Kenneka Jenkins's Mother to See Surveillance Video
Police investigating the death of 19-year-old Kenneka Jenkins, whose corpse was found inside a freezer in a hotel near Chicago, announced Thursday they will allow her mother to see surveillance footage.
A spokesman for the Rosemont, Illinois police department, Gary Mack, said Tereasa Martin, Jenkins’s mother, will be granted permission to watch the video. Officials have examined nearly 30 hours of video collected from 47 hotel cameras. A dozen people who were at the hotel when Jenkins died are being interrogated, according to the Associated Press.
Jenkins was reported missing early Saturday after she left her home in Chicago at 11:30 p.m. on Friday. She went to a party at the Crowne Plaza Chicago O’Hare Hotel & Conference Center in Rosemont.
After an 11-hour search, police discovered Jenkins' body Sunday morning in a walk-in freezer. Martin said police told her that her daughter was inebriated and that she went inside the freezer, where she died. Martin is questioning this account.
“Those were double steel doors; she didn’t just pop them open,” Martin told the Chicago Tribune.
Jenkins’s death has ignited enormous attention on social media, as videos of her last night have gone viral. A Facebook Live video shared Saturday morning has been viewed at least 4 million times.
Rosemont Mayor Brad Stephens has blamed social media for “convoluting the investigation,” adding that police investigations require plenty of time to process evidence and information. “Police are doing their best to come to a quick resolution,” Stephens said. “I think everybody wants to know what happened.”
Crowne Plaza Hotel has offered to cover funeral expenses for Jenkins, the Chicago Sun Times said. “Our hearts go out to Kenneka’s mother, her family and friends. We hope covering the funeral costs provides a small bit of relief for them,” hotel spokesman Glen Harston said in a statement.
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