Midwest
Video shows Kansas City Chiefs watch party host handcuffed after friends’ bodies found
A video showing a detained, handcuffed Jordan Willis was captured by a neighbor on the night police discovered the bodies of his friends Clayton McGeeney, Ricky Johnson and David Harrington in his Kansas City backyard.
Although the video is only seconds long, neighbor Ashton Brady, 25, told Fox News Digital that there was a heavy police presence at the house across his street on Jan. 9 for at least an hour and a half before he went to bed.
First, Brady said, he saw a distressed-looking woman hurrying from the house and making a phone call – according to the Kansas City Police department, McGeeney’s fiancée dialed 911 for a welfare check to the Northwest 83rd Terrace home around 8:51 p.m. that night.
Family members told Fox News Digital that she discovered the first body after she frantically broke onto Willis’ property, unable to reach him or her partner. She allegedly knocked at the door and even shouted Willis’ name from inside the house before making the discovery.
KANSAS CITY CHIEFS FANS DEATHS: JORDAN WILLIS CHECKS INTO REHAB AS FAMILIES AWAIT TOXICOLOGY RESULTS
In a still taken by neighbor Ashton Brady, Jordan Willis can be seen in handcuffs and boxer shorts, surrounded by police on the evening of Jan. 9. His friends Ricky Johnson, David Harrington and Clayton McGeeney were found dead on his property that evening – Kansas City Police have told Fox News Digital that they do not suspect foul play in their deaths. (Fox News Digital)
“I just thought when I saw her, I thought it was weird watching her walk from the side of the house – she came out through the back,” Brady recalled in a Wednesday interview. “It was weird, the pace she was walking and talking on the phone. She looked back over her shoulder every so often at the house.”
“She looked upset for sure, like she didn’t know what was going on or anything,” he said.
Brady went back into his house, but returned to watch the scene across the street after seeing the lights of an ambulance through his bedroom window.
“We woke up and there were cops up and down the street and caution tape – you couldn’t go anywhere.”
By the time he got back outside, he said, about four police cars had amassed across the street and police officers surrounded a handcuffed man wearing just boxers or sleep shorts.
“He was detained for probably, like, 30 to 45 minutes. He was shirtless for 10 or 15 minutes and then a police officer grabbed a jacket out of the house,” Brady said.
Lights inside the house remained off, but Brady said he could see officers’ flashlights through its windows as police conducted their search. At some point, he said, he could see lights coming from the backyard.
As time passed, the police presence grew – what was initially just four cars became eight or 10 on the small street, he said.
“He was handcuffed and the woman was with the other police talking, so I figured a dispute broke out, and they were getting both sides of a story,” Brady said. “I thought ‘maybe they just got into an argument’ – at the time I didn’t know they found bodies… I thought it was strange that I saw the police go through the house.”
“People asked if I saw any bodies come out, I never did,” he said.
Attorney and retired NYPD inspector Paul Mauro told Fox News Digital that no meaningful insights about the case can be inferred from the manner in which Willis was detained:
“You can cuff for your own safety, and they did have three [dead on arrivals], so they didn’t know what they were into here,” Mauro said of police at the scene.
HIV scientist Jordan Willis, 38, checked himself into a rehab facility after his three friends were found dead in his backyard on Jan. 9. It is unclear whether drugs played a role in their death, as their toxicology results are still pending. (GitHub)
After about an hour and a half, Brady said, the woman and the man he now knows to be Willis were taken away in police cars. At some point Willis was uncuffed, because Brady could “see his arms moving.”
Another neighbor, Maya Dukes, told Fox News Digital that there was still a police presence at Willis’ home around 4 a.m. the next day.
“We woke up and there were cops up and down the street and caution tape – you couldn’t go anywhere,” she recalled. “They didn’t have their lights on or anything, they were just out on the street and at that house.”
WATCH NEIGHBOR’S VIDEO:
Brady would only learn the extent of the tragedy that took place across the street the next day:
“My roommate texted me at work – I was like ‘holy s—, I didn’t know that.”
Brady said that he and his roommate had just moved from elsewhere in Kansas City to the house across the street from Willis, and had spent the previous week settling in. He was away on a hunting trip with friends on the weekend of the Kansas City Chiefs game against the Los Angeles Chargers, when the men were last seen alive at Willis’ home on Jan. 7.
KANSAS CITY CHIEFS FANS FOUND DEAD IN FRIEND’S BACKYARD: WHAT TO KNOW
David Harrington, Clayton McGeeney and Ricky Johnson were found dead outside their friend’s Kansas City home on Jan. 9, 2024. (Ricky Johnson/Facebook)
Dukes said she noticed trucks parked outside the house because they were parked in “a weird spot where people don’t normally leave their cars.”
The two trucks are visible in Brady’s video. Family members of the deceased men have criticized Willis for not noticing that his friend’s vehicles were still on his street and thinking something was amiss.
In the days following Willis’ arrest, Johnson’s family told Fox News Digital they retrieved their son’s vehicle. Brady said the other car left the street, as well, but was unsure whether it was driven or towed away. It is unclear when the three men arrived at Willis’ home.
KANSAS CITY CHIEFS FAN DEATHS: JORDAN WILLIS ‘DEPRESSED’ OVER ‘WILD SPECULATIONS’ ABOUT PALS, SOURCE SAYS
An exterior view of the backyard and porch of Jordan Willis’s home in Kansas City, Missouri on Friday, Jan. 26, 2024. The bodies of Willis’ three friends – Ricky Johnson, Clayton McGeeney, and David Harrington – were found in Willis’ backyard, with one body found on the porch, on Jan. 9, 2024, two days after attending a Kansas City Chiefs watch party at the home. (DWS for Fox News Digital)
“It’s kind of weird,” Brady said of moving into his new home as the tragedy was unfolding. “It’s been… I don’t know, it’s been interesting for me. At first, I didn’t know if I should say anything [about the video], I didn’t know how big of a deal it was. I kind of wish I didn’t say anything because now my phone’s blowing up and people are hitting me up. [But] I just feel for the families… hopefully it helps a little bit.”
He said he had never seen Willis before that night.
“I have theories on it,” Brady said when asked what he thought of the mysterious deaths across the street. “I personally, I don’t know. It’s weird to me. The weirdest thing to me is if it was an overdose, no one called or anything like that – I went to school and partied – usually when something like that happens, when you call the police or the ambulance, no one usually gets in trouble.”
Ashton Brady poses for a photo on his front porch in Kansas City, Missouri on Tuesday, Jan. 30, 2024. Brady’s neighbor, Jordan Willis, was briefly detained while police searched his home after three of his friends were found dead in his backyard after a football watch party earlier in January. (DWS for Fox News Digital)
The Kansas City Police Department has told Fox News Digital that the deaths of the three men are “100 percent not being investigated as a homicide,” and that Willis is not considered a suspect. Toxicology reports will take six to eight weeks to process, according to the private company contracted by Platte County to carry out autopsies, while their full autopsy reports will not be released for another 10 to 12 weeks.
Willis’ attorney, John Picerno, said that his client works from home, slept for “a lot” of the time between allegedly seeing the three men out of his house after the Chiefs game. Therefore, Picerno said, he did not see messages or phone calls, and did not hear concerned loved ones knocking at his door.
PARENTS OF KANSAS CITY CHIEFS FANS FOUND DEAD THINK VICTIMS ‘SAW SOMETHING THEY SHOULDN’T HAVE SEEN’
Family and friends of Clayton McGeeney, left, David Harrington, center, and Ricky Johnson, right, are clamoring for answers after the three men inexplicably died in freezing temperatures outside their friend’s Kansas City home. (Facebook)
CLICK HERE FOR THE FOX NEWS APP
Willis checked himself into an inpatient rehab facility shortly after moving out of his house and is “facing his addiction head-on” after the “enormous, heartbreaking wake-up call” of “los[ing] three of his close friends under extremely tragic circumstances,” a source close to the family told Fox News Digital.
Two men were seen loading Willis’ belongings into a U-Haul truck in the days following Jan. 9, neighbors said – the source said that it has since been moved into storage, and that he is “still cooperating with the police department in their investigation.”
Read the full article from Here
Illinois
First annual Illinois Film Festival set for Wilmette in August
The new initiative invites young, up-and-coming directors,…
Indiana
Illinois takes steps to keep Bears out of Indiana. What happened?
NFL commissioner Roger Goodell says Bears need stadium site soon
NFL commissioner Roger Goodell told reporters at the NFL’s annual meeting that the Chicago Bears need resolution on a stadium site soon.
The saga of the Chicago Bears and their potential move to Indiana continues as Illinois lawmakers unveil amended legislation aimed at keeping the team in the state, Illinois Capital News reported.
Seemingly still a minor step in the right direction, the legislation is a prerequisite for the team to build a new domed stadium in suburban Arlington Heights. Here’s what happened in Illinois this week.
What does the amended bill mean for the Chicago Bears?
The Illinois House unveiled a new version of property tax legislation aimed at winning over lawmakers concerned about the move.
More specifically, the changes target worries about shifted property tax burdens to local residents and the team’s departure from Chicago’s Soldier Field, which still has nearly $500 in unpaid bonds.
While the original bill would allow the Bears or other “megaproject” developers to negotiate a payment in lieu of taxes, the amended version would contribute 50% of such payments to property tax relief. Of that amount, 60% would go to property tax rebates for homeowners residing in megaproject districts, while 40% would be deposited into the state’s existing property tax relief fund.
This incentive plan would end in five years, at which time lawmakers would revisit its effectiveness.
Will amended legislation pass in Illinois?
The legislation was discussed at length in the Illinois House Tuesday, but still has a far way to go before it makes its way to Gov. JB Pritzker’s desk.
Illinois Rep. Kam Buckner, D-Chicago, the lead House negotiator on the megaprojects bill, said he plans to file the amended legislation with the intention of it being heard in committee on Wednesday. If it passes there, the full House could vote on the measure this week.
But importantly, it still must be approved by the Illinois Senate, which returns to Springfield on April 28. Only then would it be sent to Pritzker.
Is the measure likely to pass in Illinois?
Buckner appeared optimistic about the changes, while Pritzker’s office said they’re still “reviewing the draft amendment.”
Illinois Rep. Will Guzzardi, D-Chicago, said the latest version is a step in the right direction, saying the “forthcoming amendment” addressed lawmakers’ concerns “in a really thoughtful way.”
What’s going on in Indiana?
Indiana Gov. Mike Braun signed a bill into law in February creating a northwest Indiana stadium authority that would be in charge of financing a new stadium for the Bears in Hammond.
As recently as April 16, Indiana lawmakers renegotiated the Indiana Toll Road lease to further appeal to the Chicago football team, according to the IndyStar. The new agreement would allow $700 million to be put toward infrastructure or transportation projects in seven Indiana counties near the proposed stadium site in exchange for more frequently increased toll prices on the Indiana Toll Road.
CONTRIBUTING: Kayla Dwyer, Indianapolis Star; Brenden Moore, Illinois Capital News
Iowa
Wrongful death suit filed for prospective Univ. of Iowa student killed in car crash
CHATHAM, Ill. (KCRG) – The families of four children and a teenager killed after a vehicle crashed into an Illinois after-school camp have filed a wrongful death lawsuit, just short of a year after the tragic accident.
The teenager killed, 18-year-old camp counselor Rylee Britton, of Springfield, planned to attend the University of Iowa and would have been finishing her freshman year.
The April 28 accident at YNOT Camp also claimed the lives of 7-year-olds Kathryn Corley and Alma Buhnerkempe, and 8-year-olds Bradley James Lund and Ainsley Johnson. Lund spent five weeks in the hospital before succumbing to his injuries.
At least six other children were severely injured, and numerous children witnessed the accident.
The crash happened after Marianne Akers, 44, veered off of a county highway, traveled through a cornfield and drove straight through the building. Akers was not charged after an investigation found that she was having a medical episode during the crash, and was not under the influence of drugs or alcohol.
The lawsuit, filed Sunday, names YNOT Camp, as well as Akers, responsible for their deaths. They claim the building violated multiple safety codes when it was built and was not suitable to protect its occupants.
Legal representatives are holding a press conference Wednesday afternoon to discuss the lawsuit.
Copyright 2025 KCRG. All rights reserved.
-
Hawaii3 minutes agoHawaiian Just Erased Free Meals From Hawaii Flights
-
Idaho9 minutes agoAvista planned power outage rescheduled in Genesee
-
Illinois15 minutes agoFirst annual Illinois Film Festival set for Wilmette in August
-
Indiana21 minutes agoIllinois takes steps to keep Bears out of Indiana. What happened?
-
Iowa27 minutes agoWrongful death suit filed for prospective Univ. of Iowa student killed in car crash
-
Kentucky39 minutes agoSadiqa Reynolds removed from U of L board, as Kentucky Senate doesn’t confirm her
-
Louisiana45 minutes agoMom whose 3 children were killed in Louisiana mass shooting still has bullet lodged in face — and sometimes thinks kids are alive
-
Maine51 minutes agoThese are the Best Outdoor Dining Joints in Maine, According to Locals