2 Men Charged in Deaths of 3 Chiefs Fans 14 Months After Bodies Found

Two men have been charged in connection with the deaths of three Kansas City Chiefs fans.

Jordan Willis and Ivory Carson were charged on Wednesday, March 5, with three counts of involuntary manslaughter and two counts of the delivery of a controlled substance, KMBC News in Kansas City, Missouri reports. Each of those charges carries a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison. 

“People may have doubted this investigation because it has spanned more than a year,” Platte County Prosecutor Eric Zahnd stated Wednesday, according to the news station. “The Kansas City Police Department and my office do not rest on homicide cases until we have exhausted every possible resource. Today’s charges are the product of the hard work of Kansas City detectives and prosecutors over those many months.”

On January 9, 2024, the bodies of Ricky Johnson, Clayton McGeeney and David Harrington were found frozen in the backyard of Willis’ home. The three men had gathered to watch a Chiefs game at Willis’ house two days before police discovered their dead bodies. Court documents stated that they had consumed alcohol, marijuana and cocaine. 

In a press conference Wednesday, Zahnd said that McGeeney’s fiancée had worried about his whereabouts and showed up at Willis’ house and “found at least one person dead on the back patio. Temperatures had dropped below freezing the night of the Chiefs game.”

When police searched the scene, they found two plastic bags containing a white powdery substance that was later forensically identified as a mixture of cocaine and fentanyl. Willis and Carson were linked to the drugs via DNA evidence, and an investigation identified Carson as the primary drug supplier. He admitted he had sold cocaine to Johnson, McGeeney and Harrington prior to their deaths. 

On January 12, 2024, a medical examiner revealed that the three had died of fentanyl and cocaine combined toxicity. 

Carson is being held in county jail on Wednesday and Willis is expected to surrender to authorities. Willis intends to post a $100,000 bond for his release, Zahnd stated. 

There were no details on when Willis and Carson will appear in court. 

“This case is a tragic reminder of the dangers of street drugs,” Zahnd said. “But make no mistake. The people who supply those drugs can and will be held accountable when people overdose.”

The prosecutor added, “The sad part of these cases is we’re not able to ask [the victims] what happened that night.”