The circumstances surrounding the mysterious deaths of three Kansas City Chiefs fans earlier this month have yet to be resolved. The basis of this tragic story doesn’t add up: how can someone not notice your friends frozen to death outside for two days? Jordan Willis rented a house located at N.W. 83rd Terrace and N. Overland Drive in Platte County to watch the final regular season Chiefs game against the Los Angeles Chargers on January 7 with a few friends.
It would be the final game Ricky Johnson, 38, Clayton McGeeney, 36, and David Harrington, 37, would see alive. They were discovered frozen to death in the backyard two days later. Johnson never showed up for work at his family’s construction company. The families of the victims claim numerous messages, phone calls, texts, and knocks at the door reportedly went unanswered by Willis. It was McGeeney’s fiancé who discovered the bodies.
When police arrived at the home, Willis was in his underwear, empty wine glass in hand. His attorney, John Picerno, said his client wore noise-canceling headphones and had a fan blasting, which prevented him from hearing McGeeney’s fiancé entering the residence. Willis has since left the home, but police recently announced that there’s no evidence of foul play. Autopsies on the three men are being performed. We do not have a report on the cause of death yet (via CBS News):
It has been three weeks since three Kansas City fans joined friends to watch the Chiefs play the Los Angeles Chargers in the final game of the regular season. Two days later, their bodies were found in the backyard of the home of their friend Jordan Willis.
While Willis has denied any knowledge about his friends' deaths, one of the victims' brothers told CBS News that "he's not telling the truth."
Police still haven't said how the men died, but affirmed this weekend amid intense public speculation that they still have no evidence of foul play.
[…]
"When there was no answer at the door, she broke into the basement of the residence and located an unknown dead body on the back porch. Officers responded to the back porch and confirmed there was a dead body. Upon further investigation, officers located two other dead bodies in the back yard," an initial police report on the incident said. "There were no obvious signs of foul play observed at or near the crime scene."
[…]
"This still remains a death investigation and nothing more," Officer Alayna Gonzalez, a spokeswoman for the Kansas City Police Department, said in an email Saturday to The Associated Press. "We still have no evidence or indication of foul play, no one is in police custody."
Investigators have not said publicly whether they believe drugs or alcohol were involved in what might have been three relatively sudden and simultaneous deaths, though it's clear that that's a possibility they are considering. Weather records indicate the low temperature that night was around 33 degrees.
[…]
The department is still waiting on a ruling on the cause of death from Frontier Forensics, Gonzalez said. It's a private company that provides autopsy services for numerous counties across Kansas and Missouri. Once police get the cause of death back, she said, they will be able to provide additional updates on the investigation.
That hasn’t stopped family members from forming their own conclusions. David Harrington’s girlfriend, Lorie Kurse, said Harrington wasn’t a drug user, adding she felt her late boyfriend and his two friends were “murdered.” This is not to criticize one’s parents, who are obviously in mourning, but Harrington’s parents went on a bit of a conspiratorial route, adding that perhaps their son and his friends “saw something they shouldn’t have seen.” There’s also been speculation about how one of the victims’ bodies was discovered. Nothing can be determined at this point until the autopsies are released.
As for the fifth man in the house, he’s broken his silence, refuting Willis’ attorney’s account of the events before the deaths of these men. Through his lawyer, the fifth man said he wasn’t the last to see McGeeney, Johnson, and Harrington alive, adding he left around midnight where the four men were all watching Jeopardy. Though initially anonymous, this individual was later identified as Alex Waemer-Lee (via Fox 4KC) [emphasis mine]:
Picerno said the last time Willis saw the three men was when they left the house and he went to bed.
But then Picerno confirmed to FOX4 on Monday that a fifth person was present and still there with the three victims when Willis went to sleep.
“At some point, he got tired and went to sleep while there were these guys in the home, and as I know now there was a couple of other people in the home,” Picerno said…
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FOX4 spoke with the fifth person [ Alex Waemer-Lee] who was at the home via phone…
He said when he left, the three victims and Willis were still awake. He stressed that it’s absolutely not true that he was the last person to see the three men alive.
After asking a few more questions, he directed FOX4 to his attorney, Andrew Talge.
In an interview with FOX4, Talge said his client arrived at Willis’ house around 7 p.m. that Sunday. He said his client was hanging out with the four others until about midnight. It’s at that point when he left.
According to Talge, when his client left Willis’s home, the four men were watching Jeopardy. Most importantly, he said they were still alive during those early hours Monday.
Willis attorney, Mr. Picerno, is also not doing anyone any favors with these interviews. In a January 19 interview with NewsNation, he claimed that his client left the house sporadically on the Monday and Tuesday after the Chiefs-Chargers game. He corrected himself on January 22, adding he chose his words poorly, “What I meant to say on NewsNation is that he left — he was sleeping, and he left his bedroom sporadically.”
New footage shows Willis being confronted by police when the bodies were discovered. He’s since checked himself into rehab. This development circles back to the narrative about these being drug-related deaths (via NY Post):
NEW: Footage shows police cuffing and then releasing HIV scientist after finding 3 dead Kansas City Chiefs fans in his backyard.
— Collin Rugg (@CollinRugg) January 30, 2024
Bizarre.
Clayton McGeeney, David Harrington and Ricky Johnson mysteriously died in scientist Jordan Willis' backyard.
The most alarming fact about… pic.twitter.com/PViBJbvqN1
The Kansas City Chiefs fan who said he slept for two days as his three friends froze to death in his backyard has checked into rehab, according to a report.
Jordan Willis, 38, is “facing his addiction head-on,” a source close to the family told Fox News Digital, calling the deaths of his friends an “enormous wakeup call.”
“After the shocking loss of three of his close friends under extremely tragic circumstances, Jordan recognized that he had a problem with addiction,” the source said, without elaborating on the exact nature.
“He immediately checked himself into rehab after vacating his home and putting his things into storage.”
[…]
Willis — who was wearing underwear and holding a wine glass when police arrived — claimed to have been asleep for nearly two days and said he did not realize his friends were dead outside.
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Waemer-Lee is also alleged to have texted other friends about drug use at Willis’ house during the watch party, the outlet added.
Experts have indicated that alcohol or drugs like fentanyl or a related analog could have caused the men to pass out in the snow and succumb to the 30-degree weather, Fox noted.
Was this a drug-induced misadventure? The family says one thing, Mr. Waemer-Lee alleges another—the toxicology and autopsy reports should clear this part up. As for the rest, I’m sure many won’t be satisfied over Mr. Willis not knowing his dead friends’ bodies were all over the backyard for two days.