Kenneka Jenkins’ autopsy released after death in Rosemont hotel freezer

Kenneka Jenkins, the 19-year-old Chicago woman found dead in a hotel freezer in northwest suburban Rosemont last month, died of hypothermia, according to the Cook County medical examiner’s office.

WATCH: HOTEL SURVEILLANCE VIDEOS OF KENNEKA JENKINS

Her death was ruled an accident. Alcohol and topiramate intoxication – a prescription drug used to treat epilepsy and migraines – were listed as contributing factors, the Chicago Sun-Times is reporting. Jenkins’ family said she was not prescribed topiramate.

Attorneys for Jenkins’ mother also filed an emergency petition to preserve all surveillance recordings taken inside the Crowne Plaza Hotel from before the time Jenkins was found dead in an unused freezer last month.

WATCH: HOTEL SURVEILLANCE VIDEOS OF KENNEKA JENKINS

The filing also asks the hotel to produce a schedule of any employees and independent contractors who were at the hotel from Sept. 8 through Sept. 10.

Also included in the filing – and not previously disclosed publicly – are results from Jenkins’ postmortem examination.

WATCH: HOTEL SURVEILLANCE VIDEOS OF KENNEKA JENKINS

The filing states that Jenkins’ organs were all present and intact; there was no evidence of physical injury or bruising – including no head, neck, arm or back trauma.

Jenkins left her home near the United Center at 11:30 p.m. Sept. 8 to go to a party in a room of the Crowne Plaza, according to Rosemont Police. Jenkins’ sister last heard from her via text message about 1:30 a.m. Sept. 9.

WATCH: HOTEL SURVEILLANCE VIDEOS OF KENNEKA JENKINS

About 4 a.m. on Sept. 9, Jenkins’ friends called her mother to tell her they could not find her, longtime Chicago anti-violence activist Andrew Holmes has said. An hour later, Tereasa Martin – who had recently undergone a double mastectomy – was at the hotel. She filled out a police report and Jenkins’ sister reported her missing.

Kenneka Jenkins.

Jenkins was last seen at a party on the ninth floor in the early hours of Sept. 9, police said. She was reported missing at 1:16 p.m. that afternoon. Police told Martin that surveillance footage showed Jenkins inebriated near the front desk, according to Holmes.

Hotel staff and management searched the hotel and discovered Jenkins inside a freezer at 12:24 a.m. Sept. 10, police said.

In Friday’s court filing, Martin’s attorneys disclosed that Jenkins’ body had no signs of physical trauma – including no signs of sexual assault.

In the days and weeks after her death, Twitter and Facebook were flooded with conspiracy theories about how Jenkins had died, with some speculating that she was murdered in the freezer and her organs were harvested.

Though no lawsuit has been filed, Martin’s attorneys contend that employees knew the party – which had 20 underage attendees and was funded with a stolen credit card, according to police – was going on. The motion also states that several of the hotel’s walk-in freezers are equipped with padlocks, but not the one Jenkins was found in.

Additionally, Martin’s attorneys say that though they’ve been provided most security footage they’ve requested, no footage from two other cameras has been given to them. Specifically, from one camera “near the upstairs abandoned kitchen; and, another outside the lower level functioning kitchen.”

A spokesman for the Crowne Plaza Hotel said in a statement, “We wish to express our condolences to the family and friends of Kenneka Jenkins. Today’s Cook County Medical Examiner report, which found the young woman died accidentally, must be confusing and difficult for all who knew her. Her death has stunned our company and saddened employees. As we previously assured the family’s attorney, we will preserve all the evidence they requested, including video recordings and documents. In fact, we have already done so.”

Hotel security footage previously released by the Rosemont police shows Jenkins walking through the hotel in the hours before her death. She can be seen stumbling and struggling to keep her balance, though none of the footage shows her going into the freezer.

Among the clips, Jenkins can be seen arriving at the hotel with three other people shortly after midnight Saturday. Subsequent clips show her stumbling off elevators and walking alone through hallways.

Rosemont Police said their investigation remains active and they are searching for two people who they believe rented the room in the hotel with a stolen credit card for the party Jenkins attended. Police said one of those people, a woman, has four active warrants out for her arrest.

After her death, protesters gathered for several weeks outside the Crowne Plaza, chanting, demanding “Justice For Kenneka” and calling for an independent investigation into her death by the FBI – an idea the Rosemont Police Department quickly quashed.

WLS-TV contributed to this report.

Source: ( Sun-Times Media Wire – Copyright Chicago Sun-Times 2017.)

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Turkish military vehicles enter Syria’s Idlib: sources

BEIRUT (Reuters) – Turkish military vehicles crossed the Syrian border into Idlib on Sunday, a local resident and a local rebel said, after Ankara announced an operation by rebel groups in the area, which is controlled by rival jihadist alliance Tahrir al-Sham.

Both sources said the vehicles travelled under escort from Tahrir al-Sham, whose fighters accompanied them along a road. However, the jihadists and the Turkish military had earlier exchanged fire in a nearby area.

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said on Saturday that Syrian rebels backed by Turkish forces would launch an operation in Idlib and warned that Turkey would not allow “a terrorist corridor” near its borders.

The operation follows a deal between Turkey and Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s allies Russia and Iran to impose a “de-escalation” zone in Idlib and surrounding areas to reduce warfare there, an agreement that did not include Tahrir al-Sham.

Reuters witnesses, the local resident and local rebel, and the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based war monitor, said the Turkish military and Tahrir al-Sham exchanged fire near the village of Kafr Lusin in Idlib early on Sunday.

The clashes involved Tahrir al-Sham firing on a Turkish bulldozer removing sections of a border wall and Turkish artillery returning fire, the local resident and rebel and the Reuters witness said.

Idlib and neighbouring parts of northwest Syria represent the country’s biggest and most populous rebel stronghold, home to more than two million people, many of them refugees from other regions.

Rebel groups taking part in the operation — part of the Euphrates Shield campaign that Turkey has backed with armour and troops in another part of Syria to the east of Idlib since last year — said on Saturday they expected it to start very soon.

Tahrir al-Sham said any incursion into Idlib would “not be a picnic” for its enemies.

Tahrir al-Sham is spearheaded by the former Nusra Front, which was al Qaeda’s Syrian branch until last year, when it changed its name and broke formal allegiance to the global movement founded by Osama bin Laden.

It has been a formidable military force since early in the conflict, often fighting alongside other rebel groups, but since early this year it has battled them as it tried to gain control over areas including Idlib.

Turkey has been one of the biggest supporters of rebels fighting Syrian President Bashar al-Assad during the six-and-a-half-year war, but its focus has moved from ousting him to securing its own border.

reporting by Angus McDowell; editing by John Stonestreet

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