The Strange Story of Kenneka Jenkins

On a September night in 2017, Kenneka Jenkins, a 19-year-old Chicago resident, left her home to attend her friend’s birthday party at the Crowne Plaza hotel.

Just one day later, her lifeless body was discovered in a walk-in freezer inside the hotel restaurant.

Her final hours were captured on surveillance footage as the teenager was seen stumbling through empty hotel hallways.

The circumstances of her death resulted in online conspiracy theories and wild accusations. But what really happened to Kenneka Jenkins?

Background

Kenneka Jenkins was born on May 27th, 1998, and lived with her family in Chicago, Illinois. She graduated from Community Christian Alternative Academy and worked several jobs before securing a position as a caregiver at a nursing home.

Jenkins was described by her family as a cheerful and optimistic person. She had a large circle of friends and enjoyed spending time with them. So, when she got an invitation from one of them to attend a party at the Crowne Plaza Hotel near the O’Hare International Airport, the 19-year-old accepted right away.

The disappearance

On September 8th, 2017, Jenkins asked her mother if she could borrow her car to go out with friends. The teen failed to mention they were going to a private party at the Crowne Plaza Chicago O’Hare hotel.

Jenkins’ friend, Irene Roberts, was celebrating her 21st birthday that night and had asked one of her older friends to book a hotel room.

Jenkins left her family home at 11:30 PM, picked up three friends, and they headed to Rosemont. The party was in room 926 on the ninth floor of the hotel. The group arrived at the hotel at 1:13 AM and called their friend Irene to get the room number before heading upstairs.

There were more than 30 guests inside room 926, most of them underage. They were listening to music, dancing, smoking, and drinking alcohol.

Jenkins’ friends later recalled that she drank cognac at some point, but no one could confirm if she used any illegal substances that night. One attendee mentioned that Jenkins appeared intoxicated and chose to sit alone instead of dancing with others.

Sometime after 2:30 AM, Jenkins and her friends decided to leave the party, and they headed towards the lobby. Once the group was downstairs, Jenkins remembered that she had left her phone in the room, so she wandered off by herself while her friends waited for her.

Around 3:20 AM, Jenkins was seen on surveillance footage staggering near the front desk. She was then captured on video while exiting an elevator on a lower level five minutes later. The teen reached a set of stairs while struggling to maintain her balance.

The last footage of Jenkins placed her in the first-floor hotel kitchen at 3:32 AM as she walked alone towards the freezer. The freezer door wasn’t covered by the surveillance cameras.

Jenkins’ mother, Tereasa Martin, received a call from her daughter’s friends around 4:30 AM, and she was shocked to learn Jenkins was at the Crowne Plaza. The girls informed her that they failed to find Jenkins before leaving the hotel and explained that Jenkins’ car keys and phone were with them.

Martin asked the girls to return the car, so she could go to the hotel herself and look for her daughter. Jenkins’ friends did as they were told, and Martin drove straight to the Crowne Plaza, arriving at around 5:30 AM.

Hoping video surveillance could help her locate her daughter, Martin asked the hotel management to review the footage from the previous night. However, her request was denied because Jenkins hadn’t been reported missing at that time.

Martin then contacted the Rosemont Public Safety Department at 7:14 AM and was advised to wait a couple of hours before filing a missing person report in case the teen was simply sleeping in one of the hotel rooms.

The family waited until noon on September 9th, 2017, to contact law enforcement for the second time. Finally, Leonore Harris, Kenneka Jenkins’ older sister, went to the police station and filed the missing persons report in person.

Following this, police informed the hotel that Jenkins had been reported missing, and officers were sent to review the surveillance footage.

According to Martin, police officers searched the lower levels of the hotel and spent only a few minutes looking at the surveillance videos from that morning. They were unable to spot Jenkins anywhere within the hotel. Meanwhile, Harris arrived at the hotel to help with the search.

**Surveillance footage showing Kenneka Jenkins walking through the Crowne Plaza hotel hallway before attending the party.**

Feeling that law enforcement wasn’t concerned enough regarding the missing teen, the two women knocked on doors, asking guests if they had seen Jenkins. But it seemed as though she had disappeared into thin air.

A shocking discovery

Initially, the police focused on reviewing the footage from cameras located near external doors of the hotel, believing the teen had left the premises in the middle of the night without informing her friends. But after several hours, it became clear she was still somewhere inside the hotel.

Around 10:00 PM, investigators finally spotted her on video and began retracing her movements. Meanwhile, hotel employees assisted with the search, and at 12:25 AM, one of them finally located the teen.

Kenneka Jenkins was found curled up on her side inside an empty walk-in freezer in an unused kitchen on a lower level of the hotel. That particular part of the building was undergoing renovation at the time, and security personnel rarely patrolled it.

The teen was pronounced dead shortly after, and police officers reported no signs of foul play at the scene. The freezer door wasn’t locked, and Jenkins was able to exit if she accidentally walked inside.

Unfortunately, the surveillance footage couldn’t reveal what really happened because there was no camera directed towards the freezer.

After law enforcement reviewed all the footage from the morning of Jenkins’ disappearance, they confirmed she had roamed the hotel on her own and wasn’t followed by anyone. Hotel employees later stated they had seen a girl walking through the hallways, but no one stepped in and helped her.

The autopsy

On October 6th, the Cook County Medical Examiner’s Office released Jenkins’ autopsy report, which revealed her cause of death was hypothermia. Her blood alcohol level was 0.112, and traces of a medication called topiramate were found in her system.

Topiramate is used for treating epilepsy and migraines, and it’s not available without a prescription. Jenkins’ mother confirmed she wasn’t prescribed this medication, suggesting that the teen may have taken it at the party to enhance the effects of alcohol.

Officers noted that the temperature inside the freezer was 35°F after the door had been opened for two hours following the discovery of Jenkins’ body.

Jenkins closed the freezer door after she got inside, which meant the temperature was even lower while the teen was alive. The combination of alcohol and topiramate resulted in hypothermia setting in quickly.

The autopsy revealed Jenkins wasn’t sexually assaulted and only had minor injuries. She had removed her right shoe and sock, and there was a small cut on her right ankle.

Investigators suspected that she may have tried to get out of the freezer by kicking the door with her feet, but was too intoxicated and weak.

Additionally, Jenkins had a bruise on her thigh, and the medical examiner noted that her brain was slightly swollen. While her death was ruled an accident, Jenkins’ family disagreed. Her mother and sister believed the teen was too intoxicated to open the heavy freezer door on her own and then walk inside.

**Investigators discovered Kenneka Jenkins’ body inside this walk-in freezer at the Crowne Plaza hotel.**

The aftermath

Representatives of Crowne Plaza Hotel offered to cover the funeral costs, but the family refused. The funeral of Kenneka Jenkins was attended by more than one thousand people, and the teenager was laid to rest in a purple casket.

During the investigation into Jenkins’ death, police officers interviewed 44 people, including everyone who had attended the party in room 926. However, the only suspicious thing uncovered was that the room had been booked with a stolen credit card. The case was officially closed on October 20th, 2017.

Jenkins’ mother contacted the FBI and asked them to reinvestigate the death of her daughter, but they declined since there was no evidence of foul play. However, the official ruling didn’t stop the rumors that had begun circulating on social media platforms and online communities.

Tereasa Martin filed a wrongful death lawsuit against the Crowne Plaza hotel, stating that they should’ve secured the walk-in freezer to prevent anyone from going inside.

She also alleged that the staff failed to conduct a search of the hotel when she informed them that her daughter was missing. Martin sought $50 million in damages. A settlement was reached in August 2023, and the family received $6.4 million.