What is the story of Kenneka Jenkins? Who is she, and what happened to her?

In 2017, 19-year-old Kenneka Jenkins was found dead in a hotel walk-in freezer. Who was Jenkins, though, and was she murdered, or was it some kind of tragic accident?

Before she died, Kenneka was a reportedly a guest at a private party at a hotel in Rosemont, Illinois, near Chicago, celebrating with friends about her new job at a nursing home. As hotel security cameras revealed, Jenkins was seen as she wandered through the kitchen area of the hotel, before she entered the walk-in freezer. A day later, Jenkins was found dead. According to the medical examiner’s office, she died from hypothermia, with alcohol intoxication and prescription medication for epilepsy and migraine headaches a contributing factor, the Associated Press reported.

Reportedly, the friends Jenkins was with at the hotel noticed she was gone early that morning, and called her mother, Tereasa Martin, according to Chicago news outlet WGNTV.com. Tereasa asked the hotel to check surveillance footage, which would have shown her daughter as she seemed to wander into the freezer, perhaps in time to save her. The hotel instead referred Tereasa to the police, instead. Tereasa called 911, but dispatch told her to wait — her daughter could reappear, and it might all be some misunderstanding. Meanwhile, the Jenkins family searched the hotel door-to-door.

Kenneka’s body was only discovered after her mother filed a missing person’s report and the authorities searched the hotel. However, questions remained — if Kenneka was so intoxicated, how did she make her way into the freezer on her own, and how could she have opened the heavy door? And why wasn’t the freezer more safely secured in the first place?

The Kenneka Jenkins lawsuit

To help answer troubling questions surrounding her daughter’s tragic death, Kenneka Jenkins’ mom — Tereasa Jenkins — filed a lawsuit against the hotel where her daughter died. The $50 million suit was settled out of court, CBS News reported. According to the lawsuit, the hotel was liable for not better securing the walk-in freezer, and for not searching security camera footage when they were informed Kenneka had disappeared.

As for how Kenneka died, it really was a freak accident, with no foul play involved, the medical examiner concluded. According to WGNTV, most modern walk-in freezers of the type where Kenneka died are able to be opened from the inside, but the fact Kenneka failed to do so could speak to how incapacitated she was at the time.

Referring to Kenneka, her older sister, Leonore Harris, said (via WGNTV), “My sister was my backbone. My kids’ father passed three years ago. When I used to break down and cry and want to give up, she would tell me she’s got my back.”