Surveillance Video Of Kenneka Jenkins Wandering Hotel Released

By Emma G. Gallegos in News on Sep 15, 2017 10:46PM

Kenneka Jenkins was caught on surveillance videos wandering Crowne Plaza Hotel (Rosemont Police)

Surveillance video of Kenneka Jenkins, 19, wandering the Crowne Plaza Hotel during her final hours have been released to the public. The videos show her inebriated, stumbling and walking aimlessly through an elevator bank, hallways and a kitchen around 3:30 a.m. the morning she went missing. Crucially, none of the released videos show her entering the freezer where her body was found.

The family of Jenkins says that they have yet to see any footage that shows her walking into the freezer. The attorney for Jenkins' mother Larry Rogers Jr. released a statement, complaining that they haven't received the footage they've demanded.

"Despite requests for all evidence, we have received only snippets of video, none of which shows Kenneka Jenkins walking into a freezer. The family has not been provided any video or other evidence of Kenneka Jenkins walking into a freezer," Rogers wrote, according to the Chicago Tribune. "Serious questions remain as to how she ended up in a Crowne Plaza Hotel freezer and why it took a day and a half for the hotel to find Kenneka. Her death requires a thorough complete and independent investigation."

Police have said that at this point, they are treating the case as a death investigation, not a homicide case.

The mysterious case has inspired quite a bit of public speculation and even a protest over the case's handling by the hotel and the Rosemont Police. During a protest Thursday, the family said that it felt misrepresented by local activist Andrew Holmes, who said that he was able to view footage that showed definitely that Kenneka wandered into the hotel freezer on her own. He came to his own conclusions about the case and shared them publicly: "Did anybody force her down there? Was anybody on the other side in that room when she got down there? And the answer to that is 'no.'"

Jenkins attended a party at the hotel at 11:30 p.m. last Friday night. Her family last heard from her at 1:30 a.m. on Saturday, and then they heard from friends at 4 a.m. who said they had lost track of Jenkins. The surveillance video released shows her wandering around 3:30 a.m. Her mother Teresa Martin arrived at the hotel at 5 a.m. to look for Jenkins. Hotel staff refused to allow her to look at surveillance until a missing person report was filed, and Rosemont police told Martin to wait a few hours before calling them back to file a report. Her body was discovered at 1 a.m. Sunday morning.

Holmes says the surveillance video shows Jenkins waiting in the lobby while her friends went upstairs to retrieve some items from the room where they had been partying on the ninth floor. He says Jenkins then took an elevator to a lower level, where she wandered around dazedly, before she entered the hotel kitchen.

Jenkins' family has been skeptical that she would be able to open the heavy steel doors that led to the freezer and that they haven't seen any footage that would explain how that happened.

A spokesman for the hotel told the Chicago Tribune it would allow the family access to 36 hours of surveillance video from 40 cameras. They also announced they would pay for Kenneka's funeral expenses.

“Our hearts go out to Kenneka’s mother, her family and friends. We hope covering the funeral costs provides a small bit of relief for them,” hotel spokesman Glenn Harston said in the statement, according to the Sun-Times.

Here is Jenkins wandering through the kitchen of the Crowne Plaza Hotel:

This video shows Jenkins stumbling out of an elevator:

This last video shows Jenkins stumbling through a hotel hallway