April Mahoney was so desperate to find her missing fiancé, Clayton McGeeney, that she took matters into her own hands just after 9pm on January 9th.
She banged for 10 minutes on the door of a rental home in Kansas City, Missouri, owned by Jordan Willis, where McGeeney and his friends were last seen two days earlier, but to no avail.
She then broke in through a basement window and screamed for someone to be in the house, relatives told the Post.
She then went upstairs and looked out the large back window to see the gloomy landscape above the snow-covered patio.
Mahoney first discovered the frozen body of a man named David Harrington, sitting upright in a lawn chair.
She then saw her fiancé fall to the ground and a third man, Ricky Johnson, lying dead next to him. He was dead too.
“When April saw David, she completely panicked and could barely breathe and called the police,” Clayton’s uncle, Jim McGeeney, told the Post.
“Officers arrived within minutes and Jordan opened the door without incident wearing boxers and holding an empty wine glass.”
Since then, McGeeney, 36, Harrington, 37, and Johnson, 38, have explained how their host, Willis, a 38-year-old HIV research scientist, was sleeping in the snow for 48 years. The mystery remains as to whether they died at the same time in the rainy backyard. For hours, he had no idea that his friend had died in full view of his home, but the thought only deepened.
The temperature in the backyard was below freezing in the early morning hours of January 8, when the men died.
Preliminary toxicology results Thursday showed the men died under the influence of cocaine and fentanyl.
Ricky Johnson / Facebook
Kansas City police have not released the toxicology report, but family members told the Post that some family members have been briefed on its contents.
family of 2 told News Nation The body contained three times the amount of fentanyl needed to kill a person.
But friends and family of the deceased man say many questions remain unanswered, especially about Willis. Multiple people said it sounded like the TV series “Breaking Bad” came to life.
Willis holds a Ph.D. from Vanderbilt University.as HIV vaccine researcherHe worked both at the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative’s Neutralizing Antibody Center in La Jolla, California, and in his hometown of Kansas City.
His academic resume includes 55 publications, five times the academic output of former Harvard University President Claudine Gay. He has also received an award from the Scripps Consortium for HIV/AIDS for his contributions to HIV vaccine development.
But the friends who died — they all met at Park Hill High School, a mile apart — had more blue-collar jobs, Mr. McGeeney in construction and Mr. Harrington as a flooring contractor.
Some friends and family have commented to each other and to the media that Willis may have concocted something extra in the drugs the men took that night. A source close to the family refuted the following: told Fox News Digital.
Public records show Willis was arrested and charged with misdemeanor DUI in Tennessee in 2011, which is uncharacteristic for Walter White, a Midwesterner, and has no further criminal history. .
“The mad scientist’s plan is completely ridiculous,” the source said. “The fact that he is a scientist is irrelevant.”
But not everyone is convinced.
“Many people contacted Mr. Clayton’s sister and told her that Mr. Willis was known as ‘The Chemist’ in high school,” Jim McGeeney told the Post.
“They said he was going to parties and using enhanced drugs to make people feel high. We don’t know if he made up anything that night. Police can’t tell us anything. I won’t give it to you.”
April says, “Everything has been torn apart. She hardly wants to talk. Clayton’s funeral was very strict. They had been together for years and had a wonderful life.”
Willis, the three men who died, and a fifth friend were killed early in the evening, shortly after the Chiefs defeated the Los Angeles Chargers 13-12 at SoFi Stadium, in a 20-minute drive north of downtown Kansas City. We gathered at a four-bedroom rental house on a vast plot of land on the outskirts of Rand. on January 7th.
A fifth man, Alex Lee Wiemer, said he arrived at the house around 7 p.m. and when he left at 12:01 a.m., all the men were awake and watching reruns of “Jeopardy!” I told the police.
Willis’ story changed slightly when detailed by her lawyer, John Picerno, but she claims she went to bed around 12:30 a.m. while her friends were still there. At one point, it was claimed that he saw them leave. Picerno did not respond to repeated requests for comment from the newspaper.
In the early morning hours of January 9, Mahoney and Johnson’s mother, Norma Chester, texted Wiemar Lee asking where the men were. Wiemar Lee then sent Willis a text message on both his cell phone and Facebook, but Willis did not appear to respond.
Around 7 p.m. that night, the man’s close friend, Dakota Latia, banged on Willis’ door for about 20 minutes, but there was no response.
Two hours later, Mahoney arrived, found the deceased’s two cars on the front porch, knocked on the door himself, broke a small window in the basement, entered the backyard, and made the fatal discovery. did.
She called the police, who arrived ten minutes later. This time Willis immediately answered the door. He was briefly handcuffed but released without being charged. Police said there was no evidence of criminal activity.
Michael Baden, a former New York City chief medical examiner who has investigated numerous high-profile deaths, told the Post that it was unlikely that three people on drugs would die at the same time. Three people would pass out at the same time. ”
“They usually pass out and go to sleep, but when they pass out in the snow and cold, their body temperature drops rapidly and they often die within an hour,” Baden said.
On January 20, Willis’ attorney John Picerno said: Press release sent Willis said she “didn’t realize” her friend had died and that she had been sleeping with “earphones” and “a fan” on.
Mr. Picerno did not respond to more than a dozen phone calls from The Post. According to reports, Willis has entered a rehabilitation facility.
Willis is ‘facing his addiction head-on’ A source close to the family told Fox News Digital.called his friend’s death a “huge wake-up call.”
“After shockingly losing three of his closest friends in very tragic circumstances, Jordan realized he had an addiction problem,” a source said, though the exact nature of the issue was not discussed. He did not elaborate.
“After he left home and put his belongings in storage, he immediately entered a rehabilitation facility.”
Jim McGeeney said Willis moved out of the rental property believed to be owned by his parents the day after his body was found. His beloved protective pit bulls, Daisy and Sadie, may have always been with his parents.
“I don’t know him, but these people (the deceased) were not drug addicts,” he said. “These weren’t drug addicts with needle marks on their arms.
“These are professional people who, even though they were using cocaine recreationally, never expected it to be laced with fentanyl and a deadly substance.”
Fentanyl has killed more than 850 people in nine Kansas City area counties since 2018. kansas city star It was reported late last year.
Jim McGeeney pointed out that the bodies of a 38-year-old Kansas City man and his 31-year-old partner were among the bodies of a man apparently found lying frozen in a backyard on Jan. 8. He was arrested on suspicion of drug trafficking.
Police found more than 105 grams of fentanyl, the equivalent of 52,000 deaths, at a suburban home, along with supplies used to package and distribute the drug, according to a news release.
“It’s very sad,” McGeeney said. “I want people to know that if they are going to use drugs like this, they will at least buy a test kit to see if the cocaine is laced with fentanyl.
“Three families have been torn apart forever over this matter.”
