Three friends were found dead last year after watching a Chiefs game. Now, 2 men face charges in the case

For more than a year, mystery shrouded the case of three friends found dead outside a Kansas City home after watching a Chiefs football game on a below-freezing winter night. Now, two men are charged with killing them.

(CNN) — For more than a year, mystery shrouded the case of three friends who were found dead outside a Kansas City home after watching a Chiefs football game on a below-freezing winter night. On Wednesday, two men were charged with killing them, prosecutors said.

Clayton McGeeney, 36, Ricky Johnson, 38, and David Harrington, 37, were discovered dead outside the home of Jordan Willis in the Platte County portion of Kansas City around 10 p.m. on January 9, 2024, two days after the men watched the Kansas City Chiefs beat the Los Angeles Chargers.

Willis and Ivory J. Carson are both charged with a single count of delivery of a controlled substance and three counts of involuntary manslaughter for “recklessly causing the deaths” of the three men, Platte County Prosecuting Attorney Eric Zahnd said at a Wednesday news conference. Each charge carries a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison.

All three men died of fentanyl and cocaine combined toxicity, a doctor with Forensic Medical of Kansas determined, according to Zahnd.

“This case has received considerable attention from the media, and I think some people seem to believe that charges may never be brought in this case,” Zahnd said. “People may have doubted this investigation because it has spanned over a year.”

Detectives obtained consent to search the home after the bodies were found and subsequently found two “plastic bags containing white powdery substances,” one of which contained cocaine after being tested, according to Zahnd. The probable cause statement alleges Willis “was determined to be the major contributor of DNA found on that bag.”

The other bag contained fentanyl, with Carson’s DNA found to be the primary contributor on that bag, he continued, citing the probable cause statement.

Carson is being held in the Platte County jail in lieu of a $100,000 case bond, Zahnd said, while “we’ve been told that Mr. Willis is going to surrender himself on the warrant issued for his arrest and that he will post a $100,000 case bond.”

Willis’ lawyer, John Picerno, said there is no evidence that Willis bought the drugs that his friends ingested before their deaths, noting they had been partying all day, the Associated Press reported. And he said Willis didn’t know that they were still in his backyard — or that they needed medical attention — until police showed up, according to the AP.

“It has been a very, very long year for Jordan,” Picerno told the AP. “He’s lost his job. He’s lost his home. He’s lost his friends. The public are pointing at him as someone who essentially killed them. And nothing could be further from the truth.”

No attorney is listed for Carson in online court records.

‘It takes time to bring these cases,’ prosecutor says

McGeeney’s fiancée told police the three had gone to Willis’ home the day of the Kansas City Chiefs football game on January 7, the last game of the regular season. But the three friends never came home.

Two days later, on January 9, McGeeney’s fiancée went looking for him at Willis’ house after the families became increasingly worried about their lack of communication and she found “at least one person dead on the back patio,” said Zahnd.

Kansas City had a high of 37 degrees and a low of 29 degrees with trace amounts of rain and snow on January 7, and temperatures dropped to right around freezing just before sunrise the next morning.

Jennifer Marquez, McGeeney’s mother, told CNN in January 2024 her son’s fiancée told her what happened that day: “She told me that she tried the doors, tried the gate, and eventually just — her phone was saying that Clayton was there. You know, it was pinging off his phone … So she knew something was up.”

According to Marquez, after no one answered the door, the woman removed a screen and broke into the house through a window. A police statement said she “broke into the basement.”

Eventually, she called the Kansas City police. According to a police statement, 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.”

Police said at the time they found “no obvious signs of foul play.”

The police statement said that “the resident at the house was cooperative with detectives the day the deceased were discovered.”

Zahnd said Wednesday the probable cause affidavit recounts a statement of a witness who said he was at Harrington’s home with him and McGeeney, Johnson and Willis the night of the football game where he saw “a large plate of cocaine allegedly supplied by Mr. Willis that everyone was using.” The witness said the three friends were headed to Willis’ house after the game, Zahnd said.

Another witness who left before midnight said he was with Willis, Harrington, McGeeney and Johnson at Willis’ home later on in the evening where they drank alcohol, smoked marijuana and used cocaine, Zahnd said.

Data recovered from Harrington’s phone allegedly contains text messages between Harrington, McGeeney, Johnson, Willis, Carson and others consistent with the “purchase and use of cocaine.”

The messages allegedly indicate Carson supplied Harrington with cocaine, Zahnd said.

Kansas City Police Chief Stacey Graves said at the Wednesday news conference: “This is a message to those that are bringing fentanyl into our communities providing it to people, harming our community – that you will be held accountable, you will be arrested, and you will be charged.”

When asked why the investigation took over a year, Zahnd said: “It takes time to bring these cases and there are additional investigative things that had to be wrapped up before this case could be brought.”

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