After Chicago Teen Found Dead In Hotel Freezer, Family Suspicious Of Police Account

By Stephen Gossett in News on Sep 11, 2017 3:20PM

Crowne Plaza Hotel, Rosemont / Via Yelp

Family of a 19-year-old woman who was found dead over the weekend in a freezer in a Rosemont hotel believe there is more to the story than what police have told them: that the woman, Kenneka Jenkins, was drunk when she walked into the freezer on her own and died.

Kenneka Jenkins, of the Near West, was discovered early on Sunday inside the freezer at the Crowne Plaza Chicago O'Hare Hotel. She had left her home at around 11:30 p.m. on Friday for a party at a room in the hotel, Jenkins' sister told police. The two last spoke at around 1:30 a.m. on Saturday, when the sister got a text message from Jenkins, according to the Tribune.

After Jenkins was found hours later, police told family that Jenkins was seen "staggering" drunk on Saturday night near the hotel front desk on video, her mother, Teresa Martin told the Tribune. An autopsy completed on Sunday said that the cause of death was not yet confirmed, according to CBS News.

Martin believes there to is more to what happened than what has so far been put forth by police.

"It's something that no one could ever imagine. It's unbelievable," Martin said, according to ABC7. "I believe that someone in this hotel killed my child."

She didn't think it added up that her daughter could have gotten inside the freezer on her on, if she was intoxicated, as the police account goes. "Those were double steel doors, she didn't just pop them open," she told the Tribune.

Martin reportedly got a call from Jenkins’ friends at around 4 a.m. on Saturday morning telling her that they had lost track of her and left. The friends apparently had Jenkins' phone on them, and also left in the car that Martin had leant Kenneka to use for the night.

Martin said she went to the hotel at around 5 a.m. on Saturday, but staff wouldn't review surveillance video until she had filed a missing persons report, according to the Tribune. She called the Rosemont Police Department—who told her to wait for a few hours more to see if she turns up, Martin said. Jenkins' sister then filed the report on Saturday morning, and the hotel was contacted by law enforcement at around 1:15 p.m. on Saturday. The search for Jenkis stretched on for 11 hours. She was pronounced dead at the scene when she was finally discovered in the freezer, at around 1 a.m. on Sunday.