Warning: Graphic content, readers’ discretion advised. This story contains a recollection of crime and can be triggering to some readers discretion advised.
Meet Kenneka jenkins also known as kenneka martin or just Neka.
Born in chicago on may 27 th 1998, Neka hada bright future. those who knew her rememberd her as intelligent and responsible with a cheerful personality .
she had a close relationship with her mother Teresa martin,whom she had recently cared for as she received treatment for breast cancer.
On september 8th 2017 , kenneka and three friends told told kennekas mother Teresa that their were going bowling and to watch a movie to celebrate a new job that kenneka had just received at a local home .
Teresa lent them her car and the group left kenneka’s house on the west side of chicago around 11 :00 p.m.
they stopped to pick up some items which reportedly included cognack and energy drinks and made their way to the ctown plaza chicago in Rosemont.what they hadn’t told kenneka’s mother wass that they were actually planning to attend a hotel party.
surveillance footage from the hotel shows the group entering from a side entrance at 1:13 a.m they made their way up to the 9th floor room 926 to attend the party. Estimated 30 or more people were at the party and the room had been booked with a stolen credit card.
several clips from the party that night was posted to social media, many of which show kenneka over the next to hours the friends drank and danced seemingly hsbinhs good time.
sometime around 1:30 am , kenneka spoke to her older sister Leonor Jenkins, this would be the last time the two would speak.
and the last time contact kenneka would have with any of her family members. several people from the party reported kenneka dancing and having a good time.
but also swaying from side to side oddly and sitting for long periods quietly, it’s possible that she was starting to realize that she was too intoxicated and was no longer enjoying herself.
they decided to leave the party sometime around 3:a.m .when they returned to the ground floor kenneka told her friends that she had forgotten something in her room.
There are many different reports online about what exactly she left upstairs but most state it was either her keys or phone.
aware of how intoxicated kenneka was her friends dediced to leave her behind and head back upstairs to retrieve her belongings.
Kenneka’s mother would later report that kenneka like her mother had an extremely low tolerance for alcohol and could easily become intoxicated by just one drink.
over the next several minutes surveillance fotage shows kenneka stumbling around the hotel in various locations, she has shown exiting an elevator onthe lower level around 3:25 a.m.
woundering around the hallway and stumbling into walls , at one point she navigates a set of stairs and at 3:32 she’s captured on camera entering an unused kitchen in the hotel and headed towars a freezer in the back .
at 4:00 , am kenneka’s friends call her mother Theresa to lett her knowthar kenneka is gone missing. Teresa later stated that thos conversation was suspicious and the story didn’t ad up .
she asked them if kenneka had been drinking and they told her that she only had one drink.
Theresa made her way to the Crown Plaza Hotel to search fr or her daughter.she spoke with the hotel staff hwo was sseemingly unwilling to assist.when she asked about the surveillance footage they told her they couldn’t access it without a missing person’s report.
With growing concern Teresa contacted authorities at 7:15a.m.
in an attempt to get some assistance from them authorities seemed unwilling to assist.
suggesting that perhaps kenneka was sleeping in one of the hotel rooms and would return up later that morning. Teresa then turned home feeling defeated but was hopeful that kenneka would indeed return up or at the very least contact her family.
At 12: 46 p.m , kenneka’s sister finally managed to file a missing person’s report and police began to investigate her disappearance.
9 hours had now passed since kenneka had gone missing. police began by searching the hotel for clues but they came up empty handed .
Hotel staff claimed they had gone they had gone over the surveillance footage and didn’t see anything out of the ordinary.
At 10:p.m. investigators decided to have a look at the footage themselves to see if anything had been missed and that’s when they came across the footage of kenneka stumbling around the hotel visibly intoxicated.
eventually making her way into the kitchen that was currently out of use.
at 1:00 on september 10th , kenneka jenkins body was found frozen solid in a freezer located at the rear of the kitchen , she was completely closed with one shoe off.
The only injuries on her body were a minor scrape on her right foot where the shoe had been removed.
there was seemingly no sign of struggle or foul play .
Obviously this discovery left kenneka’s friends and family schoked and devastated.
How could something like this happen.
the investigation in autopsy later concluded that kenneka had succumb to hypothermia.
a toxicology report showed a blood alcohol level of point 1 one two, makingher legally intoxicated at the time of her death.
she also had a drug called topiramate in her system, primarly to treat migraines and epilepsy that was not a drug that kenneka had been prescribed.Topiramate is not typically used recreationally or abused so it’s not likely it was taken at the party.
It’s very strange that this drug was present in her system. there has since been quite a bit of speculation surrounding kenneka’s death.
Initially it was thought that her friends had something to do with it, allthough leaving kenneka alone when she was in that state of intoxication was probably a poor judgement call.
the video footage clearly shows her wandering the hotel unaccompanied and making her way into the kitchen .
some have argued that the footage has been doctored but this seems to have been mostly debunked
plus there was no evidence to support her friends wanted to harm her. by all accounts she had a close relationship with those who were with her.
some theories also suggested that this was a case of organ harvesting,the area is known to be a hot spot for organ harvesting and human trafficking but kenneka’s body was discovered entirely intact with all her organs present.
perhaps the most shocking aspect of this tragedy is the the unwillingness of both the hotel staff and the police to assist the family when kenneka had initially been reported missing.
why would´t the hotel staff check their surveillance footage when Teresa showed up?
Clearly concerned for her daughter’s wellbeing ,understanding of course there may be privacy issues in showing the footage to her ,they likely could have checked it themselves.
why were the police so unwilling to assist when she contated them at 7:15 a.m.?
Kenneka was 19 year old and it was entirely possible that she was asleep at one of the rooms at that time , however they could have sent an officer out or at least taken a report.
they seemed very passive during the initial phone call, questions would later arrives as to why the freezer was even on if the kitchen wasn’t being used.and some speculated that the hotel tried to cover up the tragedy.
It was later confirmed that the freeser was periodically used by another resturant in the hotel an that’s why it was on.
so why did the hotel staff tell authorities that they had reviewed the footage and found nothing
it’s possible that they focused on the high traffic areas of the hotel instead of the basement in the kitchen that was not in use
but it is still strange.
In 2018 the famile filed a 50 million wrongful death lawsuit against the hotel claiming negligence the lawsuit alleged that the hotel did not do enough to secure the potentially dangerous area ,that they didn’t do enough to keep hotel patrons safe
and that the staff were negligent in not allowing to view the surveillance footage that morning.A 10 million settlement was reached in november 2023 of which Tersa matin was reported to received around 3.7million. however no amount of money can replace the loved one and Teresa and her family will go the rest of their lives missing kenneka.
