The brother of one of three Kansas City Chiefs fans found dead in a friend’s backyard has demanded investigators tell the grieving families how they died.
David Harrington, 37, Ricky Johnson, 38, and Clayton McGeeney, 36, were found dead in Jordan Willis’ backyard in Kansas City, Missouri nearly three weeks ago.
Police have still not made any arrests and medical examiners have yet to reveal the cause of death, with toxicology reports expected to take up to five more weeks.
But Johnson’s brother Jonathan Price said he is making discoveries of his own, including the fact that one of the men was found on the back porch, away from the others.
The Kansas City Police Department has said there is no evidence of foul play but Price has demanded they explain what they think happened.
‘I’m not saying there was or was not a crime, but if you immediately suspect no foul play then you should have a story, you should have something to tell the families and for no-one to hear anything that doesn’t make any sense,’ he told Chris Cuomo on News Nation.
Ricky Johnson’s brother Jonathan Price has demanded police explain what they think caused the death of the three men if it was not foul play
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
Willis 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
‘It’s the same every day with the lack of answers and the inability to truly mourn without any cause.
‘I want to be involved more. My mother and Ricky’s father want to be involved more and we’re not just getting answers from the investigation.’
Willis, 38, is an HIV researcher and protein scientist who lives and works in the home on NW 83rd Terrace, Kansas City, Missouri.
He 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’.
The men didn’t return home or contact their families after the Chiefs and Los Angeles Chargers game on January 7 and Willis didn’t contact anyone to say where they were or what had happened.
For two days, the families of the victims say they visited Willis’ home, called him and sent him Facebook messages asking where they were. He did not respond.
Eventually, the fiancée of one of the men broke into the house through the basement and found the first body in the backyard.
She then called police, who arrived to find Willis in his underwear, holding a wine glass, and found the two other bodies in the backyard.
Price slammed the explanations from Willis and said his story kept changing.
‘I don’t care who you are or where you live if its snowing outside your looking outside to see how bad its getting.
‘It doesn’t matter if you work from home, you’ve got to leave sometime, and from his lawyer we don’t know if he left or not because he started out saying he left the home sporadically throughout the day and then another one where he was home for 50 hours.’
Jordan Willis, 38, says he has no idea how his friends died in his backyard or why they were outside
One of the bodies was reportedly 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
Ricky Johnson, a father-of-three, was one of the three men found dead
Clayton McGeeney, 36, was also found dead in the backyard
David Harrington was found dead on his friend’s property on January 9
‘I do not speculate on what my brother has done in the past, I just know he was a good man.
‘He loved his daughters to death he absolutely had future plans to be a father to them for the rest of their lives and he absolutely wouldn’t jeopardize that.’
And he said he now knew that one of the men dead was positioned differently to the others.
‘As a brother I’m looking at everything,’ he explained.
‘David was found in a long chair on the back porch rather than all three laying flat which paints a picture we didn’t have from the beginning.’
Harrington’s mother, Jennifer Marquez, has issued an urgent plea to Willis, saying: ‘I know he is scared but he was there, he participated in whatever happened that night, he had to know and he is the only one left that knows what happened.’
She told News Nation Anchor Natasha Zouves: ‘I want Jordan to come forward and say you know this wasn’t meant to happen but this is what happened. I did this or I saw this, you know, just tell us.’
Marquez believes Willis is ‘scared’ and said: ‘I think that’s why he didn’t answer the text messages that people sent him and I think that’s why he waited to long to let anybody know what happened with the men.’
‘I heard from several people that said they kept texting him, you know they went and knocked on the door, they banged on the door… how could you keep missing texts and people knocking on your door and not notice texts or any of that.’
Willis has claimed via his attorney John Picerno that he didn’t see the messages and was asleep for ‘a lot of’ the time between his friends leaving and answering the door to police.
He claims he said goodbye to his friends – two of whom he’d known since high school – 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.
Picerno 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’ to death outside in the cold weather, as had been reported in the days following their deaths.
A source close to Willis told Fox last week: ‘Not only is the whole country accusing him of murdering his friends without factual details, evidence or any charges at this time, but he also lost three close friends.
‘He didn’t get to say goodbye or go to their funerals due to the circumstances of these wild speculations and accusations.
‘No one seems to be willing to wait for the results of the toxicology report or wait for any other facts from the police department from a case that is still under investigation to make these speculations.’
Harrington’s mother addressed the claims that the friends had taken drugs, saying: ‘I know none of these men are drug addicts, there is speculation that they must have been doing this or that, something may have happened that night.
‘I don’t know but I want people to know this isn’t their life and if something was provided that night, I know none of them had the means to provide that.
‘And that’s part of the reason I think there’s a problem, all of them were taking care of their families and had bills and did not have money for that kind of thing.’
Harrington’s father Jon has previously addressed the allegations they had taken drugs.
‘I’m aware that they may have done some substances that were questionable – but the idea was to get high, not dead,’ he said. ‘If they were supposed to be friends, why didn’t [Willis] come find them.’
He has previously said that he believes the three victims may have ‘learned something’ or ‘saw something that they shouldn’t have,’ before their deaths.
The grieving father told Fox News Digital: ‘What else could it be? Perfectly healthy men don’t just drop off the face of the earth.’
There was a fifth man in attendance at the viewing party, Alex Weamer-Lee.
He is a high school friend of the victims, but says he left at midnight after the football finished and when everyone was alive.