Officials rule "no foul play" in the bizarre disappearance and freezer death of 19-year-old Kenneka Jenkins (shown below) at the Crowne Plaza hotel in Rosemont, Illinois last month.
According to autopsy and toxicology tests, Jenkins succumbed to "hypothermia" after mistakenly wandering into an unused walk-in freezer at the Crowne Plaza hotel -- while in a drunken stupor -- on the morning of September 9, 2017.
Medical examiners contend that the teen's inebriated condition, and the speed with which she froze to death once locked inside the cold unit, was "exacerbated" by her recreational use of a drug typically prescribed for seizures and migraines.
Although Kenneka Jenkins had no prescription for 'Topiramate' herself, investigators believe she voluntarily consumed it with alcohol while partying with her companions at Crowne Plaza sometime during the day she died there.
They say the two substances are "synergistic" and combined to create a toxic mix that "disoriented" young Jenkins, fatally leading to her "confusion and impaired" decision to pry open the massive doors of a 34-degree freezer compartment herself and then close them behind her.
Searchers eventually found her trapped inside the frigid chamber, face down and long dead of overexposure, some 24 hours later.
A number of lesions detected postmortem in Jenkins' stomach are consistent with someone who's frozen to death, medical examiners have noted in the report they released on Friday. However, the victim's brain was also "swollen," and bruises and abrasions on at least one of her legs haven't been satisfactorily explained either.
Allegedly, every misstep of Kenneka Jenkins' fateful journey to an unguarded kitchen area where the deadly walk-in freezer was situated had been filmed on hotel surveillance cameras, except for the moment she entered the icebox.
Curiously, though, some of the hotel's CCTV footage that day has yet to be turned over for inspection; most importantly, video from a cam positioned “near the upstairs abandoned kitchen" where Ms. Jenkins met her icy end.
Relatives are therefore challenging the recent findings of "accidental death" as well as the initial reluctance of hotel management and police to search for Kenneka between September 9th and 10th, when her family and friends had repeatedly reported the girl inexplicably missing.
“I want to see it all," Jenkin's mother angrily responded this week to reporters questioning the 'no foul play' ruling in her daughter's sudden disappearance and unusual demise. "I want to see her actually walking into this freezer and closing herself within this freezer and freezing to death.”
case update by EPONYMOUS ROX
This case really bothers me. I’m glad it got the attention that it initially did. So many times cases like this get swept under the rug or lost in everything else.
ReplyDeleteWho mentioned the freezer to her mom? Her mom was told by Kenneka’s “friends” that she was missing. And when her mom raised the alarm with the hotel, she pleaded with them to check that specific freezer. How’d she even know it existed?
I’ve also watched videos available and so many segments look spliced together. There are spots where images appear wiped, too. All of it looks a little too much. Like if she can be seen over an extended period of time staggering all the way down there (somehow) then how did no one in security see her?
Hope to see some closure on this one.
ReplyDelete