A popular Chicago activist who claims to have seen surveillance footage of Kenneka Jenkins hours before her death said Thursday that the young woman entered the hotel’s walk-in freezer alone and was not forced inside.
Andrew Holmes, who has worked in the community for decades fighting against violence, told the Chicago Tribune that detectives in Rosemont allowed him to view the video on Wednesday when he went to seek answers on behalf of Jenkins’ family.
‘We all was wondering and wanted to know did anybody pull her down there?’ Holmes told reporters Thursday.
‘Did anybody force her down there? Was anybody on the other side in that room when she got down there? And the answer to that is ‘no.’
Jenkins’ body was discovered in the industrial, walk-in freezer at The Crowne Plaza Hotel and Conference Center in Rosemont, a suburb of Chicago, on Saturday at around midnight.
A Chicago activist who claims to have seen surveillance footage of Kenneka Jenkins hours before her death said Thursday that she entered the hotel’s walk-in freezer alone and was not forced inside. She is seen (right) hours beforehand in a bathroom inside the hotel
Kenneka was filmed by friends partying in the hotel room (L) and in an elevator (R) hours before she died. Holmes said that Jenkins was alone when she wandered to a lower level area of the hotel and appears to be disoriented
She had gone missing around 24 hours earlier after partying with friends in one of the hotel’s rooms.
Viral Facebook videos of their antics around the time she vanished are being investigated by police alongside surveillance footage from 47 cameras inside the hotel.
Holmes said one of the surveillance videos shows the 19-year-old woman waiting in the lobby of the hotel after her friends reportedly went up to the room to retrieve items they left behind.
He said that the video shows Jenkins take an elevator to a lower level before she wanders around and opens doors appearing to be disoriented.
At midnight on Saturday, she was found dead in a freezer at the hotel (file above). Friends say they lost her after leaving her alone in a hallway momentarily. Holmes said: ‘It was just an accident waiting to happen’
Police plan to show he woman’s mother, Tereasa Martin (above outsider her home), the same surveillance footage that Holmes viewed. Authorities say they will release it to the public once the investigation is complete
He said that she opened two doors in a kitchen area and walked inside of the large freezer before the doors shut behind her.
‘It was just an accident waiting to happen,’ Holmes told the newspaper.
His account of what occurred differs from the social media speculation that the teen was murdered.
Holmes said that the theories circulating online about Jenkins are ‘just something they made up on social media.’
He urged people with hard information to call the police.
Rosemont police said they will show the video to the woman’s mother, Tereasa Martin, before they release it to the public at the end of the investigation.
Martin said that she plans to view the video with her attorney Larry Rogers.