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Regardless of claims on the contrary, Kansas Metropolis Chiefs fan Jordan Willis was not nicknamed “the chemist” for manufacturing medicine in highschool, a supply near him advised Fox Information Digital, taking pictures again at theories implicating the profession scientist in his three pals’ deaths.
Clayton McGeeney, 36, Ricky Johnson, 38, and David Harrington, 37, have been found frozen and useless in his Kansas Metropolis yard on Jan. 9, two days after they have been all final seen alive inside Willis’ home for an NFL watch occasion.
The lads’s family members have come ahead with theories that Willis performed an lively function of their demise, with McGeeney’s cousin Caleb McGeeney telling NewsNation that “all [Willis’] pals knew him” as “the chemist.”
“Jordan’s ‘the chemist,’ bro. Jordan’s ‘the chemist,'” Caleb McGeeney stated. “It was straightforward for them to go have enjoyable, however he f—ed up, he made a mistake.”
However the supply near Willis insisted that he had by no means been referred to by that title, and that the profession scientist is “not a chemist by commerce.”
KANSAS CITY CHIEFS FANS FOUND DEAD IN FRIEND’S BACKYARD: WHAT TO KNOW
David Harrington, Clayton McGeeney and Ricky Johnson have been discovered useless exterior their buddy’s Kansas Metropolis house Jan. 9, 2024. (Ricky Johnson/Fb)
“He is a computational knowledge scientist for HIV vaccine analysis. His work is solely on computer systems and he works from house,” the supply advised Fox Information Digital on Monday.
“It’s extremely disappointing that his job is getting used towards him to additional the real-life Walter White-type narrative that persons are attempting to create,” the supply stated, referring to Bryan Cranston’s TV character in AMC drama Breaking Unhealthy, a dispirited highschool science instructor who makes use of his chemistry data to change into a drug lord after a stage-three most cancers analysis.
The supply additionally remarked that Willis got here from a navy household with loving mother and father who “most positively” would have seen and intervened if he was “making medicine in the home in highschool.”
“Ruining Jordan’s popularity and his life in a smear marketing campaign as some kind of revenge won’t carry these households peace, particularly with none proof from the police division to help what they’re saying,” the supply stated.
Furthermore, the supply accused the members of the family of shifting their story, remarking that “grief shouldn’t be an open-ended excuse to say no matter you need in a public discussion board with out penalties.”
KANSAS CITY CHIEFS FANS DEATHS: DRUGS IN MEN’S SYSTEMS SHOW ‘THERE’S MORE TO THE STORY,’ FAMILY SAYS
HIV scientist Jordan Willis, 38, checked himself right into a rehab middle after his three pals have been discovered useless in his yard Jan. 9, 2024. (GitHub)
“At first they stated they do not know Jordan, that the boys did not do medicine, in order that they will need to have been murdered, or poisoned or dragged out of the home, or they will need to have seen one thing they should not have seen,” the supply near Willis stated Monday. “Then when preliminary toxicology got here out, it was that they’d have been peer pressured.”
“Now, out of nowhere, the story is that the boys have identified him since highschool as ‘the chemist’ and Jordan has provided or made medicine for them since then. Which is it? It is fully absurd,” they continued.
The Kansas Metropolis Police Division has asserted that there isn’t a foul play suspected of their deaths, telling Fox Information Digital that they’re “one hundred pc not being investigated as murder[s].”
However members of the family of the three deceased males have questioned how Willis managed to not discover the boys’s three our bodies toes from his again porch – Willis’ lawyer has claimed that his shopper was sleeping for a lot of the interval between when he allegedly noticed the three males out his entrance door and when McGeeney’s fiancée discovered one of many males’s our bodies exterior and alerted police.
Ricky Johnson’s brother Jonathan Value questioned how a person who’s “accountable sufficient to realize a Ph.D.” in “what looks as if a really sophisticated science” may “sleep all day on a Monday” in an interview with Fox & Buddies final month.
KANSAS CITY CHIEFS FANS’ DEATHS: VICTIMS’ FAMILIES AT ODDS OVER ‘ANGRY’ SPECULATION, LAWYER SAYS
Household and pals of Clayton McGeeney, left, David Harrington, middle, and Ricky Johnson, proper, are clamoring for solutions after the three males inexplicably died in freezing temperatures exterior their buddy’s Kansas Metropolis house. (Fb)
Willis graduated with a Ph.D. in chemical and bodily biology from Vanderbilt College in 2014, his lawyer John Picerno has confirmed to Fox Information Digital. He beforehand studied chemistry and molecular biology at Northwest Missouri State College.
Based on an interview that Willis gave to the Worldwide AIDS Vaccine Initiative’s web site in 2022, he’s the senior principal scientist on the IAVI Neutralizing Antibody Heart in Kansas Metropolis.
However on Monday, the supply near Willis advised Fox Information Digital that “anybody who cannot think about how he may have been completely out of it and sleeping and never conscious of his environment for 2 days is, luckily, not aware of what a drug and alcohol bender appears like.”
“He is fortunate to be alive,” the supply stated of Willis.
PRELIMINARY TOXICOLOGY RESULTS BACK FOR KANSAS CITY CHIEFS FANS FOUND FROZEN TO DEATH
An exterior view of the yard and porch of Jordan Willis’s house in Kansas Metropolis, Missouri on Friday, Jan. 26, 2024. The our bodies of Willis’ three pals – Ricky Johnson, Clayton McGeeney, and David Harrington – have been present in Willis’ yard, with one physique discovered on the porch, on Jan. 9, 2024, two days after attending a Kansas Metropolis Chiefs watch occasion on the house. (DWS for Fox Information Digital)
Whereas many Chiefs followers spent Sunday night celebrating their crew’s Tremendous Bowl win with a beer in hand, Willis was at an inpatient rehab facility, a supply near his household beforehand advised Fox Information Digital. He allegedly checked into this system quickly after his pals’ deaths, however continues to cooperate with police, the supply stated.
“Jordan went to rehab as a result of he wished to avoid wasting his personal life. This was not a authorized technique – it was a wake-up name,” the supply stated on Monday. “Having three shut pals cross away exterior his home with out his data was a real rock-bottom second and one thing he’ll be working by for the remainder of his life.”
The supply stated Willis has struggled with alcoholism and despair all through his grownup life. His dangerous habits lessened when he lived round “like-minded scientists” in San Diego whereas finishing his post-doctorate, the supply stated. However the 38-year-old allegedly backslid when he moved again to Kansas Metropolis to look after his father, who has a mid-stage Alzheimer’s analysis.
“Transferring again to Kansas Metropolis hasn’t been good for his psychological and bodily well being, and he’d slipped again into previous habits after feeling extra remoted working from house,” the supply stated. “He began spending extra time together with his highschool pals when he moved again, after being gone for over 10 years.”
“Grief shouldn’t be an open-ended excuse to say no matter you need in a public discussion board with out penalties.”
Findings of a preliminary toxicology report shared with the boys’s members of the family point out that THC, cocaine and deadly ranges of fentanyl have been discovered of their techniques. However Harrington’s stepmother advised NewsNation that these findings did not carry their household closure:
“What issues is that he did not take that to die,” his stepmother Theresa Harrington advised NewsNation. “He did not take that to die – if he took the medicine on his personal, he took them to get excessive.”
However on Monday, the supply near Willis insisted that “these males all made poor choices that night.”
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“I am offended that this occurred and I am actually sorry that these males misplaced their lives,” the supply stated. “However as a buddy wanting to guard him and assist him again to the appropriate path, nobody deserves this type of viciousness in a case that’s nonetheless below investigation for all of the world to see.”
“There is a believable, extraordinarily doubtless rationalization for why he by no means knew they have been on the market that individuals do not appear to get,” the supply continued.
When full post-mortem and toxicology stories can be found and police full their forensic investigation of digital units — no less than two of the boys’s households have been requested for his or her son’s telephone passwords — the Platte County Prosecutor’s Workplace will determine whether or not prison fees ought to be filed towards Willis or Alex Weamer-Lee, a fifth occasion visitor who left Willis’ home alive on the evening of Jan. 7.
