Jenkins’ mother filed the now-settled lawsuit, accusing the Crowne Plaza Chicago-O’Hare hotel and others of being careless and failing to do more to locate her daughter before she died once trapped inside the freezer.
The family of a 19-year-old Black woman found dead inside a Chicago-area hotel freezer six years ago will get over $6 million reached in a wrongful death
Martin claimed that hotel and security officials did not analyze video footage quickly enough to assist in the search for her daughter, who was discovered after nearly 24 hours of searching in an underused freezer in what her legal team characterized as an under-construction kitchen. She also claimed that personnel neglected to intervene in the ninth-floor party, which had provoked multiple complaints from hotel guests.
The autopsy report said that the freezer door had a mechanism to open it from the inside, but it did not explain why the young woman would not have been able to escape the fatal cold. Martin’s legal team believes someone outside the freezer sealed the door — which they claim should have been locked in the first place — without realizing Jenkins was inside.
The Cook County medical examiner’s office deemed Jenkins’ death accidental, adding that intoxication from alcohol and topiramate, a drug used to treat epilepsy and migraine headaches, “were significant contributing factors,” NPR reported.
Rosemont police officers agreed with the accidental death determination.
Jenkins’ death attracted widespread attention and generated various conspiracy theories. It also highlighted the disproportionate rate at which Black people, particularly women and young Black girls, go missing in the United States each year.
“It hurts,” Martin said when she filed the lawsuit. “It’s a pain that I can’t even explain. I don’t even understand.”
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The post Over $6M to be given to the family of Kenneka Jenkins, who was found in a freezer in 2017 appeared first on TheGrio.
