In this gripping episode of Pushing Up Lilies, we delve into the very suspicious death of Noah Presgrove. As a forensic death investigator, I’ll guide you through the perplexing details surrounding Noah's untimely demise, examining the evidence, uncovering the inconsistencies, and questioning the narratives presented. We'll explore the strange circumstances and mysterious factors that make this case so troubling. From the initial investigation to the ongoing quest for justice, I'll share insights and analysis that shine a light on this tragic and unresolved mystery. Tune in as we peel back the layers of this case, seeking justice for the family of Noah Presgrove. * Listener discretion is advised.
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0:06 Welcome to Pushing Up Lilies.
0:08 I'm your host, Julie Mattson.
0:10 Pushing Up Lilies is a weekly True Crime podcast with spine tingling, unusual and terrifyingly true stories from my perspective as a forensic death investigator and a sexual assault nurse examiner.
0:24 Do I have some stories for you?
0:26 Are you ready?
0:31 Hey, guys, I just want to say that this week has been exhausting because the weather in Texas is starting to get super-hot.
0:40 I know that some of y'all experience warmer temperatures than we do.
0:44 But I think the highest this past week has been like 97.
0:49 But honestly, today we had two people that were found decomposed in their vehicle.
0:58 I mean, in Texas, you can't sit in a hot vehicle without basically cooking yourself from the inside out.
1:06 It's not abnormal during the summer months in Texas along with other states for us to have a lot of decomposition.
1:17 I know we've talked about this before.
1:18 A lot of people are estranged from their families, and they may not talk with people every day.
1:25 Neighbors don't check on their neighbors whenever their mail starts to pile up or when they notice that they're not outside or they're not leaving their house like they normally do, and these summer months are going to be bad.
1:40 I mean, here it is June and already in Texas we're hitting 97.
1:45 I seriously dread August.
1:47 It's going to be rough.
1:49 I hope that everyone has good air conditioning and that they're prepared.
1:55 I know that our office again, we're used to.
1:59 This never makes it easier.
2:01 I hate to think that anybody can't afford air conditioning, but things are just so expensive right now.
2:09 Again, there's no judgment on our part.
2:11 You know, when we come out, we have a lot of elderly people who are on a fixed income.
2:17 You know, they can't turn their air down to 67 at night when they're hot.
2:22 It's just too expensive.
2:23 Everything is so expensive.
2:24 Nowadays, I say that to say check on your neighbors and if you need assistance with your electric bill, reach out now before it gets too terribly hot so that you can find an organization or even your own electric company that can actually help you with your bills or put you on a payment plan so that you can actually afford to run your air conditioning through the summer.
2:53 And I'm not saying that for me, I personally like to go on scenes where the body is decomposed, but I don't really want to go on yours.
3:01 I'm saying that because it's so important if you have a loved one that's elderly and you know, they're on a fixed income, reach out and see what you can do to help them so that they can stay cool and stay comfortable during these upcoming summer months because it happens where people's electricity gets cut off.
3:22 And I know a lot of electric companies, I used to work for electric company when I was in nursing school.
3:28 I know that they try to be conscientious about it being too hot.
3:32 They don't want to go cut, you know, an elderly person's electricity off when it's 100 and 10 degrees outside.
3:39 But there comes a time when, you know, they're not going to continue to pay the bill for people.
3:45 If you have a loved one that, you know, is struggling financially or just on a fixed income, help them and see what you can do for them to make sure that their electricity doesn't get cut off and to see what you can do to ensure that they're able to stay comfortable in their home when these summer months hit.
4:09 I know that again, a lot of us are already seeing really high temperatures and its only June.
4:15 And the reason I guess I'm mentioning is because we've had a lot of decomposed people already.
4:22 A lot of them are homeless or living in situations where they don't necessarily have air conditioning or aren't able to be comfortable in their own home.
4:35 Anyway, that's enough.
4:36 That's my soapbox.
4:38 I want to mention that I have posted a lot of Facebook pages lately and I love getting new followers and I love reaching out to new people and hearing about new stories.
4:51 And I've recently reached out on a couple of pages on Facebook and got a lot of responses.
4:58 And one story that a lot of people really want me to cover is the story of Noah Presgrove.
5:05 Noah was a 19-year-old who was found dead along a rural stretch of US 81 in Jefferson County, Oklahoma on Labor Day in 2023.
5:19 Now, from what I've read, and again I don't know him personally and do not know the family, but he graduated from Comanche high school and had plans to join the military before he went missing.
5:31 Noah had a relentless passion for sports and education, and he really had a promising future.
5:38 He had a warm spirit and loved everyone.
5:42 Noah, on September 4th after drinking and partying for four days with his friends, he was at a 22nd birthday party for a friend which lasted several days.
5:55 He had left the party for a short time and had gone riding on an ATV earlier in the day and they rolled it well, he returned to the party after the ATV accident and apparently had a fight with a girlfriend or a female friend.
6:18 I'm not sure the status of their relationship but had an argument whether or not the argument caused him to leave or not.
6:26 I do not know, but I do know that he went to put his shoes on and was only able to find one.
6:34 He put an Adidas tennis shoe on his right foot and a Hay Dude on his left foot, one was his, one was not. It fit, he wore it and he wanted to leave.
6:44 And so he did now later he was found deceased.
6:51 It appeared that he was dumped in the area where he was found.
6:56 There were a pair of shorts found near his body.
6:59 There was a clump of hair found on the highway.
7:03 There was a drawing of a stick figure in black ink on his right thigh.
7:09 We don't know how long it was there.
7:10 We don't know if he did it.
7:11 We don't know if someone else did it.
7:13 We don't know if there was a meaning or you know, we all drew on ourselves when we were teenagers.
7:18I mean, I can remember drawing all kinds of stuff on my hand.
7:23 Noah, anyway, we've established was a great kid.
7:28 He went to a party as many of us do again.
7:33 No judgment here.
7:34 It was a birthday party for a friend, 22nd birthday party. He left at some point got on the ATV, it flipped.
7:44 Who knows exactly what the injuries were if any.
7:49 But he came back to the party when he left, he was walking down this roadway.
7:56 Now, the roadway was poorly lit, which, you know, we find a lot in the rural areas.
8:04 Even here, there's no lights on the roadways on the back roads in these small towns.
8:10 We're going to talk a little bit about his autopsy report in a minute.
8:15 But he was found by a passerby who obviously called 911.
8:21 He was taken to the medical examiner's office.
8:23 They did toxicology and there were no drugs in his system.
8:28 Yes, there was alcohol in his system, but there were no drugs that were tested on this specific toxicology test.
8:39 The test that was done does not detect methadone, Oxycodone or Clonazepam.
8:45 I don't believe that there was any reason to think that he had any of those specific drugs in his system.
8:53 I feel like that if they thought that he did, they would have tested for those.
8:58 But the test that they did test a big majority of the drugs that we expect to find in the system of a 19 year old who used drugs and he was not necessarily a drug user.
9:13 The standard testing now on his autopsy report, he had multiple blunt force injuries of the head and neck.
9:24 He had an avulsion or laceration to the top of his head.
9:29 He had abrasions to his left eyebrow on the corner of his left eye and left cheek, left ear.
9:38 He also had abrasions on the back of his head behind the right ear and also the posterior right neck.
9:46 The back of the neck area, broken upper and lower teeth with abrasions in his mucosa of the upper lip and laceration of the midline, lower lip, laceration of the surface of the tongue.
10:03 He had hemorrhages on different parts of his scalp as well.
10:09 I won't even go into the big words cause not everybody knows what they are, but he had fractures of the frontal bones in his face.
10:18 He had skull fractures actually split the middle base of the skull in two. He had a subdural hemorrhage which was large.
10:28 He had subarachnoid hemorrhages on both sides of his head.
10:33 He had swelling of the brain with lacerations.
10:36 He had neck fractures C1, C2, C6, C7.
10:42 He also had, I mean, there were just so many head injuries.
10:50 Now on his torso, he had abrasions of his upper back that contained black material.
10:56 He had abrasions showing linear injuries on his upper back, shoulder, left arm and the left side of his upper body.
11:06 He had abrasions on his right buttock.
11:08 He had abrasions on the side of his left buttock.
11:12 He had lacerations on his lungs, contusions of his pulmonary vessels left atrium of the heart spleen and stomach.
11:23 He had a hemorrhage of the upper chest cavity and hemopericardium which is basically blood in the chest hemoperitoneum, which is blood in the peritoneal area which is indicative of injuries.
11:40 He had fractures to his clavicle.
11:45 He had rib fractures on the right side, one through five and eight ribs were fractured.
11:53 And on the left side, two through five were fractured.
11:56 He had thoracic vertebral fractures.
12:00 T1, T2, T4 through 9 and T11.
12:04 And he also had normal thoracis with more left, more than right.
12:10 So blood in the lungs on the extremities though.
12:14 And this is what kind of gets me.
12:15 He had abrasions to the right arm and forearm, left elbow, thighs, knees, right foot side of the right ankle, side of the right hip, contusions of the back of the right heel, which is basically bruising and absolutely no evidence of fracture.
12:31 So all his injuries were on his upper body many, many times, if someone's hit by a vehicle, they're going to have leg fractures, they're going to have lower extremity injuries.
12:44 And he did, he had injuries and abrasions which are basically scrapes and contusions, which is basically bruising.
12:52 But the idea is that he was believed to have been dumped there.
13:00 The circumstances surrounding the death again, completely unknown.
13:04 I mean, he was found naked wearing only a pair of shoes on the side of the highway on the morning of September 4th of 2023 no vehicle parts or debris at the scene.
13:16 We don't know what happened.
13:17 We don't know what happened between the time he left the party and the time that he was found now there was a pair of shorts found near him I believe they were his, I can't find anything in all the reports that I have privy to that say that they weren't.
13:35 But many times when people are hit by vehicle, we find that their clothing comes off most often their shoes.
13:45 In this case, he still had both shoes on.
13:48 It doesn't look like just based on what we've seen before.
13:52 And I'm talking about like me, I guess in our office it doesn't appear that he was hit by a vehicle.
13:59 It looks more like he was dumped there.
14:02 This autopsy was performed on September 5th at one o'clock in the afternoon at the office of the chief medical examiner at Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.
14:11 Again, they did make note that he was found on the south bound side of the highway by a passing truck at about 553 in the morning.
14:19 He was naked only wearing un matching shoes.
14:23 The shorts were several feet from him and were reported to be his.
14:28 It looks like according to the autopsy report, there was part of a metal chain and also a tooth several feet from him and some clumps of hair and there was a clump of hair on his right buttock without blood or tissue attached to it.
14:44 The highway.
14:45 And this is important because we do make note of this in all of our medical examiner, death investigation reports.
14:51 How well was the roadway lit at the time that the person is found how many lanes are in the roadway?
15:00 What directions are the lanes going?
15:03 Are their shoulders?
15:04 Are they improved or unimproved on the roadway?
15:09 What is the speed limit of the area?
15:12 We know it was a paved highway consisting of two lanes with shoulders on both sides and the speed limit in the area was 65 miles an hour.
15:21 The highway was poorly lit at night again; they visualized no debris at the scene.
15:27 They made note that he was at the house party on September 3rd.
15:31 He wrote an ATV ranger with several men was involved in a rollover accident.
15:36 He was alive following the incident and returned to the party, got into an argument with this female and then left the party and wasn't found until the morning of the fourth.
15:47 He did not have any petechiae in his eyes which is indicative of strangling.
15:55 They did note that there was a black ink drawing of a stick figure person on the left side of his right thigh scars.
16:05 There were some scabs, abrasions on the right side of his nose.
16:11 And that very well could have been from the ATV accident that had happened earlier in the day again.
16:16 I don't know what his injuries were at that time, but evidently, he wasn't injured bad enough to feel like he needed to go to the hospital.
16:24 He was able to return back to the party, some drying on the surfaces of his hands, which we do see when people are outside for long periods of time and exposed to the weather and the wind.
16:38 There were abrasions on his left abdomen, and they did swab his mouth.
16:44 They did penile and anal swabs, which we do many times in a sexual assault exam.
16:50 They collected hair from his scalp and the pubic area, and they also did fingernail clippings.
16:57 And the reason we do that is because if someone is attacked and trying to defend themselves many times, you can find the perpetrators, skin cells under their fingernails or blood or anything.
17:09 I mean, we're looking for everything, especially in a case like this where we feel like a body was dumped and we don't have an explanation and a very, very young age.
17:20 Those are all things that we always did on sexual assault exams.
17:25 They're very important.
17:26 I know we've talked about touch DNA before and that can be obtained under the fingernails.
17:32 I always joked around and it's not funny, but I always joked around and said if anyone ever were to attack me, you will bet your bottom dollar that they will be caught because I will do everything I can to make sure there is as much evidence of that person on my body as possible.
17:51 I will grab hair; I will scratch when you swab under my nails.
17:56 You can bet that there's going to be DNA.
18:00 I'm just saying that that happens in a normal situation, even when you don't have knowledge, you're going to protect yourself and you're going to scratch somebody or you're going to try to defend yourself in some way.
18:13 These are things, you know, that they look for in situations like this.
18:17 There again, no medical intervention, obviously, we make note of that as well.
18:22 And so when Ems comes on the scene, if they find that the person cannot be saved and you know, they're beyond any intervention, bringing them back, then, you know, it's pointless like we're not going to try.
18:35 There were no medical interventions in place.
18:38 You cannot in a case like this where someone is found hours later, it's a possible homicide donate any tissue or anything like that.
18:47 And I'm not going to say that the tissue donation organizations didn't call them to try to get it.
18:53 But in a case like this, we need everything intact at the medical examiner's office for observation and examination by the pathologist.
19:03 He did have laceration that was large on his head.
19:09 It was four inches by two inches, just abrasions all over his head, laceration of his tongue, which is not necessarily normal in situations like this.
19:24 There were some tooth fragments found inside the mouth and part of a molar on the roadway, just a lot of injuries y'all and most of them again were upper body.
19:39 Now they always do X rays, especially in cases like this because obviously he wasn't taken to the hospital.
19:47 We don't have copies of films and radiology reports from where the injuries are.
19:54 They're going to do these at the medical examiner's office.
19:57 So that was done on Noah as well.
20:01 And you know, it was found to have these contusions and lacerations of his lungs, lacerations on his spleen and stomach.
20:13 These are all more injuries.
20:16 Now, we always look for irregular shapes or lines or patterns on the body and there were some that were noted on him.
20:25 There were linear abrasions on the extremities, irregular shapes.
20:32 And sometimes if you don't have anything to match it up to, it's almost impossible to know what could have caused those abrasions and those marks, as always, they weighed his organs, they weighed them in grams.
20:50 They did the regular abdominal incisions and coronal scalp incisions.
20:58 They also did an anterior neck dissection to look at the underlying muscles and vessels and structures and all those things.
21:07 Lots of injuries.
21:09 I don't know if you've ever seen an autopsy report, but they do always weigh the organs.
21:15 They'll have the weight when they break it down, they'll have the weight of each of the organs.
21:20 And they'll say, you know, were they remarkable, were there something there that was indicative of maybe a disease process or were they unremarkable?
21:29 Which basically means normal?
21:31 Like we don't see anything that looks different than normal.
21:36 Again, the tests performed regarding toxicology were femoral blood.
21:42 So they took it from the femoral artery, they checked for amphetamines, methamphetamines, Fentanyl, cocaine, opiates PCP, barbiturates, benzodiazepines and completely zero detected.
21:58 We know he was drinking, that's not a secret and not a surprise.
22:03 We just don't know what happened.
22:05 And so this case has puzzled many, many people.
22:09 What happened to him is still completely unknown.
22:13 It's like I don't even know what to say because to not have answers is always harder for the family.
22:22 And these are always the cases that are the hardest for me because I want to be able to tell them what happened.
22:28 You know, I want them to be able to ask me questions and I want to be able to give them answers.
22:32 But in cases like this, it's so difficult.
22:35 It's just kind of at a standstill. Families trying to raise money to hire a private investigator.
22:42 I would love to do more.
22:44 I don't know what I can do.
22:46 My only hope is that someone comes forward says what happened and reveals what happened after he left the party.
22:55 I do not yet have a copy of the police report.
22:59 I'm sure that they interviewed almost everybody.
23:02 If not everybody at the party, I'm sure they interviewed the people that he was writing the A TV with.
23:09 If they were able to find them and knew who they were.
23:12 Obviously, these injuries were not from the A TV accident.
23:16 He was able to walk and went back to the party.
23:20 It's so heartbreaking that no one has come forward and that there are no answers as far as what happened to him.
23:31 And imagine if this was your child.
23:33 I mean, how devastating would it be to not have answers anyway?
23:40 I'd like to look further into this.
23:41 I would love to talk to people who are close to the situation.
23:47 People who knew him, people who know the family.
23:50 I've reached out to several family members and have not yet heard back.
23:53 But I would love to talk to them as well.
23:56 And this is just in an effort to help.
23:59 Again, there are so many questions, I mean little questions that have not been in the articles that I have access to a lot of questions and I'm sure the family or friends know the answers to that just have not been published or printed.
24:15 And so those of us who want to know, don't have that information again in an open investigation.
24:23 Sometimes they don't want to release too much information because they, like for the perpetrator to basically hang themselves by mentioning small details of the incident that have not been published or printed.
24:40 I hate this for the family.
24:42 I hate this for the friends.
24:45 This story has been in the news.
24:48 I had heard of it before my followers reached out and asked me to talk about it.
24:54 I just am asking, I guess if you are close to the family in any way or if you are a family member and you have information that I don't have access to or any new information that's not available in the news to reach out.
25:13 I'd love to talk, I'll come to you.
25:16 I will come to you and would love to hear your story.
25:20 Would love to hear what you can provide to my listeners.
25:24 I love that my listeners are so caring.
25:28 These stories are so heartbreaking.
25:31 You know, when people reach out and ask me to research them, it's only because it's not because they're nosy.
25:40 It's because they care and they're human.
25:42 Yeah, they want answers for the family.
25:45 And I think we all put ourselves in the same situation.
25:49 Like what if this happened to me, what would I expect from people?
25:54 What would people be willing to do for me to help me get the answers that I needed?
26:01 I love that.
26:02 I love that about people that a majority of us and not all of us are willing to lend a hand and reach out and help and try to get answers.
26:15 It's heartbreaking and you know, we didn't even know him.
26:18 A lot of the people that reached out to me, they don't even know him, but they feel like they do because the situation hits so close to home and that's because this could happen to anybody, this could happen to any of us.
26:33 It could happen to our family members.
26:35 It could happen to our friends, and it could happen to us if you would like to be a guest host, I would love to have you.
26:43 You don't even have to have a lot of information.
26:45 Tell us a little bit about him as a person.
26:48 Like, give us some happy stories about your time with Noah.
26:52 Share something with us to give our listeners a little bit of insight on him and his life.
27:01 Anyway, I just love again that so many people care, and you don't see that a lot.
27:07 But I've noticed that a lot of my listeners, I would love to do anything I can to help.
27:12 I don't know what that would be.
27:14 Again, this was ruled undetermined.
27:18 There were obviously blunt force injuries that caused the death and undetermined is kind of a blanket term and that's because we don't know what happened.
27:28 Obviously, it's not a natural death due to the injuries.
27:32 We all know that, but we don't know.
27:35 I mean, did someone do this on purpose?
27:38 Was this some sort of an accident where, you know, someone did this and it was unintentional for whatever reason and fled the scene and just has never come forward.
27:50 It's just heartbreaking.
27:51 And I hate to hear stories like this.
27:54 And again, I think what has pulled at the heartstrings of everybody and all my listeners is that it can happen to anybody.
28:02 We just want answers, we want answers for the family.
28:06 And so reach out if you know anybody or you want to talk, I am totally open to having guest hosts to talk about this story to try to get a little more information again.
28:19 You know, all I have is what I've seen on the internet and the autopsy report.
28:25 But I can tell you that a lot of people care.
28:28 These are people that know him and people that don't, having brought it to my attention as heartbreaking.
28:35 I can only imagine if something happened to any of my Children at any age, but especially just not knowing and not having answers is very, very difficult.
28:45 I hope this week has been better for y'all than me.
28:49 I'm just going to say that school is killing me and I'm, I'm going to say that out loud.
28:56 I am in nurse practitioner school at the University of Texas in Arlington.
29:01 I am taking advanced pathophysiology, been a nurse for 30 years.
29:07 Have loved nursing.
29:10 But this class, y'all, I graduated with my Bachelors Suma cum Lati had a 3.96 GPA.
29:19 I mean, I'm not going to say that it's been easy.
29:22 I've studied, and it has not always come easy to me like it has to some people that I know, but this class is a butt kicker and I'm going to say that out loud because it's hard.
29:36 And I asked my husband the other day, I said, did I register for medical school?
29:42 Because, oh my God, this stuff is hard.
29:45 And I'm not saying I don't need to know it.
29:47 I'm just saying a lot of it is stuff that I guess was never really explained to me in detail.
29:53 It was never really reviewed with me.
29:56 And so now that I'm putting myself in a situation where I'm actually going to be assessing a patient and possibly diagnosing them but be responsible for their treatment and their care.
30:06 There's a lot of stuff to know and true story.
30:10 Many people have brought to my attention that all you have to do is pass.
30:14 We don't know if the doctor that takes great care of us that we love and have seen for 20 years.
30:20 Made A's in college or barely passed.
30:23 We don't know, we know that they graduated.
30:26 Anyway, I'm just going to put that out there.
30:28 Anybody in nurse practitioner school, please reach out to me, Julie at pushingUpLilies.com.
30:34 Give me pointers, give me apps, give me websites, give me something y'all because it's crazy.
30:42 It's crazy.
30:44 I don't regret it, but I hope it gets a little bit easier.
30:49 That's all I can say.
30:51 Again, summer months.
30:52 Keep in mind what's coming, August in Texas last year.
30:57 Y'all know I own a med spa.
31:00 We did an IV bar at the local fair, North Texas State Fair and Rodeo.
31:05 Shout out to Denton and we literally did I vs on people who were hot and dehydrated and they were drinking, and they were crawling on the floor because if they stood up, their blood pressure dropped, and they blacked out and were afraid they were going to pass out.
31:24 We were triaging people almost like the emergency room.
31:28 We were giving Avis away because people didn't have the money to pay for it, but they needed it so bad.
31:35 And I'm not going to sit you in my chair and say, ok, bye.
31:39 You don't have 100 bucks.
31:41 Have a nice life.
31:42 Hope you're fine.
31:43 Keep drinking and go back out there in the 110-degree weather and you know, hopefully the ambulance picks you up and get you to the hospital.
31:51 I'm not going to do that.
31:52 I do not have it in me to turn people away.
31:55 I know that many of y'all have knowledge that I own a med spa.
31:59 Please go to BestofDenton.com and vote for the filling station.
32:05 We are in the running for Best of Denton in several different categories.
32:09 We would appreciate your vote.
32:11 Spread the word.
32:12 Tell your friends subscribe to the podcast and our Patreon account will be open soon.
32:20 You'll be able to log into that for special episodes and also specialty items.
32:28 Remember that we have our Murder Merch Store and that is always open.
32:33 You can make purchases on that.
32:35 All those items are in stock and will be shipped out immediately.
32:38 We very much appreciate all of your support and again, reach out Julie at PushingUpLilies.com and let me know if you'd love to be a guest house.
32:50 I would love to have you.
32:51 We can send you a calendar so that you can tell us when you're available and set up a chance to meet online.
33:00 You don't have to come here.
33:01 I don't have to come there.
33:02 We make it super, super easy and we'd love to have you.
33:05 So again, have a great week and I look forward to talking to y'all next week.
33:11 I look forward to providing you with more information on Noah's case.
33:16 Have a good evening.
33:19 Thank you so much for joining me today on Pushing Up Lilies.
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33:30 This helps to make the podcast more visible to the public.
33:33 Thanks again for spending your time with me and be sure to visit me at PushingUpLilies.com for merchandise and past episodes.