A video has emerged online of a Missouri man being detained after three bodies were found in his backyard.
It shows scientist Jordan Willis being handcuffed and standing on his porch with police officers, according to NewsNation reporter Alex Caprariello, who posted the video on Tuesday. Willis was later questioned by Kansas City police and released without charge.
“You can see Jordan cuffed and detained on his front stoop while police ask him questions,” wrote Caprariello. “I’m told he was uncuffed, put into a police car and driven away. Later, police could be seen going room to room with flashlights searching for more evidence.”
The police intervention came after a fiancée of one of the men went looking for him and found them all in the backyard of Willis’ house on January 9, according to the NewsNation reporter. She then called the police. She and other family members and loved ones had been searching for the men for two days.
Police have stressed that they are not treating it as a homicide and are continuing to investigate.
Neighbor Ashton Brady, who recorded the video on his phone, told the news website, NewsNation, that he was locking up his house for the night when he noticed something strange across the street.
“I saw a woman come out the backyard on her phone, and she looked distressed cause she kept looking back at the house,” said Brady.
Ashton Brady/Twitter and GoFundMe
Ten minutes later, Brady said that an ambulance and three police cars arrived, so he started filming on his phone.
Newsweek has reached out to Brady via Facebook and Instagram.
“The police searched the house, went to the backyards, everything, and I had no idea what had happened,” Brady told NewsNation. “The next morning I saw the news. I just was kind of in disbelief.”
A spokesperson for the Kansas City Police Department previously told Inside Edition Digital that, “there were no obvious signs of foul play observed at or near the crime scene,” and stressed that this is “100 percent not being investigated as a homicide.”
A spokesperson for the KCPD also said that there have been no arrests or charges in connection to the deaths and noted that no one had been taken into police custody. Newsweek has contacted the KCPD.
On January 9, the bodies of David Harrington, 37, Ricky Johnson, 38, and Clayton McGeeney, 36, were found in Willis’s backyard in Kansas City.
They had apparently been there since January 7, when the three men visited Willis to watch the Kansas City Chiefs play the Los Angeles Chargers.
Ricky Johnson’s family has now hired a private detective amid a seemingly stalled police investigation and an intense public debate about what happened to the men.
GoFundMe
Willis, an HIV research scientist, told police that he didn’t know the men were there until he was alerted by McGeeney’s fiancée.
Police have said they are not treating the deaths as homicides. A GoFundMe fundraising page has been set up to cover funeral expenses for each of the three men.
Willis’ attorney, John Picerno, said his client “had absolutely nothing to do with the deaths of his three friends.”
“He’s grieving, he’s had to move out of his home, he’s had to shut down his social media, he’s taking leave of absence from his job, so it’s really affected him,” Picerno told KCTV in Kansas City on January 24.
Picerno said that after the friends went to his house following the Chiefs’ game, Willis decided to sleep on his couch and said goodnight to his friends at around 2 a.m.
“He thought that they left out the front door,” Picerno told KCTV.
Asked why Willis didn’t check for them in the backyard, Picerno said he had no reason to go out into the backyard, and he didn’t know anyone was there.
The medical examiner’s office has yet to determine a cause of death.
April Mahoney, McGeeney’s fiancée, went to the house on January 9 and found the first body. She then called police.
On January 9, Captain Jake Becchina of the Kansas City Police Department said in a statement to Fox News Digital: “First and foremost, this case is 100% NOT being investigated as a homicide. There have not been any arrests [or] charges, and no one is in custody.
“There are no specific threats or concerns for the surrounding community at this time.
“The resident at the house was cooperative with detectives the day the deceased were discovered.”
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Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.