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This is the Kansas City Chiefs fan who says he was sleeping when his three friends died in his backyard in freezing temperatures on January 7.
Jordan Willis, 38, is an HIV researcher and protein scientist who lives in the home on NW 83rd Terrace, Kansas City, Missouri.
On January 9, the bodies of his three friends – David Harrington, Ricky Johnson and Clayton McGeeney – were found in his backyard. They had been there since January 7, when the three men visited Willis to watch the Chiefs play the Los Angeles Chargers.
Willis’ attorney claims he said goodbye to his friends, who left the house, then ‘crashed’ on the couch.
A short time later, he says he went upstairs to bed, leaving the doors unlocked.
The three men, he says, then returned to the property and at some stage, went outside.
There was a fifth man in the home on the night in question, a ‘buddy’ who Willis says ‘left earlier’ than the other three men. No other information about him has become public.
‘He assumes they came back [after he went to sleep]. Maybe they didn’t want to go to a bar or hangout somewhere else,’ attorney John Picerno told DailyMail.com today, as the families of the three victims demanded answers.
Jordan Willis is an award-winning HIV scientist who has moved home and deleted all of his social media after three of his friends were mysteriously found dead on his property
David Harrington (second left), Clayton McGeeney (second right) and Ricky Johnson (right) are shown with two unidentified fellow Chiefs fans, neither of whom is believed to be involved in the mystery. Harrington, McGeeney and Johnson were found dead on January 9 in the backyard of another man’s house
Picerno refused to answer questions about whether the men were using drugs. The results of the medical examiner’s toxicology report have not yet been released.
Willis insists he spent the next two days in his home, not thinking anything of the fact that his friends’ cars were still outside, and only learned they’d died when the fiancée of one of the men broke into the house on January 9 in the hopes of finding him.
For two days, the families of the victims say they bombarded Willis with phone calls and Facebook messages asking where their loved ones were but received no response.
When the fiancée broke in on January 9 and found the first body, she called police.
Officers arrived to find Willis in his underwear with an empty glass of wine in hand, according to the victims’ families. The other two bodies were then found in the backyard.
The deaths remain a mystery. Police say there was no foul play and Willis has not been charged or arrested.
The medical examiner is yet to reveal how the men died, or what kind of condition their bodies were in.
Willis, through an attorney, has denied wrongdoing.
‘He had absolutely nothing to do with their deaths,’ lawyer John Picerno told DailyMail.com today.
He has now moved out of the property and deleted all of his social media accounts amid a swell of public interest in the men’s deaths.
Willis is an accomplished scientist, whose research into COVID and HIV has been praised in the medical world
Willis with the two ‘light of his life’ – Sadie and Daisy. He says he didn’t leave his home between January 7 and 9, not even to walk the dogs
Willis with a relative. He maintains that he had nothing to do with his friends’ deaths. Police say there is no foul play and have neither arrested nor charged him
One of the bodies was found on the back porch of the property by the fiancée of one of the men, who broke in after receiving no answer from Willis
The other two bodies were found in the backyard. Police initially said there was no foul play, but are yet to confirm the cause of death for the three men
Willis (pictured) told police the men had frozen to death in his backyard. Their loved ones have raised questions over the lack of reporting of their bodies, and the snow that they say was not deep enough to submerge them
Willis’ attorney says he did not hear the victims’ loved ones banging on his door because he sleeps with headphones and a fan on. He also claims he did not see their Facebook messages until after the police showed up.
He does not know how the men died and says he never suggested that they ‘froze’, as had been reported.
Willis is an accomplished scientist, whose research into COVID and HIV has been praised in the medical world. In interviews, he described his two pit-bull mixes – Sadie and Daisy, as the ‘light of his life’.
According to an interview that Willis gave to the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative’s website in 2022, he is the senior principal scientist at the IAVI Neutralizing Antibody Center in Kansas City.
Willis said in the interview that he conducts data analysis and interpretation for the IAVI’s HIV vaccine trials. He also compared the search for an effective HIV vaccine to Covid-19 vaccine research.
Ricky Johnson, a father-of-three, was one of the three men found dead
David Harrington was found dead on his friend’s property on January 9
Clayton McGeeney was also found dead in the backyard
The Virginia-native graduated with a Ph.D. in Chemical and Physical Biology from Vanderbilt University in 2014. He previously studied chemistry and molecular biology at Northwest Missouri State University.
In 2022, he received an award for his ‘significant contributions to HIV vaccine development.’
In the intro section to his now-deleted Facebook page, Willis wrote: ‘Walking the line to be be the funnest guy in the room and a full-on mental breakdown.’
While on another social media platform, Willis describes himself saying: ‘Self-proclaimed man-about-town.’
On January 9m Captain Jake Becchina of the Kansas City Police Department said: ‘First and foremost, this case is 100% NOT being investigated as a homicide. There have not been any arrests [or] charges, and no one is in custody.
‘There are no specific threats or concerns for the surrounding community at this time.
‘The resident at the house was cooperative with detectives the day the deceased were discovered.’
The loved ones of the men are however speaking out to demand answers.
She said the police are ‘not doing anything’ to solve the mystery of her son’s passing, and called for the owner of the home to be ‘at least investigated.’
Johnson’s brother Jonathan Price said that he heard the owner of the home had animals that would need to go outside, and claimed the city didn’t get enough snow to submerge the men for them to be hidden for days.
‘There’s many different things that don’t add up, we just don’t understand how somebody would at least be investigated in any way,’ he said.
‘We’ve heard that he’s moving out as well, so we don’t know if he’ll even be sticking around much longer.’
Johnson’s (center, with his family) mother feels that police are ‘not doing anything’ to solve the mystery of her son’s passing, and called for the owner of the home, who has not been publicly identified, to be ‘at least investigated’
Johnson’s grief-stricken family say they aren’t satisfied with the investigation, with his brother Jonathan Price (center) saying that ‘freezing to death is not a cause of death that I would accept’
He said Johnson and his two friends were inseparable, but he did not know Jordan Willis and hadn’t heard how his brother met him.
Price said he didn’t want to speculate over his brother’s death, but said the circumstances don’t make sense to him at all.
‘My brother was a smart man, and there’s no way that he would just freeze to death. Freezing to death is not a cause of death that I would accept,’ he said.
In a GoFundMe for Johnson’s funeral, he was described as a ‘cherished son, brother, uncle and friend’ who was beloved by his ‘three beautiful daughters.’
Johnson’s father raised the possibility of legal action, telling KSHB that he has retained an attorney and is waiting for a search warrant to be issued on the home.
‘I’m not going to stand back and let it go,’ he said. ‘I will go until the day I die to get this figured out.’
