Viral Facebook video becomes focus in Kenneka Jenkins investigation

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Police are looking into surveillance video of the hotel where a 19-year-old young woman was found dead in the walk-in freezer as well as Facebook video that has since gone viral showing her partying with her friends.

Kenneka Jenkins‘ mother, Tereasa Martin, said that she last saw her daughter on Friday night as she headed out with her friends to a party at the Crowne Plaza Chicago O’Hare Hotel & Conference Center. In the early hours of Saturday morning, Martin was contacted by friends who could not find Jenkins, though the hotel did not organize a search for the missing teenager until hours later.

Jenkins’ body was found at last inside the walk-in freezer, and she was pronounced dead at 12:48 a.m. Sunday.

An autopsy conducted on Sunday did not reveal a cause of death, and the medical examiner’s office said that it is waiting on toxicology reports as police investigate further.

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Rosemont spokesman Gary Mack said that police are also reviewing a Facebook Live video that appears to show Jenkins at the hotel with other people around her.

“Yes, they’ve looked at it and continue to look at it and all the other social media videos and posts,” Mack told the Chicago Tribune on Monday. “They are leaving no stone unturned as far as trying to corral everyone they can and talk to them and interview them about what happened and what was going on that night.”

The video has since gone viral, especially with Martin’s claims that there was no way her daughter could have trapped herself in the walk-in freezer while she was drunk, as investigators have postulated. Martin has insisted that her daughter met with foul play, and because of that, there have been threats made against the people in the video.

Mack added that social media attention has become commonplace in investigations and that it will not interfere with the investigation.

“In law enforcement this kind of social media has become king, so everybody with a camera is a reporter now, and they’re just taking it in stride as best they can,” Mack said.