A missing 19-year-old girl was found dead inside a walk-in freezer at a hotel in Chicago. She was identified as Kenneka Jenkins.
Reports have identified the hotel as Crowne Plaza Hotel located in Rosemont, Illinois. According to BBC News, Jenkins went there on Friday evening to party to celebrate her new job at a nursing home. She was found by one of the hotel employees on Sunday morning dead in the walk-in freezer.
Jenkins spotted at ninth floor of hotel before she disappeared
According to Chicago Tribune, Jenkins was last seen in an uploaded video showing her possibly on the ninth floor of the hotel hours before she went missing.
The video has since gone viral because Jenkins might have been raped by the people who were in the video. At one point she was heard screaming for help. Authorities would not say if they suspect foul play, but they confirmed that they are now reviewing surveillance videos at the hotel and are questioning possible witnesses.
Mother and sister speak out
According to the mother of Jenkins, Tereasa Martin, she last saw her daughter at around 11:30 p.m. before she left for the party. Her sister, not identified, said that she last received a text from Jenkins at around 1:30 a.m. Her friends began looking for her at around 4 a.m. because they no longer saw her.
Her family contacted the hotel and police after her whereabouts remained unknown.
Jenkins was pronounced dead at 12:48 a.m. on Sunday. Police said that Jenkins might have been drunk and she let herself into the freezer. The freezer was reportedly unused, and it was located in a part of the hotel where a new restaurant was being constructed.
The results from the post-mortem autopsy have not been returned yet.
A toxicology test was also done on Jenkins. It may take weeks or months to be completed.
Martin said that she believes someone might have killed her daughter. She believes there was foul play involving her daughter’s death. Other reports said that she might have been raped before she got killed.
Martin also stated that they asked the hotel staff if they could look at the surveillance video because her daughter was missing but they were told that they needed a missing person report.
After they filed the report, they went back to the hotel and saw that she was staggering at around 3:20 a.m. Martin and her family believe Jenkins did not go into the freezer by herself as she would not have been strong enough to open the doors if she was that intoxicated per the video.
Hotel won’t reveal details
Crowne Plaza Hotel did not say how they found Jenkins body or if they found any vital information in their surveillance video. They did release a statement saying that the news saddens them and their thoughts are with the young woman and her family.
