Police investigating the death of a 19-year-old girl whose body was found in a walk-in hotel freezer said they’ve spoken to 12 people “involved in some way” in the case.
Kenneka Jenkins went to a party with friends at the Crowne Plaza Chicago O'Hare Hotel & Conference Center on Friday night, Sept. 8. Jenkins’s friends called her mom at 4 a.m. to say the girl was missing.
A professional sound editor took the sound from the video and enhanced it to block out some frequencies. According to the editor, Jenkins’s friends can be heard discussing a sexual assault.
“They in there raping her,” a muffled voice says.
“I told y'all,” a girl responds.
The girl’s mom, Tereasa Martin, arrived at the hotel an hour after her daughter’s friend called to say she was missing. Hotel staff told her that they can’t perform a search until a missing person’s police report is filed.
When Martin obtained the report, staff conducted a search of the public areas as well as the floor her daughter was on Friday night but did not find anything. A second search was triggered when police spotted Jenkins on a surveillance video.
Rosemont Public Safety Department said they are conducting “an active death investigation.” Out of the 12 people interviewed, eight were at the hotel on Friday night and Saturday morning. Police are looking to identify and interview four other who were at the hotel.
Investigators are also looking at video from 47 hotel cameras and analyzing other videos from the incident.
“It is still a death investigation because of no evidence that points to it being a homicide—any credible evidence,” Rosemont spokesman Gary Mack said late on Tuesday.
Jenkins was pronounced dead at 1 a.m. on Sunday. The Cook County Medical Examiner’s Office said that an autopsy has been conducted but that it could take weeks to issue a conclusion.
“We extend our deepest condolences to the family and friends of Kenneka Jenkins,” the Rosemont, Illinois, police department said.
Millions of people watched the Facebook Live video from the night of Jenkins’s death, with some saying she can be seen sitting on a bed from the reflection from another girl’s sunglasses. Many of the commenters said that Jenkins’s friends can be heard in the video planning to do the girl harm.
The audio engineer that enhanced the sound from the video told the Tribune that he’s convinced a crime took place, but no one did anything.
“I don’t know for sure what happened,” the man told the Tribune, asking that his name and home state not be used for fear of getting entangled in the case. “But just based off the audio that was given to me, somebody in that room knew (something bad) was going on, and nobody was doing anything.”
