Chicago teen Kenneka Jenkins found dead in hotel freezer
ROSEMONT, Ill. -- Hotel employees found the body of a missing 19-year-old Chicago woman Sunday inside a suburban hotel's freezer.
The Cook County Medical Examiner's Office says Kenneka Jenkins was pronounced dead at the Crowne Plaza Hotel in the Chicago suburb of Rosemont. It says her cause of death is not yet confirmed although an autopsy has been completed.
Rosemont police say hotel staff discovered Jenkins inside the walk-in freezer. They say she was last seen at a party at the hotel early Saturday morning. She was reported missing Saturday afternoon.
The woman's mother, Tereasa Martin, told the Chicago Tribune that police told her Jenkins apparently let herself into the freezer while drunk.
Martin said that if her daughter was drunk, she would have had difficulty opening the heavy freezer doors and would've realized she wasn't entering an elevator or the hotel entrance
Martin told reporters outside the hotel on Sunday morning that she was struggling to understand what had happened.
"(I'm) horrified," she said, according to the Chicago Tribune. "It's something that no one could ever imagine. It's unbelievable."
Hotel staff and Jenkins' family members searched for her for 11 hours before someone opened the walk-in freezer, according to the Tribune.