On the night of September 8, 2017, it was expected to be a fun evening. Young people were dancing, listening to music, and filming each other's funny videos at the Crowne Plaza Hotel in Illinois. However, these videos would later become a subject of investigation for both the police and online amateur detectives.

That night, 19-year-old partygoer Kenneka Jenkins went missing.

FacebookKenneka Jenkins was only 19 years old when she died of hypothermia in a hotel freezer.

The search process for Jenkins was heartbreaking but short. Just two days later, her body was found in a freezer at the hotel. Investigators determined that her death was an accident and that she died of hypothermia after consuming alcohol and taking epilepsy/migraine medication.

However, not everyone believes this to be true.

The Disappearance of Kenneka Jenkins

FacebookKenneka Jenkins's mother began searching for her daughter immediately after she went missing; however, the hotel refused to share security footage without a missing person report.

Kenneka Jenkins had a lot to celebrate when she left home on September 8, 2017. The 19-year-old had found a new job at a nursing home, according to WGNTV, and went to meet her friends at the Crowne Plaza Hotel.

The hotel videos show the young people hanging out, drinking, and dancing. Jenkins occasionally appeared on camera. One video showed her leaving the hotel room. Another video captured the reflection of someone in sunglasses. Then, Kenneka Jenkins was never seen again.

According to WGNTV, her friends noticed she was missing around four in the morning. They informed her mother, Teresa Martin, and explained that they had left Jenkins in the hotel corridor while they went to get her phone and car keys from the room. When they returned to the room, Jenkins was gone.

Martin rushed to the hotel to search for her daughter. However, she would soon see that the staff at the Crowne Plaza Hotel was not cooperating.

A Mother's Heartbreaking Search

When Teresa Martin arrived at the Crowne Plaza Hotel at five in the morning, she immediately asked the staff to find her daughter. The staff informed her that they could only view security footage after a police report was filed. However, when Martin went to the police, she was told to wait before filing a report until Kenneka Jenkins was found.

“We asked for help, but no one helped,” Martin told WGNTV.

According to Chicago Tribune, the family filed a missing person report a few hours later. The police then arrived at the hotel and searched the ninth floor, where Jenkins was last seen, as well as the public areas of the hotel. In the afternoon, they reviewed the hotel security footage but found no trace of the missing girl.

At six in the evening, Kenneka Jenkins's frustrated family began knocking on the doors of hotel rooms. The hotel accused them of disturbing the peace and called 911, but the police who arrived agreed to look at the hotel's security footage once more. A few hours later, at 3:20 AM, they found footage of Jenkins walking drunkenly and "stumbling" near the front desk.

Sadly, this promising lead led to tragedy. Around noon on Sunday, police found Kenneka Jenkins's body in a freezer.

Alyssa Pointer/Chicago Tribune/TNS/Alamy Live NewsTeresa Martin is consoled by her boyfriend immediately after Kenneka Jenkins's body was found.

The 19-year-old was dead. However, the story of her disappearance quickly took on a life of its own.

What Happened to Kenneka Jenkins?

While police suspected that Kenneka Jenkins accidentally entered the freezer, her family was not so sure.

“The freezer door is heavy. So that’s not possible,” said Jenkins's sister Leonore Harris to WGNTV when Jenkins's body was found. “If she was drunk, she wouldn’t have had the strength. If she had enough strength to open that door, she should have had enough strength to walk straight.”

Martin agreed with this view. The police had told her that Jenkins was so drunk that she couldn't even hold herself up and had to lean against the wall. Moreover, the freezer was located in a vacant part of the hotel, in a construction area that most hotel guests would not normally go to.

So if Kenneka Jenkins did not accidentally enter the freezer, then what happened?

“I believe someone in this hotel killed my child,” Martin told WGNTV.

Abaca Press/Alamy Stock PhotoProtesters chant slogans at the entrance of the Crowne Plaza Hotel on September 13, 2017, regarding the investigation into Kenneka Jenkins's death.

As news of Kenneka Jenkins's death began to spread online, amateur detectives started to believe that something bad had happened to the 19-year-old girl.

According to The New York Times, people began reviewing video footage of Jenkins's last party online. They identified her in the background of many clips and even claimed to have found the reflection of another woman in sunglasses. Some even claimed they could discern people talking about rape and murder among the party chatter.

Online theories ranged from organ trafficking to a $200 murder committed by Jenkins's friends. Others argued that even if they were not convinced of murder, the police and hotel staff did not prioritize the search for Kenneka Jenkins because she was Black.

“I’m not trying to turn this into something,” one person wrote on Twitter, “but to be honest, if Kenneka Jenkins were white, this would be news.”

Kenneka Jenkins's mother's own statements reflected this sentiment.

“If they had taken me seriously and checked immediately, they could have found my daughter much earlier, and maybe she would be alive,” she told Chicago Tribune.

As CBS News reports, Jenkins's autopsy revealed that the young girl died of hypothermia. Alcohol and a prescription medication for epilepsy/migraine, topiramate, were found in her system, which could have led to symptoms such as “dizziness, memory loss, concentration problems, poor coordination, confusion, and impaired judgment.”

Police ruled Kenneka Jenkins's death an accident and closed the case. However, some continued to ponder what had happened to her, and Jenkins was featured in MTV's true crime series in 2020.

However, Teresa Martin believes she knows who is responsible for her daughter's death. Not her friends or a malicious serial killer, but the hotel staff and the police.

“To me, they helped kill my child,” she said, “the police department and this hotel.”