Rosemont Police are currently searching for people who attended a hotel party a day before a Chicago teen was found dead in a walk-in freezer.
Speaking with the Daily Herald, Rosemont village spokesman Gary Mack said that detectives are identifying and tracking down witnesses who attended the Friday night and Saturday morning party in a ninth floor room at the Crowne Plaza Chicago O’Hare Hotel. Authorities are also reviewing videos posted to social media in hopes of locating additional witnesses, he said.
One video, which can be viewed below, features a woman wearing sunglasses and possibly shows Jenkins, 19, in the room with other partygoers. Users have claimed that someone can be heard crying out for help others say Jenkins can be seen being attacked.
Investigators have yet to determine how Jenkins died or how she got into the walk-in freezer, according to the Chicago Tribune. However, Mack said authorities are treating the case as a “death investigation,” and aren’t ruling out the possibility of foul play.
The teen’s mother, Tereasa Martin reportedly last saw her daughter late Friday. Jenkins’ friends contacted Martin after 4 a.m. Saturday, leading her to search the hotel and subsequently call the police. Officers listed Jenkins as a missing person at around 1 p.m. Saturday—approximately 12 hours before she was found dead in a walk-in freezer.
“Our police believe strongly they have done the right things and followed practices, protocols, and procedures,” Mack told the Herald.
Authorities originally suspected that Jenkins was drunk and managed to get into the walk-in freezer, CrimeOnline previously reported. Martin remains skeptical.
ORIGINAL Story: HOTEL HORROR: Employees find missing 19-year-old girl’s body in walk-in freezer
“It takes strength to open these doors, the freezer doors,” she told WLS. “So, if she couldn’t hardly hold herself up. … How did she find the strength to unlock both the double doors?”
The heartbroken mother has also accused hotel staff and police of not working fast enough to locate her daughter.
“If they had taken me seriously and checked right away, they could have found my daughter much sooner and she might have been alive.”
Cook County medical examiner’s office spokeswoman Becky Schlikerman said Tuesday that Jenkins’ cause and manner of death remain undetermined until a detailed autopsy is performed, which could take several weeks.
[Featured Image: Facebook/Kenneka Jenkins]
