‘This was an enormous wake-up call’: HIV scientist whose three Kansas City Chiefs friends ‘froze to death’ outside his home checks into rehab after realizing ‘he had a problem with addiction’

The Kansas City Chiefs fan whose three friends were found dead in his backyard has entered rehab, a friend claims.

Jordan Willis viewed the events of that night and the days that followed as a “huge, heartbreaking wake-up call,” a friend said.

The deaths of his friends made him realize he had an addiction problem and needed professional help, the insider told Fox News.

David Harrington, 37, Ricky Johnson, 38, and Clayton McGeeney, 36, were found dead in Willis’ backyard on January 9 in Kansas City, Missouri.

Police have not yet made any arrests and medical examiners have yet to reveal the cause of death. The results of toxicology reports are still pending.

Detectives are searching the phones of the three men who were found dead almost 48 hours after the January 7 football party.

Willis, an HIV scientist, left his home within days of police knocking on his door to question him about the bodies, fearing retaliation, and has not been seen since.

For two days, the victims’ families said they visited Willis’ home, calling him and sending him Facebook messages asking where they were. He didn’t respond.

Eventually, the fiancée of one of the men broke into the house through the basement and found the first body in the backyard. She then called the police, who arrived to find Willis in his underwear, holding a wine glass.

Families DailyMail.com spoke to said they could not dismiss drugs as a possible cause of death for all three men.

Expert theories include that the men ingested enough fentanyl, combined with alcohol, to pass out after leaving the house and freeze to death.

Willis claimed he had not left his house in two days and was sleeping with noise-canceling headphones that blocked out the sound of his friends’ family’s frantic knocking.

He viewed the events of that night and the days that followed as a “huge, heartbreaking wake-up call,” a friend said.

“After the shocking loss of three of his close friends under extremely tragic circumstances, Jordan recognized that he had an addiction problem,” they said Fox news.

“He immediately checked himself into rehab after leaving his house and putting his belongings away.”

Willis is said to be devastated that he has not been able to say goodbye or attend his friend’s funeral – and is concerned about suspicions that he caused their deaths.

“Not only is the entire country right now accusing him of killing his friends without any factual details, evidence or any charges, but he has also lost three close friends,” the same source previously said.

“He was unable to say goodbye or attend their funerals due to the circumstances of these wild speculations and accusations.

“No one seems willing to wait for the results of the toxicology report or other police facts from a case still under investigation to make these speculations.”

They further claimed that Willis’ family only learned what happened after local news media contacted them.

The family did not know if Willis was among the fatalities.

They also disputed claims that the scientist told people his friends had frozen to death in his garden after police arrived at his home.

‘What was missing from that story was context. He never said his friends were frozen to death to anyone,” they added.

This revelation comes two days after Willis’ father made statements on his behalf on January 26.

“He would never do anything in a million years. These were all good friends of his, these were all people he went to school with and he took them to a Chiefs football game the day before,” he said.

Speak with The New York PostWillis’ father said he would “never in a million years” hurt his friends.

When pressed about inconsistencies in Willis’ story, particularly the fact that one of the bodies was not wearing a jacket when he apparently left his home despite the freezing January weather that night, he said:

“They could have gone there, it was freezing and cold that night. I don’t know how many cars they came in; there were three of them, and there were only two cars left on the street.

“They could have decided for some reason that they wanted to go back into his house.” People leave the house without a coat all the time, no matter how cold it is, so I can’t answer that statement.

“(Jordan) doesn’t know what happened to them, and he never saw them again the moment they walked to the front door and left his house.”

DailyMail.com has also been able to reveal the ‘fifth man’ in the group photo as Alex Weamer-Lee.

He is a high school friend of the victims whose bodies were discovered two days after the Jan. 7 celebration, but he says he left at midnight after football ended and when everyone was still alive.

Weamer-Lee, who shortens his name to Lee, says he saw them off at 2 a.m. before sleeping on the couch and spending the next two days in the house, thinking nothing of their cars still outside .

Lee, a 37-year-old flooring contractor, lives in a rental home in another part of the city. When DailyMail.com arrived to ask him questions about the fateful night, a man who answered the intercom claimed he was not there and could not talk about January 7.

The man added: “Alex is not here at the moment and he is not fielding media inquiries.”