Callum Jones
The last moments of a woman who was tragically found dead in a latched freezer are as eerie as it comes.
The body of 19-year-old Kenneka Jenkins was found in a freezer in September 2017 after she attended a private party at the Crowne Plaza Chicago O’Hare Hotel.
Jenkins’ mother, Tereasa Martin, subsequently filed a lawsuit against the hotel in what ended up being a long legal battle.
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According to Martin, Jenkins first visited the hotel on September 9 - with the lawsuit adding she was last seen leaving a room on the ninth floor by her friends.
However, after that, she then went missing.
Security footage showed the teen loitering around Caddyshack Restaurant, a food and drink establishment within the hotel's grounds, at around 3:30am local time.
Less than 24 hours later Jenkins was found unresponsive in a walk-in freezer in an abandoned kitchen of the hotel.
In footage released by authorities in 2017, Jenkins could be seen staggering through the hotel’s hallways before she disappeared momentarily from the CCTV cameras.
She was also seen exiting an elevator alone and appeared visibly impaired, before entering a kitchen just minutes later.
The case generated controversy, with family and friends questioning whether there had been foul play. They also raised concerns around how the police handled the case.
It was revealed that police began looking for Jenkins about three hours after she was reported missing.
The Cook County Medical Examiner's Office initially ruled that her death had been an accident and there was no reason to suspect foul play. Her cause of death was given as hypothermia after being exposed to the cold.
A toxicology report also found that she had alcohol and medication for epilepsy and migraines in her system.
Martin originally sought $50 million in connection to her daughter's death.
However, in 2023, she settled a lawsuit against the parent company of the hotel, security firm and restaurant, and received approximately $3.7 million.
Two other family members received a combined $2.7 million of the settlement fund.
The devastated mother claimed that staff had been negligent as they didn't secure the walk-in freezer, and didn't carry out a thorough search when Jenkins went missing.
That is despite the fact, according to the suit, employees assured Martin they would 'check and review all security cameras and footage'.
Martin has previously spoken about how the CCTV images could have helped staff to locate her daughter.
In an interview on Chicago radio station 107.5 WGCI in 2017, she claimed that one camera was pointed at the entrance to the walk-in.
"There was a camera directly over this freezer," Martin said.
"...At the closing of the meeting I asked the detective as well as the sergeant and the sergeant said aggressively 'There wasn't no camera' so I guess the camera disappeared too."