IL - Kenneka Jenkins, 19, found dead in hotel freezer, Rosemont, 10 Sept 2017 #2

[iulia]

Close to three years after 19-year-old Kenneka Jenkins was found dead inside a walk-in freezer at a Chicago hotel, an air of mystery continues to shroud her demise.

However, the uncanniness of the incident from 2017 has attracted MTV to now cover Jenkin's death in its long-running 'True Life' franchise.
[...]
MTV's 'True Life Crime' will be an eight-episode docuseries that will cover high-profile murder stories and will be hosted by the award-winning journalist and MTV host Dometi Pongo. It will premiere on January 8, 2020, at 9/8c on MTV and VH1.

Kenneka Jenkins: Death of 19-year-old found inside walk-in freezer at Chicago hotel shrouded in mystery

 

[bwt42]

Close to three years after 19-year-old Kenneka Jenkins was found dead inside a walk-in freezer at a Chicago hotel, an air of mystery continues to shroud her demise.

However, the uncanniness of the incident from 2017 has attracted MTV to now cover Jenkin's death in its long-running 'True Life' franchise.
[...]
MTV's 'True Life Crime' will be an eight-episode docuseries that will cover high-profile murder stories and will be hosted by the award-winning journalist and MTV host Dometi Pongo. It will premiere on January 8, 2020, at 9/8c on MTV and VH1.

Kenneka Jenkins: Death of 19-year-old found inside walk-in freezer at Chicago hotel shrouded in mystery

Just watched the episode on Xfinity on Demand. Worth a watch for those interested.

 

[Qrious]

Very late into this case. The pertinent question is why were the cooler and freezer left on? The kitchen was not used and the cooler and freezer were empty, so why were they left operating? And were the lights on inside when KJ entered?

Maybe it is already answered somewhere but I could not find any mention in google search.

 

[altojack]

Very late into this case. The pertinent question is why were the cooler and freezer left on? The kitchen was not used and the cooler and freezer were empty, so why were they left operating? And were the lights on inside when KJ entered?

Maybe it is already answered somewhere but I could not find any mention in google search.

If I remember correctly there was quite a few questions unanswered at the time. IMO some of the guests at this gathering know more than was said at the time.

It's not too late for the truth to come out. JMO.

 

[MsMarple]

Very late into this case. The pertinent question is why were the cooler and freezer left on? The kitchen was not used and the cooler and freezer were empty, so why were they left operating? And were the lights on inside when KJ entered?

Maybe it is already answered somewhere but I could not find any mention in google search.

I don't remember if the lights were left on but as far as why the units were still running it's mainly a health issue. Once a fridge/freezer is turned off unless it's meticulously scrubbed and thoroughly dried out bacteria and mold will start growing and a terrible odor will develop. The culprit is residual humidity.

It will also cause concerns with health inspectors, which impacts certification down the road. Energy costs for keeping refrigeration/freezer units running are quite low and in most cases if a business plans to use them commercially in the future it's cheaper and safer to let them stay on.

 

[kawaiiiky]

The Basics: Kenneka Jenkins’s body was found inside a latched freezer of the Crowne Plaza Chicago O’Hare Hotel in Rosemont, Illinois after attending a party there on September 8th, 2017. The medical examiners reported her death as an accident but I think otherwise. Alcohol and topiramate were found in her body. Topiramate is a drug that is used to epilepsy and prevent migraines but it has also been used for alcohol dependence and these drugs were thought to have hastened the effects of hypothermia while she was in the freezer. The Rosemont Police Department did not suspect foul play, but they did say their investigation was incomplete.


The Night Leading Up: Kenneka was celebrating with her friends that night at a party that was taking place in Room 926 of the Crowne Plaza. This party started at 11:30 pm on Friday, September 8th, 2017 and a person at the party noticed that Kenneka was swaying back and forth and several people witnessed her drinking cognac, but did not see her take any other substances. Another witness reported that she wasn't acting like herself and that she was behaving bipolar on that night. Camera footage later showed her staggering near the front desk at 3:20 am. Kenneka was reported missing to hotel management at 1:15 pm on Saturday and at 10 pm the police spotted footage of her stumbling through the hotel. She was found in the hotel freezer and pronounced dead at 12:48 am Sunday. She was found lying face down on her side, with one show off. The temperature inside the freezer was found to be 34 degrees fahrenheit 2 hour after the doors had been open.


Investigation: The freezer she was found in was a working freezer and was described as a walk in freezer within a walk in cooler and was part of an unused kitchen. The lights were turned off in both chambers of the kitchen when she entered them and questions still remain as to why the freezer was on if it was in an unused part of the kitchen and it was reportedly being leased out to a restaurant using space in the hotel. The motion detected security cameras showed her staggering, apparently intoxicated through the hotel hallways eventually arriving at the kitchen where she rounded a corner towards the freezer and the freezer door itself was out of the camera's sight.Now this security footage has to be some of the most chilling footage I have ever seen because she is so clearly intoxicated and she's walking through this just empty kitchen, like its a ghost town. I'll see if I can find the footage and if I do I'll like it somewhere down below with my sources. The Cook County Medical Examiner’s Office ruled her death as an accident and the autopsy report found no illegal drugs in her system, but her alcohol level was found to be 0.112 and the drug I previously mentioned, topiramate taken together with alcohol can enhance the effects of alcohol and hasten the onset of hypothermia and there were lesions found on her stomach and brain swelling was also observed.

My Theory: Now let me preface this by saying this is all speculation and opinion. Now I’m not really sure what happened to her and I don’t know of any suspects but I just have a gut feeling that foul play was involved. I just refuse to believe that she got herself into that freezer and stayed there by herself. Something about this case just doesn't sit right with me or my soul and I think I'm going to continue doing this for cases of black people who have disappeared and been murdered and no one seems to care or pay attention.


Sources:

Security Cam Footage

Death of Kenneka Jenkins - Wikipedia

Source

 

[Salad.Boots]

Additional resources

Floor Plan of Crowne Plaza Hotel

In my experience in foodservice a couple things stand out. Generally the walk ins will stay on, it could have needed to be in use for an event in a couple of days, or the main kitchen could be using it as overflow under the table before the new tenants moved in.

The stomach injuries are concerning to me. Do we have more information on what may have caused them?

 

[Laughing]

Link to the existing thread:

IL - Kenneka Jenkins, 19, found dead in hotel freezer, Rosemont, 10 Sept 2017 #2

 

[kawaiiiky]

Additional resources

Floor Plan of Crowne Plaza Hotel

In my experience in foodservice a couple things stand out. Generally the walk ins will stay on, it could have needed to be in use for an event in a couple of days, or the main kitchen could be using it as overflow under the table before the new tenants moved in.

The stomach injuries are concerning to me. Do we have more information on what may have caused them?

The lesions in her stomach were said to be caused by the hypothermia I believe.

 

[fridaybaker]

I viewed the footage several times and what I see is consistent with a person on alcohol combined with a substance which enhances its effects. We see this over and over and over and over in the news and on Websleuths: Young person under the influence of one or more substances becomes disoriented and finds themselves in trouble, often ending in death. They are black, white, brown, yellow. It doesn't matter what race, ethnic origin, or sex they are.

Ms. Jenkins was obviously under the influence and wound up in a dark, unused freezer, disoriented, and unable to find her way out. I can't find anything nefarious about this except for the fact that our culture spawns such emptiness in souls that numberless young people (of all races) purposely get drunk and high, often on a regular basis. It's culturally accepted behavior that young people -and often ones into middle age, these days- drink themselves into oblivion so all rational thought -the very thing that makes us human- is lost. Take a look anywhere and see "first world", affluent, bored, people with the world at their fingertips, doing this, often losing their lives, certainly their dignity.

Sadly, Ms. Jenkins was just one of many who paid the ultimate price for terrible, but common these days, decisions.

 

[Darling136]

Link to the existing thread:

IL - Kenneka Jenkins, 19, found dead in hotel freezer, Rosemont, 10 Sept 2017 #2

Threads have been merged

 

[Kano]

I viewed the footage several times and what I see is consistent with a person on alcohol combined with a substance which enhances its effects. We see this over and over and over and over in the news and on Websleuths: Young person under the influence of one or more substances becomes disoriented and finds themselves in trouble, often ending in death. They are black, white, brown, yellow. It doesn't matter what race, ethnic origin, or sex they are.

Ms. Jenkins was obviously under the influence and wound up in a dark, unused freezer, disoriented, and unable to find her way out. I can't find anything nefarious about this except for the fact that our culture spawns such emptiness in souls that numberless young people (of all races) purposely get drunk and high, often on a regular basis. It's culturally accepted behavior that young people -and often ones into middle age, these days- drink themselves into oblivion so all rational thought -the very thing that makes us human- is lost. Take a look anywhere and see "first world", affluent, bored, people with the world at their fingertips, doing this, often losing their lives, certainly their dignity.

Sadly, Ms. Jenkins was just one of many who paid the ultimate price for terrible, but common these days, decisions.

I don't think it has anything to do with these days and was even more common in the past than it is today.

 

[katydid23]

I don't think it has anything to do with these days and was even more common in the past than it is today.

I am not sure that it was more common in the past. From everything I have read, the past few years we have seen the highest number of drug overdoses ever in our history:

The Deadliest Year In the History of U.S. Drug Use
DEC. 23, 2020

The Deadliest Year In the History of U.S. Drug Use

Overdose deaths in 2019 were significantly higher than 2018, jumping from 67,367 deaths in 2018 to 70,630 overdose deaths in 2019, marking a nearly 5 percent increase, according to a new report issued Tuesday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. If that’s not grim enough, a separate health alert published by the CDC this week reports a “concerning acceleration” in overdose deaths for 2020, which provisional data show is on track to be the deadliest year for U.S. drug overdose deaths in recorded history. Complete data for 2020 is not expected to be available until some time next year.

 

[shinimeggie]

I am not sure that it was more common in the past. From everything I have read, the past few years we have seen the highest number of drug overdoses ever in our history ...

But the OP wasn't talking about overdose deaths, nor did KJ die of an overdose, not even of alcohol. I think they were more talking about binge-drinking alcohol and the things that drunk people will do that accidentally causes them harm -- or even worse, death.

That's been ongoing in history since alcohol was invented and it's very hard to measure if it was worse in the past, or worse in 2017, but it's not a new thing that people of many ages ended up drinking to excess and then get hit by cars, crawl into small spaces and suffocate, fall down stairs and break their neck, and so on.

 

[ifindedout]

https://www.npr.org/2023/12/13/1219048773/freezer-death-family-settlement-chicago
The family of Kenneka Jenkins, who was found dead at age 19 in a Chicago-area hotel's walk-in freezer, has reached a settlement reportedly worth $6 million. Jenkins' death attracted wide attention, including from conspiracy theorists.

Jenkins' mother, Tereasa Martin, will receive a large share of the money, with two other relatives each receiving more than $1 million, according to the Chicago Sun-Times. Word of a settlement had recently emerged, but the details didn't come out until the case was set to go to trial.

[...]

The now-settled lawsuit was filed in late 2018 by Jenkins' mother against the hotel, its security provider and others, seeking $50 million. She accused staff of negligence and failing to do enough to find her daughter before she died.

 

[Laughing]

imho that's a big settlement for essentially a death by misadventure...the hotel did not require her to consume alcohol in any amount....

jmho ymmv lrr

 

[Queena]

imho that's a big settlement for essentially a death by misadventure...the hotel did not require her to consume alcohol in any amount....

jmho ymmv lrr

I think that they failed to do a proper search. If they had done one, then they may have found her.


It most certainly was a death by misadventure.