, just at a loss of words, you know. When we show up there, everything's going through our minds of what in the world could, because it doesn't look like a hit and run sort of situation, you know.

Some weeks go by and we, you know, they finally rule out the hit and run. And that four-day party turned into something awful that happened within just a short hour time span for him. I believe this is his tooth right here. His pants were folded up on that square mark. His pants were there. His tooth was right there in that circle? I believe so, yeah. And his body was here.

And he was in the fetal position facing that way. And his body was covered up with a tarp or blanket type of thing. And as you're looking at it, you can see blood seeping through the covering and onto the ground. As I'm looking at it,

It just seems weird. The placement of the body, the tooth, the shorts, where they're at doesn't look like a hit and run. Not that I've been aware of. Have you ever heard them say foul play is suspected? I've heard suspected of foul play, suspicious death. And again, they don't tell me everything because they don't want to ruin the investigation. But they said they've got a couple of people in mind on the situation and that they're really looking in on them.

So are you able to tell me who those people are? They haven't told me. So they have said that they have a few people in mind. Yeah. Interesting. Somebody's got to know something. Somebody's got to know something. You know,

If there's 40 people standing around and someone walks off, somebody knows about it. So if 40 people are standing around and somebody gets into a fight, somebody knows about it. And with how close everyone is, with how many pictures are taken on Snapchat, you think that something has to turn up. Somebody has to know something and just doesn't want to say it. And has law enforcement been pretty open with you about the things that you're hearing or what they are investigating? Somewhat.

They're willing to talk about certain things, but then there's some things that it's like they don't want to say too much because what if it messes up with the investigation, you know? And so there's a lot of areas that we're still in the dark about that they know more about, and I'm hoping that they know more about the situation. That's kind of their job, and the only way we're going to get through this thing is if we're still hopeful. Do you have any message for law enforcement or anything that you want them to know?

how you're feeling or this lack of information that you're getting? I get it. I get it that you want to protect the investigation. I get it that you want to protect the case so that way it's carried out. But quite frankly, seven months is too long. I just hope that people see this and are able to, you know, just maybe it'll push someone to say something, you know, that they understand that

that it's for it's it's being selfless. It's for someone else. It's for the true victim. It's just if you know something, just say it. You know, it's better to say it and let the family have some sort of peace to let Noah have some sort of peace than to not say anything. So Oklahoma's Public Safety Department has released a statement saying that the authorities are not currently investigating Noah's death as a murder, but they also say that the investigation is not over.

however they have given no indication what they think really happened to noah and i'm curious to know your thoughts too because while on the surface it could be argued that yes this was a hit and run it was a semi truck this was an accident to me at least in my opinion there are too many

inconsistencies along the way that feel kind of shady. If it was truly an accident, why are so many of these friends who are at the party having different stories from one another? And I get it, sometimes if you're drunk, you can't recount events 100%, but also,

why wipe your phones? Why delete everybody's phone number? Why have the conflicting stories? How did he not have any damage to the lower half of his body, but he was hit hard enough by a truck that his shorts flew off his body, but his shoes remained on?

I don't know. Something just is not smelling right here to me. I'm not an investigator. I'm just a little, you know, makeshift person sitting here on my floor just talking to you about it. But I'm curious to know what you guys think. So definitely let me know either in the comment section over on YouTube or in the review section on Apple Podcasts.

And guys, don't forget to check out all of our amazing sponsors today. Get your Away luggage, your Huggy Skin Essentials, check out Shopify, and make somebody's day with Client Giant. Thank you guys so much for tuning into another episode of Serialistly with me today. I will be back on the mic with you very soon. And until the next one, be nice, don't kill people, stay safe, watch your back, do all the things. All right. Thanks, guys.