A 16-year-old from Oklahoma whose death in February was the subject of attention across the US died by suicide, a medical examiner has said.
Nex Benedict was non-binary and used they/them pronouns. Their death one day after a fight in a school toilet prompted protests and vigils across the country.
The cause of death was revealed in a partial autopsy report released on Wednesday by Oklahoma's chief medical examiner. The medical examiner said Nex had died from taking a combination of medications.
The day before Nex died, the student was involved in a brief fight in a toilet at Owasso high school, authorities say. The fight was broken up by other students and a school staff member. The school did not call an ambulance, but its nurse recommended that Nex undergo further medical checks “out of an abundance of caution”.
In bodycam footage released by police of an interview at the hospital that day, Nex said that they and their group had been picked on before the fight “because of the way that we dress”. Nex returned home and on 8 February, their mother called emergency services, saying their breathing was shallow and their eyes were rolling back. The teenager later died in hospital.
As the case began to receive national scrutiny, police released a statement saying only that preliminary autopsy information showed the teenager had not died “as a result of trauma”. On Wednesday, police said they had suspected suicide throughout the course of their investigation but had waited for the autopsy report to make a definitive statement.
A complete autopsy will be released in 10 days. Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond said his “heart is broken” over Nex's death.
“The Medical Examiner's finding of suicide makes me even more concerned that bullying played a role in this terrible loss,” he wrote in a post on X, formerly Twitter. In the wake of the incident, the school district did not confirm whether Nex had been bullied for their gender identity.
The superintendent of Owasso Public Schools called Nex's death “devastating”.
“As we mourn together, OPS remains focused on the safety and well-being of our students and staff,” said Margaret Coates.
Campaigners have criticised laws in Oklahoma that ban students from using school toilets and changing rooms that do not align with their sex at birth and have raised concerns about LGBT people being targeted. One advocacy group, Freedom Oklahoma, said at the time that members of the LGBT community had experienced increased hostility “fuelled by state law and the rhetoric around it”.
After news of Nex's death spread, vigils honouring them were held in more than a dozen US cities.
— CutC by bbc.com
