User:Pashute/Death of Kenneka Jenkins

Kenneka Jenkins (frequently misspelled in the media: Kenika), aged 19 at death, was an African-American young woman found dead in a walk-in freezer in a closed-off kitchen under repairs at the Crown Plaza hotel, in Redmond, a section of Chicago, Illinois, on Sunday noon, September 10, 2017, almost a day and a half after having been last seen leaving a party at the hotel on September 9, 2017, at approximately 2:30 am. She was the daughter of the internet celebrity Teresa Martin.

Hotel surveillance videos showed her staggering out of the elevator on the lower level floor meant for staff only at 3:25 am, and her shadow on the freezer door at almost 3:33 am, 8 minutes later. An official autopsy found that Kenneka died of hypothermia (freezing to death), that she had high levels of alcohol along with a regular dosage of the medicine topiramate in her blood, and police concluded that her death was an accident.

She was found after the hotel surveillance videos were reviewed a second time. A former review of the same videos, searching for her in the lobby area failed to find her, and an early request by her mother to look at the videos or to assist in searching for her daughter was denied by the hotel staff until a police missing-persons report was received. The police delayed issuing the report, requiring initially several hours to pass.

Her friends had her phone and car keys with them when they contacted the mother after approximately an hour of searching, asked if Kenneka reached home and informed her that Kenneka was missing.

Failure claims and protests
Following a claim on social media saying that Kenneka was seen wandering and staggering through the halls on the cellar floor and walking into the freezer on her own, and posts on social media by Kenneka's mother Teresa Martin, claiming police and hotel staff failures perhaps due to racial reasons, an online protest ensued, developing into violent street protests against the hotel.

Numerous online publications emerged, with a variety of conspiracy theories about what had happened, claiming it was a murder and accusing Kenneka's friends, her mother, or the hotel staff, and doubting if Teresa Martin was the actual mother. There were also accusations between the protesters claiming they were conspiring against each other.

Sequence of events
According to an analysis of the surveillance videos, according to pictures and videos from the party uploaded on social media, and according to interviews, social media posts, the hotel's blueprints, a simulation video of Kenneka's path through the corridors and other material gathered by several volunteers online, especially Gray Hughes, the following plausible sequence of events was constructed:

Before the party
Kenneka, her friends and her mother were seen at previous parties where the participants became intoxicated and may have used medication to enhance the feeling.

Kenneka did not suffer previously from seizures and according to her mother was not prescribed the Topiramate pills, but the autopsy showed that in her blood she had the dosage of regular usage, leading some to hypothesize that she had taken this medication regularly and previous to the party and that it was the Cognac that enhanced her intoxication and disorientation.

From her looks, she may have been at the first stages of pregnancy.

Arrival and leaving the room
Kenneka arrived on September 8, 2017, at the hotel with three female friends and went to the party on the third floor. The hotel guests were complaining about the party, the smell of smoke and perhaps drugs, and the noise, and the guard requested the party-commers to disperse several time that night.

At some time during the party a film of Kenneka standing, looking well and calling happy birthday, was filmed.

Later on that night towards the morning of September 9, at about 3:15, Kenneka was not feeling well and lay down on a bed in the room of the party. She was then assisted out of the room at around 3:20 am, with two of her friends who were going to drive her home.

Kenneka's phone was being used to play the party music, and it was still in the room along with the keys to her mother's car, in which she had brought herself and her friends to the party with, so they left her alone in the corridor, and returned to the room to retrieve them. According to the police report, one of the girls had said in a police interview that it took them up to 20 minutes to return to the corridor, but this has been shown to be a mistake.

Kenneka went into the elevator and pressed LL (lower level) apparently thinking it was the lobby, staggered out of the elevator at 3:25, and then continued along the deserted corridors and rooms for over two hours until reaching the unused and deserted kitchen and entering the freezer.

According to the three girls who came with Kenneka, they returned to the corridor and saw that Kenneka was missing.

Searching for Kenneka and returning the car
During the 8 minutes that Kenneka was roaming the lower level corridors, and for two hours afterwards, her friends were searching for her in the lobby and the parking lot. The friends along with 3 young men from the party are seen on the surveilance videos searching for her on the entrance floor beginning at 3:52 am.

They are seen later asking and not receiving assistance from the guard who was doing various errands for the hotel guests and staff, such as bringing fresh sheets to different rooms.

During these errands, the guard is seen rushing and even running through the same corridors that Kenneka had passed earlier gathering pillows and sheets and rushing back with them.

After about an hour of searching, one of the three friends called the mother, and informed her that they are looking for Kenneka.

At about 5 am after still no sign of Kenneka, the mother asked them to bring her the car. The girls are seen leaving the hotel to the parking lot, and the car is seen driving away.

Continued search by mother, and finding Kenneka
The mother, Teresa Martin, went down to the hotel with Kenneka's sister and began searching. The mother requested to view the security camera footage but was told that she needs an official missing persons police report.

At 7:15 am the mother contacted the local police, and despite her questions about the phone being left over and Kenneka being drunk was advised to wait several hours.

The police finally filed a missing person's report for Kenneka At 1:16 pm.

At 8:29 pm the police were called to the hotel to stop the mother and several family members who were banging on the guests' doors and asking if they saw Kenneka. Following a heated discussion with the police, the video was reviewed with someone unrelated to the family, claiming he was a family friend, and the footage of Kenneka was missed.

At some time in the video, a hotel worker is seen searching in the upper kitchen but he does not look in the freezer.

Only on the next afternoon September 10, at 12:23, a hotel staff worker is seen hurrying into the kitchen, apparently according to what the hotel staff saw on the security camera video. He walks over to the freezer, and rushes out to summon the police.

The mother was informed at about 1:30 pm in a press conference, and only four hours later was allowed to see her daughter, who had been removed by then from the freezer, in order to identify her.

Aftermath
Following her being found dead, various friends posted videos of the party, and confusing posts on social media, bringing some of the readers to understand that it was a confession to her murdering Kenneka or setting her up to be murdered.

Also, a boy from the party posted the claim that he had told his friends that he had meant to sleep with Kenneka after she was drunk, and that they intended to get her intoxicated, in order to accomplish this. He also claimed that he had left the room with Kenneka and had asked Kenneka to meet him on a different floor.

Conspirative accusations
In the immediate aftermath, her three close friends who came with her to the party were accused on social media of either setting her up, actively kidnapping her or murdering her.

Also accused of conspiring or murdering her was the hotel guard, who was seen hurrying through the same corridors at various hours of the night doing cleaning errands unrelated to his guarding duty, the hotel owners, who did not cooperate at first, and later offered compensation to the family, and the police, who were not cooperative with the mother, spoke harshly with her and kept her away during the discovery of the body.

There were conspiracy claims that Kenneka was set up to be murdered for her body organs, and even that some of her organs were, in fact, missing, especially the Thymus, as listed in the Autopsy report. (The Thymus gland in women is replaced naturally with fat cells up to 5 years after puberty).

Accused in the conspiracies

 * The young women that came with Kenneka to the party
 * Some of the young men at the party
 * The guard, seen rushing throughout the videos down the corridors.
 * An unidentified staff member seen walking through the same corridors, several hours later
 * The owner with ties to a company that deals with body organs.

Conspiracy claims
Indications of murder, rape or violence:
 * Chipped tooth
 * Autopsy report on missing Thymus (proof of organ removed and sold)
 * Abrasions on her thigh
 * Removed shoe, and seemingly took part of her clothes.
 * Did not push handle which is easily used to open the freezer door.

Indications of involvement in murder:
 * Apparent drugging by a girl in a video of the party
 * Apparent dragging of Kenneka when stumbling in corridor
 * Apparent blood on hand of hotel staff member going back from drinks room near stairs to the upper kitchen.
 * Apparent tampered videos and missing frames (pixelated).
 * Camera directly across freezer not working
 * Freezer active although kitchen inactive

Things claimed seen in the videos, but upon review are shown to be erroneous:
 * A young woman supposedly drugging Kenneka.
 * People dragging Kenneka and picking her up out of the room.
 * Kenneka seen in the reflection a young woman's glasses - having sex (or being raped) on the bed.
 * A person carrying Kenneka on the stairs
 * A person dragging Kenneka off ballance in the corridor.
 * People lurking in the upper kitchen.
 * Kenneka apparently in the toilet perhaps being raped

Upon review, all have these have been shown to be false interpretations.

Posts and videos showing it was an accident

 * Kenneka Jenkins Timeline