A doctor says it’s “plausible” that the three Chiefs fans who tragically died in a friend’s backyard on a frigid night in Kansas City were exposed to some drug that contributed to their strange deaths.
“It’s one thing to tragically end up in a snowdrift after leaving a bar. But it’s a whole different story for three people to end up dead sitting on someone’s back porch after a party,” Dr. Caleb Alexander, an epidemiologist at Johns Hopkins University, told The Post.
“The fact that there are three people really adds to the curiosity and tragedy of this case, and I think it makes it more likely that there was more than moderate amounts of alcohol involved,” he added.
In the baffling case, Clayton McGeeney, 36, David Harrington, 37, and Ricky Johnson, 38, were found dead and frozen in the backyard of their friend Jordan Willis’ house on Jan. 9 — two days after the group allegedly left to watch a Kansas game City Chiefs on 7th January.
Police discovered the bodies after McGeeney’s fiancee requested a welfare check after he never returned home that Sunday and Willis failed to respond to inquiries and people who rang his doorbell.
When police arrived, Willis answered with a wine glass in hand and said he had no idea his friends were dead in his backyard.
Willis’ attorney, John Picerno, said his client slept near a loud fan and wore noise-canceling headphones for two days as the families of his friends frantically tried to contact him and find them.
Willis has been cooperating with police since they became involved and they said he was not under any suspicion, the deaths were not suspicious and there was no suspicion of foul play.
Alexander, who specializes in drug use and safety, said the circumstances appeared to be the result of a dangerous combination of opioid-like drugs and alcohol to which they could have been “intentionally or unintentionally” exposed.
“It certainly could be compatible with opioids, benzodiazepines, antihistamines, barbiturates, muscle relaxants,” he said, noting that all he could do was speculate until the toxicology reports came back.
“There are dozens of potential prescription drugs that, when combined with alcohol, can cause a level of sedation that would ultimately lead to freezing to death,” Alexander said, listing common drugs like Xanax and Ativan, Valium and carisoprodol as possible culprits.
“Each of these with alcohol works synergistically with many prescription drugs to increase their effectiveness and their potential to cause sedation and other adverse effects,” he added.
“One of the many tragedies of the opioid epidemic is that too often people overdose, and it can happen as easily in groups as it can when people are solo,” Alexander said, pointing to last week’s tragedy when musician Jose Vazquez died of a fentanyl overdose with his wife and a friend at their home in Los Angeles.
Illegal opioids like fentanyl could also be on the table in the Kansas City case.
“This could explain three people rapidly losing consciousness and eventually succumbing to time,” the doctor said, calling it a “very plausible scenario.”
However, he also added, “They didn’t necessarily die from the drugs … they could have just frozen, frozen to death.”
On January 7 and 8, temperatures were around 30 degrees.
If the three men had been out in the open in that weather, motionless for any length of time, Alexander said, they would have been in grave danger of death.
“When you’re just sitting there, you’re not generating any body heat… It’s cold as hell. Cold enough to die, let’s put it that way,” he said.
Investigators said they were “100 percent” not treating the death as a homicide, although the family of one of the deceased has raised allegations that Willis – an HIV scientist with experience working in laboratories, according to his professional profile – poisoned his friends and left them to die. die.
Willis’ lawyer called the claims “ridiculous” and pointed out that there had never been any allegations of animosity between the friends.
Asked if drugs might have been involved in the death, the attorney told The Post on Tuesday, “There’s a chance for anything.”
The Kansas City Police Department is awaiting autopsy results and toxicology reports, which Alexander said will be key to solving the mystery.
“The toxicology here is mission critical,” he said.
