KENNEKA JENKINS' MYSTERIOUS DEATH

On September 10, 2017, 19-year-old Kenneka Jenkins of Chicago was found dead in a hotel freezer under mysterious circumstances. Many became intrigued by the unusual circumstances around her case, and the death led to a lot of discussion on social media according to some theories.

It was the night of September 8, 2017, when Kenneka headed out to a party with friends at the Crowne Plaza Chicago O'Hare Hotel in Rosemont, Illinois. The video footage to be used by the prosecution shows Truong entering the hotel with friends who were celebrating a birthday party there.

Kenneka's friends said she wondered off as the night wore on. They add they looked for her shortly before they rang her mum, Tereasa Martin, who in turn reported her missing both at the hotel and to local police.

The hotel checked security footage once Kenneka was reported missing. Surveillance footage showed her walking drunkenly on her own at early hours of September 9, stumbling seemingly confused through hotel hallways and subsequently into a kitchen area.

Footage of the clips include one instance where she walked through the unused walk-in freezer the hotel used that would later contain her body.

Kenneka was discovered dead in the hotel freezer around 24 hours after she was last observed. By then, her family and locals were pressuring authorities to find her.

When she was found her clothes were in disarray and her shoes were off, adding to the suspicion and leading people to wonder what could have happened.

After an autopsy by the Cook County Medical Examiner's Office, Kenneka's death was ruled accidental. Hypothermia was determined to be the cause of death with contributing factors that included both blood alcohol concentration and blood concentrations of topiramate, a medication that was prescribed to the victim for migraine prevention as it can intensify the effects of alcohol on the body.

Her actions in the hotel footage could be attributed to brief confusion and disorientation caused by hypothermia — when body temperature decreases to dangerous levels. Her blood-alcohol content was allegedly 0.112% at the time but she was in no state to be driving [in the UK the legal limit is 0.08% so it suggests he was not sober].

The official findings too found itself under scrutiny which ended up in a public uproar from family, friends and many people in the social media expressing doubts about the finds surrounding Kenneka's death. There were theories that foul play was involved or that there had been a cover up because of supposed inconsistencies in the hotel's timeline, holes in the timeline and the behaviour of Kenneka's friends on the night in question.

It was therefore natural for social media to fill up with theories — users highlighted alleged shortcomings in the investigation, hypothesising and guessing how the case would develop.

Authorities went through great lengths when trying to glean the circumstances surrounding Kenneka’s passing, doing everything from conducting extensive interviews with friends and hotel staff to combing through security footage to try and reconstruct the timeline of her last hours. But ultimately they decided they were not able to substantiate a theory of foul play and the findings of the medical examiner.

Her family kept searching for answers, even briefly suing the Crowne Plaza Hotel for $50 million, claiming staff had not adequately secured the hotel and were negligent in their response time to find Kenneka at the request of the family.

Kenneka’s case has since become a symbol for those advocating for transparency in investigations and justice for young women, particularly women of color, who go missing or die under suspicious circumstances. The case highlighted how social media can drive attention to unresolved cases and the importance of diligent investigations.

While authorities maintain that Kenneka’s death was accidental, the lingering questions and unanswered details keep her story in the public eye as a point of mystery and tragedy.