A lawyer for Jordan Willis, the HIV scientist whose Kansas City Chiefs fan friends were mysteriously found dead in his backyard says his client is grieving the loss of his friends.
Willis, 38, is an HIV researcher and protein scientist who lives and works in the property 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.
Attorney John Picerno – who has previously spoken out in defense of his client – says Willis ‘had absolutely nothing to do with the deaths of his three friends,’ two of whom he’s known since high school.
‘He’s grieving, he’s had to move out of his home, he’s had to shut down his social media, he’s taking leave of absence from his job, so it’s really affected him,’ Picerno said.
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 with a relative. He 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
Picerno said that after the friends went to his house following the Chiefs game, Willis decided to crash on his couch and said goodnight to his friends at around 2 a.m.
‘He thought that they left out the front door,’ Picerno told KCTV.
The lawyer adds that he didn’t hear from his friends again or know anything about what had happened to them until the police knocked on his door at around 10 p.m. the following Tuesday.
When asked why he never went and looked in the backyard, Picerno said: ‘He had no reason to go out into the backyard, and he didn’t know anyone was in the backyard.
The medical examiner’s office has yet to determine a cause of death, with Picerno claiming Willis wants answers like everyone else does.
‘He doesn’t have any suspicions about how they died any more than you or I do or, unfortunately, the families who are grieving over the loss of their loved ones,’ he added.
But those family members and loved ones of the dead are beginning to question Willis’ story.
‘None of the stories are adding up about what he’s saying; how do you not know there are three dead bodies on the back porch?’ asked Adriana Juarez, the mother of Johnson’s child.
Ricky Johnson (left) is pictured alongside his father Rickie Johnson Sr (center)
‘None of the stories are adding up about what he’s saying; how do you not know there are three dead bodies on the back porch?’ asked Adriana Juarez, the mother of Johnson’s child (left)
Johnson’s niece, Stephanie Walling, has said the national attention has been tough but they hope it will lead to a break in the case.
‘I never thought it would get as much attention as it has but I’m hoping with the attention that it will get us closer to getting answers,’ she said.
The women were both wearing t-shirts calling for justice for the three men.
Picerno has previously theorized that the men may have taken drugs – but cops are still waiting for the toxicology report.
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. They were found dead 48 hours later.
Attorney John Picerno did not rule out the chance that the men could have been doing drugs and suffered an overdose. He said: ‘There’s a chance of everything,’ when asked the question, reports the NYPost.
Rickie Johnson Sr. – the father of one of the deceased – said his son may have done drugs in the past, but didn’t believe all three friends took drugs and ‘fell over dead in the backyard.’
Johnson Sr said: ‘They told us to wait, for four hours, and they would tell us what they found. We waited all night and they never called. We called them the next day, and they still wouldn’t give us any information. So, I called an attorney.
The women were both wearing t-shirts calling for justice for the three men
Attorney John Picerno – who has previously spoken out in defense of his client – says Willis ‘had absolutely nothing to do with the deaths of his three friends,’ two of whom he’s known since high school
‘He may have done some drugs and stuff in the past, but I do not believe all three of them did drugs and fell over dead in that backyard.
‘I’m not going to say that during a game he didn’t have some drinks. But he wasn’t irresponsible that he was going to go outside and freeze to death.
‘You’re talking about three grown men. If he was out there just freezing like they said, he could’ve kicked out a window to get into the house.’
Norma Chester, Johnson’s mother, told Fox News Digital: ‘Seriously, these were responsible men. How do they go in a backyard and freeze to death, all three of them.’
Picerno insists Willis had no involvement in the deaths of the three men.
‘He has nothing to hide. He went to the police station and spoke with officers without a lawyer present, he allowed them to search his home… these were his friends.
‘He’d bought tickets for them all to go to the next Chiefs game – he didn’t want any harm to come to any of them. There was no ill will,’ attorney John Picerno told DailyMail.com.
Willis 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
He slammed internet sleuths and those assuming that he is to blame, calling the speculation ‘unfair’.
Picerno believes that after Willis waved the men off on January 7, they returned while he was asleep to ‘hang out’ in the living room.
‘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.
He worked from home and his two dogs were at his father’s house, so did not require walking.
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.
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 because the dogs were at his father’s house, as they often are
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.’