HER FINAL HOURS
Video Video sho shows sKenneka Kenneka Jenkins stumbling st mbling through thro gh hotel, hotel but b t attorney says ‘ snippets’ don’t show how she ended up in freezer
She arrived at the hotel to party with her friends. She stumbled down a hallway. And she walked unsteadily through a hotel kitchen, disappearing around a corner.
Those are among the images of 19- year- old Kenneka Jenkins on surveillance video at the Crowne Plaza Hotel in Rosemont, where she was found dead in a walk- in freezer last weekend.
Rosemont police released nine videos Friday. One shows Jenkins alone in the kitchen around 3: 30 a. m. Saturday but does not showher walking into the freezer.
Jenkins also is seen arriving with three others shortly after midnight Saturday, as well as stumbling off elevators and walking alone through hallways.
The release came hours after the lawyer for Jenkins’ mother said “serious questions remain” about the death — and it capped a week of apparent miscommunication between several parties involved.
Police opted to make the videos public during a press conference held by Jenkins’ mother’s attorneys — a press conference at which those attorneys repeatedly said they had been shown only a few “snippets” of video from the night Jenkins died. A day earlier, the Crowne Plaza had issued a statement offering to show Jenkins’ family all 36 hours of footage in private.
Jenkins left her home near the United Center at 11: 30 p. m. Friday to go to a party in a room at the hotel, police said. Jenkins’ sister last heard from her via text message about 1: 30 a. m. Saturday.
About 4 a. m., Jenkins’ friends called her mother to say they could not find her, Holmes has said. An hour later, Tereasa Martin was at the hotel. She filled out a police report, and Jenkins’ sister reported her missing.
Jenkins was last seen at a party on the hotel’s ninth floor early Saturday, police said. She was reported missing at 1: 16 p. m. Police told Martin surveillance footage showed Jenkins inebriated near the front desk, according to Holmes.
Hotel staff and management searched the hotel and discovered Jenkins at 12: 24 a. m. Sunday, police said.
Rosemont police released a statement Friday saying detectives had interviewed 25 people. Of those, 16 were at the party. Police want to interview another 15.
It was also determined, police said, that the room used for the party was paid for with a “fraudulent credit card obtained through identity theft.”
Twitter and Facebook have been deluged with theories; many believe Jenkins was murdered. Police have said the death is considered noncriminal, with “no credible evidence at this point” to reclassify it as amurder. Her autopsy was inconclusive, pending further study.
Also Friday, officials released 911 calls and police radio dispatches related to the search for Jenkins.
Martin called 911 from the hotel about 7: 15 a. m. Saturday asking for police to help get the hotel to turn over security footage. The dispatcher advised her to wait a few hours in case her daughter turned up elsewhere.
Police said Jenkins was formally reported missing about 1: 15 p. m.
Officers, dispatched to the hotel by 2 p. m., spent hours canvassing floors, according to radio transmissions.
At one point, the front desk called police to remove Jenkins’ mother from the hotel, saying she was going doortodoor in the building.
At 12: 25 a. m. Sunday, an officer radioed from a kitchen near a loading dock in the rear of the hotel.
“I have the subject in a kitchen in a freezer,” the officer said. “She is frozen solid.”
Thursday, the Crowne Plaza made the offer for the family to view the videos and also to cover funeral expenses. Friday, Martin’s attorneys said they weren’t aware of those offers.
Crowne Plaza spokesman Glenn Harton told the Sun- Times those offers were relayed to community activists Jedidiah Brown, Ja’Mal Green and Holmes.
Harton said the hotel didn’t know Thursday if Martin had an attorney; the activists were told because “they all identified themselves as spokespeople for the family.”
Friday, Harton said the family had not taken the hotel up on its offer.
Shortly after the offer was made, Holmes said he saw surveillance footage and that Jenkins went into the freezer by herself, without being forced inside— contradicting Rogers.
“Did anybody force her down there? Was anybody on the other side in that room when she got down there?” Holmes said. “And the answer to that is ‘ no.’”
Sam Adam Jr., one of Martin’s attorneys, said Friday: “I don’t know what Mr. Holmes saw or he didn’t . . . to our investigation, it’s irrelevant.”
He added: “At the end of the day, we have a child who is dead and amother who doesn’t know why.”