As their households watch for toxicology outcomes to shed extra gentle on the mysterious deaths of three Kansas Metropolis Chiefs followers, specialists have instructed Fox Information Digital a mixture of medicine and frigid climate might have dealt the trio a deadly blow.
The our bodies of Ricky Johnson, 38, Clayton McGeeney, 36, and David Harrington, 37, had been found an. 9, two days after that they had gathered at buddy Jordan Willis’ residence to observe the Chiefs play the Los Angeles Chargers.
The Kansas City Police Department has instructed Fox Information Digital no foul play is suspected and “this case is 100% not being investigated as a homicide.”
The boys’s households have accused Willis of taking part in an energetic position within the deaths, together with allegations they had been drugged.
PARENTS OF KANSAS CITY CHIEFS FAN FOUND DEAD THINK VICTIMS ‘SAW SOMETHING THEY SHOULDN’T HAVE SEEN’
David Harrington, far left; Clayton McGeeney, second from proper; and Ricky Johnson, proper, had been discovered lifeless of their buddy’s yard two days after that they had gathered to observe a Kansas Metropolis Chiefs recreation. (Ricky Johnson/Fb)
The households cite Willis’ lawyer’s altering narrative concerning the buddies’ last hours, his claims his shopper slept on his sofa by means of a lot of the 48 hours that his buddies had been lifeless in his yard and his position as a “brilliant scientist” with a Ph.D. working at a nonprofit growing immunizations.
Consultants who spoke to Fox Information Digital, although, all posited that the deaths had been more than likely unintended and brought on by leisure drug use gone horribly awry.
“If they all took alcohol, they would not collapse around the same time. People react differently to large doses of alcohol, metabolize it at different speeds,” forensic pathologist Dr. Michael Baden stated. “They react to it, but they don’t react right away, [and] they’re conscious enough to go indoors if they feel like they’re going to pass out.
“It will be the kind of drug that causes an individual to be disoriented,” Baden stated, ruling out carbon monoxide as a result of the lads’s our bodies had been discovered outdoors. “Fentanyl-type drugs could cause disorientation and may trigger a speedy sleep-like lack of consciousness.
BROTHER OF CHIEFS FAN WHO WAS FOUND DEAD IN FRIEND’S BACKYARD SPEAK OUT, SAYS STORY ‘NOT ADDING UP’
“If these four people all took it together, the guy on the couch sleeps it off for a long time, whereas the three who went outside disoriented, maybe didn’t have on their coats. Because of the freezing weather, it [could be] a combination of the drugs and hypothermia that caused their death.”
Loss of life from an overdose of fentanyl or a fentanyl analog, variations of the drug with the same however barely totally different chemical construction, is not quick, Baden stated, and may take about an hour. When a fentanyl overdose takes place, naloxone can stop customers from going deeper right into a coma after they lose consciousness.
“It isn’t a sudden death in minutes,” he stated.
Household and buddies of (L-R) Clayton McGeeney, David Harrington and Ricky Johnson are clamoring for solutions after the three males inexplicably died in freezing temperatures outdoors their buddy’s Kansas Metropolis residence. (Fb)
However hypothermia units in when the physique’s inside temperature lowers to 95 levels or decrease. Though temperatures weren’t notably low on the night of Jan. 7 in Kansas Metropolis, hitting a low of round 29 levels, Baden stated a protracted interval within the snow in any climate below 32 levels could be “cold enough” to kill a person.
“They probably aren’t dead when they collapse in the snow, but because of the cold they then go into a deeper coma and die from the hypothermia,” Baden stated. “They wouldn’t have died if they had gotten home all right. But if they were in the snow, they die in the snow. They don’t feel any pain or anything. They can’t wake up in time.”
The idea the 4 males consumed a drug laced with fentanyl would assist Willis’ declare that he slept for all or most of two days after his buddies visited his home, Baden identified.
“Because of the freezing weather, it [could be] a combination of the drugs and hypothermia that caused their death.”
Powdered fentanyl will be combined with medicine like heroin, methamphetamine and cocaine or pressed into capsules that appear to be prescription opioids. Police in Alabama, Illinois, Louisiana and New York have reported discovering the artificial opioid in marijuana.
Two of the three grieving households have instructed Fox Information Digital detectives have reached out asking for passcodes to their sons’ telephones. In all chance, the Kansas Metropolis Police Division is attempting to find out whether or not medicine had been offered or given to any of the lads and set up a series of possession, attorney and retired NYPD inspector Paul Mauro stated. That course of might additional delay the investigation.
Though Willis isn’t dealing with criminal charges and has not been accused of any wrongdoing by police, he might be charged with drug-induced murder or manslaughter if he had been discovered to be the provider of the lethal medicine, the specialists all stated.
5TH MAN CONTRADICTS KANSAS CITY CHIEFS FANS’ PAL ABOUT MEN’S DEATH
Clayton McGeeney, Ricky Johnson and David Harrington had been discovered lifeless at Northwest 83rd Terrace, pictured, two days after they watched the Kansas Metropolis Chiefs recreation there. (FOX4 KC)
“I would think that now they have to try to jailbreak the phones [if they can’t get passwords] which is very difficult to do these days,” Mauro stated. “Most of these phones … a lot of the data default to the cloud. You can get a cloud search warrant. Instead of having the password, you’re not going to get in with the thumbprint.
“The individual must be alive. If you happen to aren’t alive, you don’t have the mandatory warmth or electrical energy. There are some workarounds, however the backside line is, in the event that they don’t have a password they’re going to have a hell of a time getting in there.”
Although the deaths of McGeeney, Johnson and Harrington have garnered interest nationwide, the phenomenon of mass overdose deaths is more common than one might realize, retired DEA special agent Derek Maltz said.
“If I needed to wager my pension, they had been consuming, they smoked weed, the weed was laced with K2, they overheated and threw themselves into the snow,”
In a presentation to the House of Representatives’ Committee on Homeland Security in 2023, Maltz was able to compile 70 pages of news articles from 2023 on deaths of three or more victims, and some with more than 10 or even 20, who died at once from the drug – sometimes thinking it was a “safer” substance, and other times through innocuous items like a lollipop.
“That is occurring in each state,” Maltz told Fox News Digital. “Everyone seems to be so fixated on ‘three folks lifeless, they had been frozen to loss of life within the yard.’ However they do not know that that is occurring on a regular basis in a number of states all throughout the nation day by day. Individuals are not placing this collectively. The information is simply reacting to stuff as a substitute of understanding what’s actually occurring. That is the place it will get actually unhappy for me. The extra we speak about it, it is simply folks persevering with to die.”
Ricky Johnson, right, was a “accountable” man who “wasn’t going to go outdoors and freeze to loss of life,” his parents told Fox News Digital. (Norma Chester)
Although he stressed that it was just a theory, Maltz said he thought the Kansas City tragedy was “a transparent case of cocaine laced with fentanyl.”
However, he said, other drugs could cause a fast-acting, disorienting effect, including synthetic opioids like nitazenes and horse tranquilizer xylazine, that he said are being produced in Chinese labs.
“That is occurring in each state.”
But Baden, Mauro and Maltz all expressed that if the substance were a fentanyl derivative or a synthetic, it may be difficult for less-equipped labs to detect in an autopsy report, potentially requiring Kansas City’s Frontier Forensics Midwest LLC to outsource testing and delay results further.
“They might not have the capability. I hope they’ve the wherewithal to say, ‘Our lab can’t do that’,” Mauro said. “I hope the cops are pondering this fashion. If they simply check for heroin, and it’s an artificial, it isn’t going to indicate. I hope that they know to check for it.”
Mauro also theorized that K2 or “spice,” a synthetic marijuana sometimes passed off as the real thing or used by those who want to avoid positive marijuana results on drug tests, could have been the offending substance.
CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP
K2 often causes hyperthermia, a dramatic rise in body temperature. MDMA, cocaine and amphetamines can also cause users to overheat.
“If I needed to wager my pension, they had been consuming. They smoked weed. The weed was laced with K2. They overheated and threw themselves into the snow,” Mauro said. “As an example he went out for a cigarette or one thing. It doesn’t matter how drunk you’re – in that space it hits you.”
