Say What Now? Teen Found Dead, Naked on Oklahoma Highway Claims He Was ‘Beat to Death’ by Friends: Lawsuit

A wrongful death suit was filed Monday against seven defendants, a number of unnamed individuals and a local convenience store. Since there have been no arrests made in the case and the lawsuit fails to provide any evidence of its claims, TooFab is not identifying the defendants — other than the one who spoke with PEOPLE on the record about the filing.

Presgrove was found naked, wearing nothing but mismatched shoes, on the side of the highway by a passing truck in the early morning hours of September 4, 2023; he spent the previous night drinking at a house party. His death was initially deemed “suspicious” by the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation.

The medical examiner’s report later revealed Pregrove died from “multiple blunt force injuries” — though the manner of death was listed as “undetermined.” This means there wasn’t enough evidence to support whether he died from homicide, suicide, accident or some other means.

“[Presgrove’s] death was not caused by being hit by a motor vehicle.” the suit, via KFOR, claims — before later alleging the teen “was beat to death by one or more of the defendants.”

The filing calls the party as a whole a “civil conspiracy” by those named in the suit “to furnish alcoholic beverages to underaged and intoxicated individuals, such as [Presgrove], over the course of several days.” The defendants are accused of continuing to supply Presgrove with alcohol “even after he was already intoxicated,” before allowing him to drive an ATV and getting into an accident on the vehicle. Later, he was allegedly seen “verbally fighting” with two defendants, before he disappeared.

Noting Presgrove’s blood-alcohol level was “nearly double the amount of blood-alcohol content that would be present in a typical, intoxicated person,” the lawsuit puts blame on his friends for giving him alcohol, driving him on an ATV and, in the case of the convenience store, allegedly selling alcohol to a minor for the party.

“All Defendants engaged in a civil conspiracy to host a party for underaged drinking, and failed to prevent harm to a member of targeted class by failing to prevent Decedent’s death,” reads the suit, which boldly claims, “Either intentionally or accidentally, the Defendants killed Decedent.”

“Although the death may have been unintended, hosting the party and beating of Decedent was intentionally, malicious, and in reckless disregard of the Decedent’s rights,” it adds.

Caleb Newton, who is a defendant in the suit and the father of another teen named in it, told PEOPLE he hasn’t “been able to find one thing in the lawsuit that has any truth to it,” adding, “I don’t know where this information is coming from.”

“It’s a huge waste of everybody’s time and emotions,” he added, while saying, when it comes to blaming any one specific person for bringing alcohol at the party, “nobody supplied for the whole deal or anything goofy like that.”

“The adults there and the kids shouldn’t have allowed it to get to any position where Noah was ever going to be at risk of dying,” attorney Austin Vance, who filed the suit on behalf of the teen’s family and estate, told PEOPLE.

“I don’t think anyone expects their 19-year-old to ever go to a party and die,” he added. “It seems clear to me that somebody laid hands on Noah and that caused his death.”

Presgrove’s brother Daniel added: “We’ve exhausted every avenue, we’ve done everything that we can, and so this is really the last big Hail Mary to seek that retribution, seek that truth so that we can put everything to bed.”