The death of a non-binary high school student in Oklahoma earlier this month after a fight in the girls’ bathroom was not caused by “trauma,” authorities said.
In an investigation update issued late Wednesday afternoon, the Owasso Police Department said Nex Benedict, 16, “did not die as a result of trauma,” according to preliminary information from the medical examiner’s office. A complete autopsy was performed, the update said, but “any further comments on the cause of death are currently pending until toxicology results and other ancillary testing results are received.”
The official autopsy report “will be available at a later date,” according to Owasso cops.
On Feb. 7, Nex, a gender-fluid sophomore at Owasso High School, was in the girls’ restroom with a trans classmate. While inside, the two had a confrontation with a trio of older girls, which escalated into a brief tussle. By the time other students and a staff member broke it up, Nex was lying on the floor.
“All students involved in the altercation walked under their own power to the assistant principal’s office and nurse’s office,” the investigation update states. “School administrators began taking statements from the students present in the restroom and began contacting parents/guardians of the students involved in the physical altercation. Each of the students involved in the altercation was given a health assessment by a registered nurse at the school and it was determined that ambulance service was not required.”
However, the police statement says, “the school nurse recommended that Nex… visit a medical facility for further examination.” Nex’s face was battered when their grandmother arrived to pick them up at school, according to The Independent. Nex was suspended for two weeks. Details about the other students involved, all juveniles, have not been made available, due to confidentiality laws.
“They had been bullying me and my friends and I got tired of it so I poured some water on them and all 3 came after me,” Nex reportedly texted a family member that night. “School did not report it and is probably going to getting [sic] sued.”
Nex, who told their grandmother their head was aching, went to bed listening to music. They woke up on Feb. 8, as normal, then suddenly collapsed. Nex’s grandmother called 911, and an ambulance took them to the St. Francis Pediatric Emergency Room, “where they later died,” the police investigation update states, without providing further information. “... This investigation is ongoing.”
Owasso Police said on Tuesday that detectives have been interviewing school staff and students over the past two weeks and “in turn will be submitting our investigation to the Tulsa County District Attorney’s Office for prosecution review.”
A funeral for Nex was held on Feb. 15, with local police and members of Bikers Against Child Abuse providing an escort from the funeral home to the cemetery. Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt, who signed an anti-trans bathroom bill into law two years ago, did not attend.
