The two former friends accused of killing three Kansas City Chiefs fans sat shoulder to shoulder in a Missouri courtroom while staring stone-faced and never uttering a single word to each other.
Jordan Willis, 39, and Ivory Carson, 42, were less than five feet apart in the Platte County courtroom as Judge Abe Quint Shafer ruled the case against them will now move forward to trial.
Willis, wearing a blue button-down and slacks, has been free on $100,000 bond. Carson, still jailed, shuffled in wearing an orange jumpsuit and ankle shackles.
Each man faces three counts of second-degree felony murder and distribution of a controlled substance in the deaths of Ricky Johnson, 38, David Harrington, 37, and Clayton McGeeney, 36 whose frozen bodies were found outside Willis’s rented home on January 9, 2024.
The group had gathered for what was supposed to be a routine Sunday watch party.
Despite a friendship that once included group texts, shared cocaine, and Chiefs fandom, neither defendant so much as glanced at the other in court on Thursday during the nearly three-hour hearing.
On a bone-chilling January night, McGeeney’s fiancée, April Mahoney, broke into the back of Willis’s home after frantic calls to her partner went unanswered for two days.
She found the bodies of the three men, frozen solid, still dressed in their Chiefs gear, slumped in the backyard.
Kansas City Police Detective Naomi Vaughns testified that the call came in just before 10pm and that the discovery scene was unlike anything she had seen.
Jordan Willis, 39, and Ivory Carson, 42, were sat less than five feet apart in the courtroom as Judge Abe Quint Shafer ruled the case against them will now move forward to trial
Willis, far left, and Carson, seen in the orange, sat just feet away from each other in court but didn’t say a word to one another
The bodies of David Harrington, 36 (second from left), Clayton McGeeney, 37, (center, circled) and Ricky Johnson, 38, (far right) were found in the backyard of their friend Jordan Willis’s home in Kansas City on January 9, 2024
Detective Mark Divak confirmed the temperature that night had plunged to 18°F. One man was found seated upright in a patio chair while the others lay nearby. Headshots showed snow and ice crusted on their faces.
‘We presumed the victims had overdosed,’ Divak said. ‘There was no trauma to the deceased. No indication of any foul play.’
Investigators now allege it was foul play by stealth.
Toxicology reports confirmed the men died from combined cocaine and fentanyl toxicity.
Police later found two plastic baggies inside the house, one containing cocaine with Willis’s DNA and another with fentanyl and Carson’s DNA.
A third unidentified DNA profile was also detected, further muddying the case.
In a videotaped interview shown in court, Willis sat in the back of a patrol car and told Vaughns his version of the night.
‘They were drinking up a storm and smoking up a storm… they may have gotten fentanyl,’ he said, sounding tearful.
The three men were found dead and frozen in the backyard of Willis’s Kansas City rental home two days after they gathered at his house to watch the Chiefs’ final game of the regular season on January 7
Clayton McGeeney, David Harrington, and Ricky Johnson, all died of cocaine and fentanyl combined toxicity, authorities confirmed this week
‘They could have went behind the frickin’… gate. That’s the only way. I saw them all leave. I went to bed on the couch and they must have just went back in.’
He insisted he had no idea his friends had died mere steps away.
‘I was just here sitting all day like an idiot,’ Willis said. ‘They were here sitting all day. I just feel so bad.’
Prosecutors say Willis and Carson, whose nickname according to court documents, is ‘Blade Brown’, knew exactly what they were doing: handing out deadly drugs like candy.
Detective Phillip Sipple testified that texts from the victims’ phones referenced cocaine deals with both defendants.
Carson allegedly admitted to police that he’d sold cocaine to the men ‘by the gram.’
Prosecuting Attorney Eric Zahnd said the charges were clear.
‘This case is a tragic reminder of the dangers of street drugs. But make no mistake, the people that supply those drugs can and will be held accountable when people overdose,’ Zahnd said.
Carson, who remains incarcerated on a $100,000 bond, wore an orange jail jumpsuit and was shackled at the ankles
Willis and Carson did not lay eyes on one another despite having been in the same group of friends
Willis was more involved in the trio’s deaths than he had let on, their family members said earlier this year
If the defendants felt any remorse, they didn’t show it.
Willis and Carson sat stone-faced as more than a dozen relatives of the dead were behind them. Some spoke after bracing for a moment they’ve waited 18 months to see.
‘They were working-class guys,’ Jim McGeeney, Clayton’s uncle, said.
‘They smoked a little pot, maybe did some coke. But none of them would’ve touched fentanyl knowingly.’
‘There’s no way Clayton would have taken fentanyl intentionally,’ he added. ‘That fentanyl in his system wasn’t by choice.’
Defense attorneys argued the opposite and that prosecutors can’t prove Willis or Carson gave the drugs to the victims, or even knew they had fentanyl.
John Picerno, Willis’s attorney, said during cross-examination that ‘there is no time frame for the DNA on that bag.’
DailyMail.com previously revealed that Willis, an HIV research scientist, was known as ‘The Chemist’ in high school because he concocted drug mixes for fellow students. He is pictured above in wearing goggles in a lab in high school at age 17
Carson’s lawyer Katherine Berger noted another person’s DNA was also present.
‘There is no evidence to prove the defendants offered the drugs to the men,’ Picerno said. ‘Another victim could have provided them.’
The families pointed to the fact that Willis moved out days after the bodies were found and, according to friends, entered rehab for depression.
‘We’re meant to think that poor guy lost his friends,’ McGeeney said. ‘Well, that poor guy should be fighting tooth and nail to find some answers rather than moving out two days later.’
Judge Shafer ordered both men to return to court for arraignment on August 6.
Under Missouri law, second-degree felony murder carries 10 to 30 years in prison – or life.