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Writer's pictureLoVetta Jenkins

Tangled Web: Timeline Surfaces for Night of Kenneka Jenkins' Death.


In the three days since the untimely death of Kenneka Jenkins more questions than answers have surfaced. Amid all of the finger pointing, blaming and cryptic social media posts from her "friends", there is little truth being discovered and tons of different variations of the same story. What we don't know is what Kenneka was doing between 11:30pm Friday night and 1:30am Saturday morning when she spoke with here sister for the last time. Here is a timeline of the events that took place as we know it.

Timeline via Chicago Tribune:

• 11:30 p.m. Friday. Kenneka Jenkins leaves her West Side home to go to a party with friends in a hotel room at the Crowne Plaza Chicago O'Hare Hotel & Conference Center in Rosemont, according to her mother, Tereasa Martin.

• 1:30 a.m. Saturday. Jenkins' sister speaks to Jenkins by phone. The family says that's the last time they hear from her.

• 1:36 a.m. Saturday. A livestream video on Facebook appears to show the hotel room on the ninth floor where the party is being held. The video — which has gotten more than 4 million views — features a woman in mirrored sunglasses talking to the camera. Reflected in her glasses is the other side of the hotel room, where Jenkins appears to be sitting.

• 3:20 a.m. Saturday. Jenkins is seen on surveillance video "staggering" drunk near the front desk, according to authorities. The family says they aren't told about this until 10 p.m. that night.

• 4 a.m. Saturday. Jenkins' friends call her mother to say they lost track of Jenkins at the hotel. The friends say they are in the car Martin lent her daughter for the night, and they have Jenkins' cellphone, according to Martin.

• 5 a.m. Saturday. Jenkins' family go to the hotel looking for her. Martin says hotel staff told her they needed a missing persons report from police before they could start reviewing surveillance video. Martin calls Rosemont police and is told to wait a few hours before filing the report. They file the report later that morning.

• 1:15 p.m. Saturday. Police notify the hotel about the missing teen and a search begins on the ninth floor and the public areas of the hotel, according to Rosemont police.

• 3-4 p.m. Saturday. Jenkins' mother said she doesn't believe the hotel began reviewing surveillance video until the middle of the afternoon.

• 6 p.m. Saturday. Frustrated with the search, relatives say they begin knocking on room doors to see if any guests know anything. The hotel calls police to complain about the knocking. Martin said one of the responding officers agrees to view the surveillance video again.

• 10 p.m. Saturday. Police tell the family that Jenkins has been spotted on video from around 3:20 a.m. that day.

• 12:25 a.m. Sunday. Jenkins is discovered in a walk-in freezer in a vacant area of the hotel. She had been missing nearly 24 hours.

• 12:48 a.m. Sunday. Jenkins is pronounced dead, according to the Cook County medical examiner's office. The cause of death remains undetermined after an autopsy the next day, pending further studies and investigation.

• Around 5 a.m. Sunday. Martin is allowed to see her daughter's body. She says the body had been removed from the freezer, which appeared to have been defrosted. “Her hair had soaking water up on there," she told reporters.

Irene Roberts, one of the "friends" who was with Kenneka on the night that she died posted her side of the story on Facebook from an account that has since been deleted. Click through to read the entire post.

To me, the whole story smells fishy and it appears that no one is telling the complete truth. According to the Chicago Tribune, at this time, no one knows "how Jenkins died or whether there were signs of trauma. Jenkins' family said they were initially told by police that Jenkins apparently let herself into the freezer while drunk and died inside. But a police spokesman said on Monday that nothing has been ruled out. The medical examiner's office says the cause of death remains undetermined pending further studies and investigation.• Police initially said the freezer was running at the time, but a spokesman later appeared to back off that comment. It's also unknown whether there was a lever inside that would have allowed Jenkins to get out."

There's still a lot that is unclear with this case but, trust and believe, I'm still going to be following it closely.

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