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A mother says she’s “horrified” after the body of her 19-year-old daughter was found inside an Illinois hotel’s walk-in freezer — a day after she apparently walked into it drunk, according to authorities and witnesses.
Kenneka Jenkins, 19, was pronounced dead at the Crowne Plaza Chicago O’Hare Hotel & Conference Center in suburban Rosemont early Sunday, nearly a day after the teen’s mom, Tereasa Martin, said she got a call from friends that she vanished from the property. Martin said police confirmed her worst fears less than a day later when they found the teen dead in the hotel’s walk-in freezer — where she apparently got stuck during a drunken stroll away from a party.
“[I’m] horrified,” Martin told the Chicago Tribune. “It’s something that no one could ever imagine. It’s unbelievable.”
Martin said she went to the hotel early Saturday to help her friends search for her daughter, but authorities got involved in the hunt after the family filed a missing persons report a few hours later.
Hotel staffers told Martin she needed to file a missing persons report before investigators could begin reviewing surveillance footage at the hotel.
“The hotel staff and management [were] actively canvassing the area at that time,” Gary Mack, a spokesman for the village of Rosemont, told the Tribune.
Investigators later found video taken at about 3:20 a.m. that day, showing the teen “staggering” drunk near the hotel’s front desk, Martin said. Police later told relatives that the teen’s body had been found at about 1 a.m. Sunday inside the freezer, which was working at the time, but wasn’t being used to store food, Martin said.
“I just happen to know there’s work being done on some new facilities over there, so there is some construction activity where a new restaurant is being built, and [she was found] in that vicinity,” Mack told the Tribune. “This is not an area where anyone would typically be who was a guest in the hotel.”
An autopsy was completed Sunday, but the teen’s cause and manner of death will be determined “pending furthur studies,” a spokeswoman for the medical examiner’s office told The Post.
Martin, meanwhile, doubted the timeline provided by investigators, saying her daughter would have a tough time opening the heavy freezer doors or would’ve realized that she wasn’t in the right place.
“Those were double steel doors, she didn’t just pop them open,” she said.
Martin was also upset at hotel staffers, claiming they showed a lack of urgency during the search. A manager at the hotel referred all inquiries to police. The hotel’s general manager said in a statement that employees will continue to work with police in the investigation.
“We are saddened by this news, and our thoughts are with the young woman and her family during this difficult time,” Crown Plaza general manager Cher Jacobsen told the Chicago Sun-Times.