The state medical examiner’s office announced on Wednesday that the nonbinary student’s death, which occurred the day after a brawl inside a high school restroom in Oklahoma, was determined to be a suicide.
According to a summary autopsy report, 16-year-old Nex Benedict—who preferred to be addressed by they/them—had toxic doses of two drugs when they passed away from an overdose.
According to state law, a full autopsy will be made public in ten days, according to the medical examiner’s office.
What happened to Nex Benedict?
Lt. Nick Boatman of the Owasso Police Department stated in a statement, A complete autopsy will be released in 10 days by state law, the medical examiner’s office said. “From the beginning of this investigation, Owasso Police observed many indications that this death was the result of suicide,” Owasso Police Department Lt. Nick Boatman said in a statement. “However, investigators did not wish to confirm that information without the final results being presented by the Oklahoma Medical Examiners Office.”
Boatman declined to say if police discovered a note from Nex at the location.
According to police footage that was made public last month, Nex was alert and conscious following the fight on February 7 when he reported to the authorities the attack by three girls that had happened after the teen squirted them with water.
After Nex Benedict was attacked at school, his grandmother and legal guardian called the police to the hospital. Nex passed away the following day after their mother, who was also heard on audio released by Owasso police, reported that Nex was breathing shallowly, that their hands were curled, and that their eyes were rolling back.
Nex tells an officer in the hospital video from the day of the fight that the girls had been making fun of them and their friends for their clothes. About Nex and their pals, Nex says the girls remarked in the restroom, “Something like, ‘Why do they laugh like that.”
Nex lies in a hospital bed and tells the officer, “And so I went up there and I poured water on them, and then all three of them came at me.”
“They came at me. They grabbed on my hair. I grabbed onto them. I threw one of them into a paper towel dispenser and then they got my legs out from under me and got me on the ground,”
Sue Benedict, Nex’s mother, reported symptoms and voiced concern about a possible head injury during the 911 call.
In a statement posted on a GoFundMe page intended to assist with funeral costs, Benedict said that the family was still getting used to using the teen’s preferred name and pronouns.
When paramedics arrived at the family’s home, they gave Nex CPR and took them to the hospital, where they eventually passed away.
