Mystery surrounds the deaths of three friends found dead in the frozen garden of a house where they had gathered to watch an American football game. 

The three Kansas City Chiefs fans went to a friend’s house to watch the game on 7 January and never returned home.

Their bodies were found two days later. The temperature in Kansas City, Missouri, had hovered around freezing during the days the men were missing.

The men were identified as Ricky Johnson, 38, Clayton McGeeney, 36, and David Harrington, 37.

The three men had been friends since high school, Mr Johnson’s niece Stephanie Walling told Sky News’s US partner NBC News.

They were discovered when Mr McGeeney’s fiancee went to Jordan Willis’s home looking for him and found a body on the back porch. When police arrived they found the other two bodies in the garden.

There were “no obvious signs of foul play” seen at or near where the men were found according to police, NBC News reported.

No arrests have been made in connection to the deaths and an investigation into the cause of death is under way.

‘Froze to death’

Mr Willis said the men “froze to death”, according to his lawyer John Picerno, who told NewsNation his client had no idea the men were in his backyard.

He had not received any texts or calls from people looking for the missing friends, Mr Picerno told The Kansas City Star, and did not hear when people knocked at the door.

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The families of the men want answers. Ms Walling told NBC News it was “devastating” not knowing what happened to her uncle.

‘Can’t even guess what happened’

“Even if we don’t ever know the answer, it’ll always be something that kind of lingers in the back of my head, because it’s not something I’d wish on anybody and just thinking of him going through it, it hurts,” she said.

Mr Harrington’s mother Jennifer Marquez told The Kansas City Star it was hard for her to believe her son froze to death when his car was parked in front of the house and he lived a mile away.

“At this point, I can’t even guess what happened,” she said.

“We don’t have answers from the police yet. We don’t know anything yet. All I want to happen is to find out why, and if there’s a reason, I want there to be justice.”

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