On January 9, 2024, three fans of the Kansas City Chiefs were discovered frozen to death in a residential backyard in Kansas City, Missouri. The deceased have been named as David Harrington (37), Ricky Johnson (38), and Clayton McGeeney (36).
The tragic incident followed their attendance at a watch party on January 7, hosted by Jordan Willis, an award-winning HIV scientist, for the Chiefs vs. Los Angeles Chargers game.
The grim discovery was made after the fiancée of one of the victims reported him missing and requested a welfare check from the police. Upon her inability to establish contact with Willis, she entered his home and found one body on the back porch. The police later discovered the other two victims in the backyard.
Willis, who greeted the police in his underwear and with an empty wine glass, claimed he had no knowledge of the men’s presence in his backyard.
Willis had invited the three victims and another unidentified individual to his residence for the game. Willis’s attorney, John Picerno, stated that Willis retired to bed while the party continued. Facing public scrutiny, Willis has since relocated and deactivated his social media accounts.
Families of the victims have expressed their frustration and doubts over the inconsistencies in Willis’s account and the lack of clarity surrounding the circumstances of the deaths.
Willis initially stated that he saw the men leave his home, but later changed his statement to say he was unaware of their departure time. The families of the victims are demanding more information about the events leading up to the tragic deaths.
Attorney Picerno also confirmed there was a fifth person with Willis and the three victims that night. He said that Willis didn’t leave the house and didn’t know the deceased were in the backyard, but he has changed his story multiple times and the details are not consistent.
“None of us know what happened to these individuals and I think the most important thing to remember here, these are his three buddies,” Picerno said.
Fox News spoke to the unidentified fifth person on the phone and was told that when he left, the three victims and Willis were still awake. He stressed that it was not true that he was the last person to see the three men alive.
The Kansas City Police Department continues its investigation into the incident. Autopsy results are still pending, and it could take weeks to formally determine the cause of death. As of now, the police have not found any evidence of criminal activity, and the case is not being treated as a homicide.
On the day of the game, the temperature was reported to be a high of 41°F and a low of 32°F, with temperatures plummeting into the teens in the following days.
The families of the victims are awaiting further details from the ongoing police investigation and the results of the post-mortems.
