A year later, Presgroves still keeping the faith

Labor Day Weekend is usually considered a fun holiday filled with grilling, friends, family and football.

For one Comanche family, however, it will be a reminder of a somber anniversary. It was Labor Day Weekend last year when 19-year-old Noah Presgrove, a 2023 Comanche High School graduate, was found dead alongside Highway 81 near Terral in Jefferson County on Sept. 4.

Presgrove had been attending a wild weekend party outside of Terral. What started out as a small group of friends celebrating a birthday turned into a large party of friends and strangers thanks to social media blasts.

What exactly happened has been a mystery, or at the least, a well-kept secret. His death was originally thought to be a hit-and-run, but further investigation led to his cause of death being listed by the medical examiner as unknown other than the fact he died of blunt force trauma.

Rumors and accusations have been swirling ever since, making it difficult to separate fact from fiction. 

The facts that are known was he was found naked other than a pair of mismatched shoes on his feet. A shattered tooth was found near the body. According to the autopsy report, the base of his skull was split in two, he had a fractured spine and a large headwound.

Shortly after his death his grandmother Deborah Smith said she had been bombarded with people who were at the party telling her different stories of what happened.

Presgrove’s mysterious death garnered international attention. His story has been told in national news media from the New York Post to most recently a cover story in People magazine. The “Justice for Noah” Facebook page is followed by nearly 32,000 people as of Aug. 26.

Dailen Presgrove, Noah’s brother, has begun his third year teaching in Comanche, his high school alma mater. The attention has been a blessing and a burden at times.

“It’s been a whirlwind,” Presgrove said in an interview with The Comanche Times. “It is something that I don’t think that anybody should ever have to do. The loss of someone is already a tremendous weight, but then having to do everything publicity wise, social media, tracking down fact from fiction, doing a lot of the investigation, just everything that we’ve gone through with this past year just is another burden for us.”

He had no idea it would turn into as big of a story as it did.

“No, absoulutely not. Ashley (Chadwick), one of the family members, she made a video a while back stating that Noah had made it out of a small town,” Presgrove said. “It showed in the video all of these people from around the world, in every state that are involved in the Facebook page, that are posting theories, pictures, any kind of support and it was really highlighting the fact that Noah made it out of the small town.”

The support has been overwhelming.

“It’s amazing that so many people care about it and that its not just another lost story,” Presgrove said. “It’s great that it’s staying relevant. That it’s putting pressure on law enforcement, it is putting pressure on individuals who know information.”

The Comanche Times sent an email requesting an update to the investigating Department of Public Safety officer on Aug. 15, but did not receive a reply as of Aug. 27.

“There are a lot of people who have experience in this field that are coming out and contacting us, so there’s definitely a lot of plus side to this,” Presgrove said. “The downside is definitely the late-night phone calls, the constant knowledge in the back of your head, there’s a lot of things that go with it. As far as ‘Oh, I need to do this or I need to do that. I need to get these other things done on top of my daily work schedule and having to manage all this. It’s just very heart hardening.”

The last news Presgrove said he heard from law enforcement is they are still very invested in the case.

“They have several individuals with OHP (on the case), and they have the FBI on call and they’re still gathering information and facts,” Presgrove said. “They said basically, ‘We’re getting closer.’”

Presgrove hears many rumors and theories about what happened. He has to sift through them in his mind to help sort fact from fiction.

“At the beginning of this, I believed anything anyone told me,” Presgrove said. “Someone would tell me something that they heard this from so and so and I would believe it. “Where I am at right now is getting more towards I don’t believe anythng until I see it. Someone says they have a video on so and so’s phone, anything like that I don’t believe it until I’ve seen it or they’ve given it to OHP and OHP confirms it.”

Still, the family is keeping the faith.

“As far as going in the right direction, I feel like we are doing everything in our power as a family that we can do,” Presgrove said. “We are doing anything and everything we can. As far as law enforcement, I have to believe they are going in the right direction and doing everything they can, because if I can’t trust them, then who can we trust?”

The family did hire a private investigator who has made progress.

“The last I talked to the investigator, new leads are still coming up,” Presgrove said. “Some of the kids are still willing to talk and have been talking and now we’re starting to hear more feedback from others. A thing that is another positive with how long running this has been in relevance is more and more people who have heard or seen things are speaking about them. It gives us the ability to chase down those rabbits, even if they come up to a dead end.”

While it may be possible that all the various stories could be attributed somewhat to the chaos of the party, Presgrove thinks there are nuggets of truth out there that everyone should be able to agree upon.

“I’ve been pretty lenient on the idea that people can have different stories of the same situation, especially when alcohol is involved and it becomes harder to remember something that happened a year ago,” Presgrove said. “However, I believe there are key aspects of any event that should stick out in everyone’s mind.When you go to a football game, everyone remembers those key highlights, right? So, I think there are definitely events of that party that should be in everyone’s mind.”

The key according to Presgrove to get the big break in the case would be to be able to confirm 100 percent of a story of one of the party-goers was true.

“That would at least get us a lot closer,” Presgrove said. “Right now, there’s no way to guarantee that any particular student or any particular kid’s story is true.”

He has been to the scene of the accident. He has seen the evidence and he has drawn the conclusion that more than one person knows about what really happened.

“And I think they are all really scared right now,” Presgrove said. 

With all the noise going on around Noah’s death, his brother will miss the person Noah was.

“I will miss his carefree attitude, his ability to spread joy,” Presgrove said. “I’m hearing all the stories on a weekly basis about the things Noah did. I’m going to miss being able to see him in his athletic sphere. He could do anything and now to see him do nothing, sucks.”

The national support and exposure has been great and welcome though Presgrove appreciates the support of the local community just as much. It’s hard to go anywhere in the area without seeing signs of people supporting the “Justice for Noah” movement.

“It is very heartwarming even just driving through Comanche, past stop lights and seeing the support,” Presgrove said. “Being able to look at every store on Main Street and see Noah’s poster on it is amazing. Driving up 81 and I can see the banners and businesses that have words of support for Noah. It reminds me that it’s just not me or the family doing this. We have the entire community at our back. Looking on Facebook and seeing stores from every state that have his poster or doing things like shirts lets me know that this is just bigger than a small town.”

There are many unsolved stories all over the country, but Noah’s has drawn a lot of attention for just being a kid from a small town.

“I think there are good people out there that are wanting to see something good come out of a tragic event,” Presgrove said. “It’s another one of those hard things of balancing you are faced with something horrific by the evil in the world, but on the other hand, you are witnessing the kindness and caring of so many other people.”