Look - I helped build restaurants and also worked in restaurants opening and closing...it is VERY unlikely that a waiter, cook, construction worker or hotel employee would ever consider leaving work with an empty freezer running. It is a waste of electricity. I've never seen an empty walk-in cooler with no food in it. Never happens.
She walked for quite awhile. She walked very far. Even an extremely drunk person (who I have been before) would eventually understand that they are not supposed to be in a closed kitchen. My take on this is...she wandered the hotel because she initially was looking for free food or any goodies left unsecured. I know my younger self would be the type of person to steal a raw loaf of bread from an abandoned kitchen in order to get sober.
When she found the freezer, if it was on then perhaps she just wanted to get a refreshing chill. If I went to my restaurant job hung over or tired, I would walk into the walk-in freezer and it would perk me right up. It is more likely, though, that the freezer was off when she found it. She opened it looking for food, noticed it was warm, dark and empty, and took a little nap. At some point before she was found, either the electricity kicked in through a timer, or a staff member turned it on while she was still passed out.
She was probably just thinking "Keep walking until you find some food or somewhere to take a nap where you definitely won't be seen". There you go. An inoperative walk-in freezer with no food. Perfect nap spot. You can fit five people in a typical sized one. And it was under construction or just renovated, so that does make it more plausible that it was off when she went in, and a staffer turned it on or the power kicked in at some point when she was still passed out, and she went into cold shock before waking.
Think about a few time factors:
1. Time she made the one-way trip to the freezer
2. Typical survival time of an intoxicated female of her bodyweight in a freezer of that temperature before shock. Probably at least an hour or so, probably 3-5 before death (someone comment)
3. Who originally turned the freezer on, and on what day? Was it on when she walked in it? Was it on when she was found?
4. Guaranteed there was a mechanism to get out from the inside - but was there a working light inside the freezer at the time? Meaning, is it likely that she tried to get out of a cold freezer but couldn't because it was dark in there?
Dénouement;13619544 said:
Martin said the family members stayed at the hotel until after 1 a.m. Sunday, when police informed them they had discovered Jenkins' body in the walk-in freezer.
It was not clear who located Jenkins' body, but Mack said the hotel was doing some construction in the area where she was found. Martin said she was told the freezer Jenkins was in was turned on and cold but was not being used to store food.
"I just happen to know there's work being done on some new facilities over there, so there is some construction activity where a new restaurant is being built, and (she was found) in that vicinity," Mack said. "This is not an area where anyone would typically be who was a guest in the hotel."
It is not clear whether the construction area was blocked off in any way.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/...found-dead-rosemont-hotel-20170910-story.html