Police are looking into a viral video that has been circulating across social media that apparently shows a young woman in a Rosemont, Ill., hotel room hours before she disappeared while at a party, only to later be found dead in the hotel freezer.
The Chicago Tribune reports that investigators have also been going over surveillance video and questioning potential witnesses as they investigate the death of 19-year-old Kenneka Jenkins.
It is still unclear how the teen died or why she was in the freezer in what was a vacant area at the Crowne Plaza hotel. The report notes that an autopsy Sunday did not determine a cause of death, and the medical examiner’s office is still awaiting toxicology tests and further investigation by police before making a ruling. Police have declined to say whether any signs of trauma were found on Jenkins’ body.
Gary Mack, a spokesperson for Rosemont, confirmed that police were looking into a Facebook Live video that seems to show Jenkins sitting on a bed in a hotel room with other people around her.
The video has been viewed more than 4 million times on Facebook and shows a woman in sunglasses talking into the camera. The other side of the hotel room is reflected in the mirrored lenses of her shades, apparently showing where Jenkins appears to be sitting, the Tribune notes.
Mack said that law-enforcement officers have identified most of the individuals seen in the video.
“Yes, they’ve looked at it and continue to look at it and all the other social media videos and posts,” Mack told the Tribune. “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 on Facebook has sparked a lot of social media outrage and speculation, and many believe that Jenkins was either set up or the victim of foul play.
Social media users aren’t the only ones who suspect foul play. Jenkins’ family also voiced their concerns about what actually happened to their loved one.
“It’s something that no one could ever imagine. It’s unbelievable,” Jenkins’ mother, Teresa Martin, said earlier. “I believe that someone in this hotel killed my child.”
Police reportedly initially told the family that Jenkins was intoxicated and walked into the freezer, but Martin questions how her daughter would have been able to open the heavy freezer doors on her own if she had, in fact, been intoxicated.
“Those were double steel doors; she didn’t just pop them open,” she said.
In addition, Martin said that the “friends” Jenkins was with the night of her death kept changing their stories “over and over again” when pressed for answers about what happened to her daughter.
Read more at the Chicago Tribune.