November 3, 2017 • 48 mins
Nancy Grace explores the mystery of Kenneka's Jenkins death inside a freezer at a Chicago hotel. Investigator say she was so drunk after a party that she accidentally walked into the freezer and was locked inside, but her family suspects she was murdered. Larry Rogers Jr., the lawyer for Kenneka's mother, joins Nancy and crime scene investigator Sheryl McCollum, CrimeOnline reporter Jacqueline Gray and co-host Alan Duke. A 911 call recording reveals how police initially discouraged the 19-year-old's mother from immediately filing a missing persons report, a delay her family thinks contributed to the teen's death.
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with Nancy Grace on Sirius XM Triumph Channel one thirty
two number one. There emergency And I was comming because
(01:52):
my daughter came to this party here last night. I
gathering with a frand now her friends. They said, to
the left on the front of the hotel, and she's
not able to be found. Now give a couple of hours.
You know she could have won, you know, she could
once more. With one of her other friends. The mom
went to the front desk, asking will you please look
at the videos from the very beginning, and got nothing
but resistance from the Crown Plaza Hotel. The inference today
(02:13):
that had Kannika and how or the security cameras jack
sooner she might be alive. They never looked for they
never did anything while a young nineteen year old disoriented
girl was sitting in their freezer. We beg if I happen,
No one happens. Uh subjects in the kitchen and a freezers.
A beautiful young girl dead trapped in a freezer? How
(02:40):
did that happen? Right now? Many theories swirling as the
investigation goes on into the death of a beautiful young girl,
Kanneka Jenkins. I mean, I see grace. This is crime Stories.
Thank you for being with us. With me special guest
Larry Rogers, junior lawyer for the family of Kannika Jenkins,
(03:02):
a well known a veteran trial lawyer. Also with me
Cheryl McCullum, crime scene analyst and the director of the
Cold Case Institute. Questions swirling around the death of this
young girl, Kaneka Jenkins found debt in highly questionable circumstances.
(03:24):
Out to Crime online dot Com investigative reporter Jacqueline Gray, Jacqueline,
tell me what you know about this case. Kannica left
out of her house late on September eight to go
to the Crown Plaza hotel in Rosemont, Illinois, and by
about three am the next day, her friends alerted her
(03:46):
mother that they couldn't find her. So her mother went
to the hotel searching for her daughter, and over the
course of what twelve hours, they end up finding her body.
In a freezer in an area that was under construction.
From what I recall, Larry Rogers, when she was found
(04:11):
dead from hypothermia inside an industrial type refrigerator there in
the bottom of pretty high end hotel. Her pants were
pulled down around her hips, her shirt was pulled up
around her bra her her jeans were filthy as if
(04:31):
she had been dragged along the ground. There were abrasions
to her knee area, her legs, her face. There is
no way this is accidental. And what's interesting, Larry Rogers,
is the night before she had been all dressed up
to go to a fancy party there in the hotel.
(04:54):
There's no way this girl, who took so much care
getting all dressed up with all her little friends, went
anywhere covered in dirt. That's not how it went down, Larry.
Let's start at the beginning. What happened? You know, That's
exactly what her mother, Uh the question she raised when
she contacted me. She wanted me to help her figure
(05:17):
out what happened to Kanika, her daughter. Uh. This is
this is one of the worst tragedies I've seen, um
and it's quite frankly, as you indicated, shocking that this
young lady was found in the condition she was found
where she was found. Her shirt had been pulled up
with her breast exposed, her pants were slightly pulled down
(05:39):
below her waistline, her her shoe, one of her shoes,
was off, and she was her clothing was dirty. And
as you indicated, she had gone out for a night
of fun with some friends. Uh and and then she
ends up in this remote area of the hotel, in
an unused kitchen, in a freezer that, for I'm explained
(06:00):
unexplained reason, was on a freezer that was not being used.
It had nothing in it, but it was on in
a in an abandoned portion of the kitchen. So there
are a lot of questions that need to be answered,
and we've committed to the mind and we'll get to
the bottom of it. Joining me Cheryl McCullum, crime scene
analysts and expert renowned in her field, now the director
(06:22):
of the Cold Case Investigative Research Institute. Cheryl, thanks for
being with us along with Larry Rogers, junior trial lawyer
representing Knnika's family. Let's take it from the beginning. You know,
I met with her mother, Cheryl, along with Larry when
we were all at Dr Oz and her mom just
(06:43):
broke my heart because I got the feeling that she
felt if she yelled or cursed or through some kind
of a fit trying to find her daughter should be mistreated.
And you know what, she was right because os they
go to the hotel. What was the hotel, Larry, the Crown,
Crown Plausa. That's right, Clouds Crown in Rosema, Chicago, really
(07:08):
high end. The Crown hotels are pretty nice. So she
was there, Cheryl with all her little girl friends, all
dressed up and cute, and you know how teen girls are,
and um, so she goes then this is what the mom.
I heard the mom say that she gets to call
(07:29):
at four o'clock in the morning and Kanick a little
friends say, we can't find Kanka, And the mom is
like what because they were all three together. So she
immediately dials her daughter her teen girls phone, and one
of the three friends picking up go, we've got her
cell phone too, So the mom they come get the mom.
(07:50):
The mom comes over there, they totally blow the mom off.
They asked to see the security video, which got a
huge security bank a video Cheryl. They won't let them
look at the video. And they won't start searching the hotel.
They say, basically, oh, she's at with friends. Now, this
child has been described as drunk. She was not drunk.
(08:10):
She was not repeat, not drunk or high on drugs.
That's not true. So they look and they look and
they look Cheryl like, I forgot how many eighteen twenty
four hours later, the police finally, somebody finally finds her
dead in a freezer. You know, she could have been saved,
(08:31):
you know that, right if they had just looked at
the crime at the video surveillance is shows her and
it shows where she was going to, like a construction
type unused area that completely abandoned. I don't know how
she got down there because that Crown hotels like a maze.
So what do you make of it? Now that I've
given you the setup, Nancy Cook a little bit of
(08:54):
time to really go over these calm seen photographs. And
these are the things that jumped out at me as
four main things. One the shoe that's off, the shoe
that is off of her body, the right shoe you
can see blood on her foot, so that shoe was
not taken off because her body started to heat up.
She removed that shoe because she was injured. You can
(09:17):
see the blood plain is day. The other thing that
bothers me about her shoes is their brand new. They
are clean, they are white. I mean, she was excited
about putting on this outfit. But there's some scuff marks
on the shoe that they're gonna have to explain to me.
And specifically they are scuff marks up near the ankles
(09:37):
on the inside that to me could very possibly be
indicative of somebody being drugs um. The other problem that
I'm having is the pocket of her pants has turned
inside out, like somebody went into her pocket. She wouldn't
have done that. She would have corrected her pocket immediately
if she had gone to look for a key or
(09:58):
something like that. U And then the other thing that's
very telling to me if you watch the video where
she's walking in the kitchen area toward what looks like
would be where the freezer is, even though it's a
video of that, for some reason, her hair is straight.
If you look at the crime scene photograph, her hair
is now curly. Now, hold on, hold on to Larry Rogers,
(10:23):
junior lawyer for Kannika Jenkins family. Do you remember what
the mom told us Larry. She said that she went
to go and she wanted to see the crime scene,
and they went and't let her. Then she said she
saw the body and she just looked at She said
Kanika's hair was a mess and she would never have
(10:44):
done that. Uh. Yes, this this is a beautiful young girl.
She by all accounts, she was just having a night
out with some friends. She was not a bad girl.
She was working. She was a great young ay. Her
mom had a great relationship with her. And a testament
to that is the fact that when her friends told
(11:05):
her they were missing, no one for one moment that
she ever left that hotel. Her friends now, she had
to be somewhere in the hotel. When her mom, Teresa
came out within hours, she went straight to the front
desk and said she would never have left. She's here
in this hotel and they would not take a moment,
just a moment to take a look at the video
surveillance cameras and that would have saved this young lady's life.
(11:29):
Investigative reporter her crime Online Jacqueline Great Jacqueline, what jumps
out at you about what went wrong that night? A
few things jump out and most of the things that
jump out is after Teresa Martina's mother went to the
hotel looking for help, the hotel staff wouldn't look at
(11:50):
the footage until much hours later. She was also threatened
with the rest. She called the dispatcher and they told
her to just take it easy, you know, go home. Um,
she'll probably turn up. And that's not, in my opinion,
not the appropriate response to a mother who knows her
child's missing. And she was right, you know, her child
(12:12):
end up dying. Meanwhile, she was trying to find her
and she was getting no help from police or from
the hotel staff. And that's you know, one thing that
pops out to me right now. It would have saved
her life. It absolutely would have saved her life. Cheryl McCollum,
maybe there's no question about it, But I want to
get back to the importance of her hair for a minute.
(12:35):
When ever I was on your show, sometimes y'all was
occasionally straightened my hair. Well, I've got an actually curly hair.
The minute there was any humidity, any moisture, my hair
would revert back to being curly. That means her hair
was either wet or she was sweaty. Something happened to
make her hair go back curly, Nancy. That is not
(12:58):
somebody that went into a free there, passed out and
froze to death. That's not what happened here. And you
don't have to look any further than her hair to
know that. And something else that needs to happen. Um,
unless they already know, because I haven't seen the photograph,
it doesn't appear that there's scuff marks on the inside
of that door where she would have been kicking it
(13:20):
trying to get out. I don't see any marks like that.
Her fingernails are feel intact. There's there's so many questions
surrounding this case. For me, Nancy, it is horrifying. Newly
released surveillance video shows Kanika stumbling in the hallway, she
got lost within the hotel, and then we later discover
(13:42):
apparently someone had slipped a very dangerous drug. Chryl McCollum
is called to a pyramid and it is an anti
seizure drug. It is also a pain drug and um
it can make you very very disoriented. This little girl
had never in her life been caught with drugs, been alcohol,
(14:07):
nothing like that in her life. This was a good student.
Her mother depended on her. She had a job the works.
Very actually, I don't want to say a loner because
that has a bad connotation. She reminds me a lot
of my little girl, Lucy. She's very, very shy, you know, Cheryl.
(14:30):
Any night I say, hey, do you guys want to
go out to dinner? And John David is all like, yeah, Mom,
let's go for tacos and then we'll go to frozen yoga.
And Lucy's like, I just want to go home. You
know what, No matter how are you trying to tempt
them that she always wants to come home. That she
really was a sweet girl. Yeah, her mom convinced me,
(14:51):
and the sister that I talked to also she was
a real homebody. And I just don't see it. Cheryl,
I don't see it at all. I don't see it either,
nath You know, I'll tell you something else that really
confirms me. As you know, I've got two teenagers now,
and to get them away and separate them from the
cell phone takes they act the Congress practically. The fact
(15:13):
that she was somehow separated from her cell phone confirms
me greatly. She would not have done that, and that
means she had no way to call for help. Cheryl
I left something out to Larry Rogers Jr. Uh renewed lawyer.
There's representing Kannika Jenkins family. So the mom comes to
the hotel. They won't let her look at the security video.
(15:35):
They won't look at the security video. Finally, some of
the kids that were at the party, they have cell
phone pictures of Kanika before that night, and they start
going from door to door begging people, have you seen her?
Have you seen her? Do you know what they do?
They throw the family out, They kick them out and
(15:56):
call police. All the family, hello is the right? Did
not take their Their pleas, for their pleas for assistance
and for help, even just looking at the cameras were ignored,
and they got desperate. They were looking for her. They
knew that she was not the type of young lady
they would have left the hotel. They knocked on doors,
(16:16):
someone even pulled a fire alarm, and the only wait, wait, wait,
tell us that part, tell us that part. They were
so desperate to find her, and nobody was helping them.
Tell them. What tell Sheryl? What happened? Larry Rodgers, one
of the one of the young people pulled the fire
alarm because they felt she was somewhere in the hotel.
(16:36):
They didn't know if she was in the room and
someone had abducted her exactly what had happened. And that's
the only thing that really prompted the beginnings of an
investigation by by the Roseman Police Department. They finally came
out and said, what's really going on here? And that's
really what prompted. So a lot of credit has to
be given to this family and to these young people
(16:58):
knowing Kinika and knowing that she might have left that hotel.
If they're pleased, had only been heard by the hotel staff,
this young lady would be alive today. Well, I'm telling
you it's a it's a sorry day. It is a
sad day, Cheryl, when you you can't get any help
and you have to pull the darn fire alarm to
(17:20):
get someone to pay attention to you trying to say
your daughter is missing and she's somewhere in this hotel,
can you help me find her? They had to pull
the fire alarm. Now listen to this timeline and correct
me if I'm wrong, Larry Rogers, because you know the
timeline better than me. This team girl was seen leaving
the elevator alone, which she had not left alone. She
(17:43):
was with the little girlfriends to start with. At three
twenty a m. Somebody somewhere had slipped her topiramate, okay,
which is not a street drug, all right, Nobody in
her family has ever had topiramide. It's a seizure medication.
And she is just struggling to even keep her balance,
(18:04):
and you see her. I don't know where the security
guards were at the Crown Plaza Hotel, but they sure.
We're not looking at the security bank because she can
hardly walk. She's falling into the walls, and this is
not from being drunk. She then espotted somehow down in
this maze of a kitchen there beneath the Crown Plaza Hotel,
(18:25):
and she gets somehow, somehow to completely abandoned area that
has not been locked off from for people to come into.
Then there's no camera that shows how she got put
into that freezer, but we know somewhere something went wrong.
Her hair is a mess, there's blood on her foot,
(18:46):
her pants are pulled down, her shirt is pulled up.
Everything is askew. There's no scuff marks, nothing to show
she tried to get out I don't quite understand it,
but the whole thing was she did a three twenty
a m or should have been spotted on the security video.
That's what it shows now that we've gotten a chance
(19:07):
to look at it. Do you know when they finally
told police they were on the phone with a mom
at four am, we can't find Kanika one pm. Then
that day that almost twelve hours passed. Actually it was
more like twenty one hours. It was the next morning
(19:27):
that they finally looked Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, it was
by the time they found her. She goes missing at
three twenty am. It was after one am she's found dead.
All that time, Cheryl, the parents, the mom was begging
for help, couldn't get anybody to listen. Let me pause
(19:50):
right now in our search for justice in this case
and thank our partner who is making our investigation possible.
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Zoom thank you for making our investigation into the death
of Kannika Jenkins possible today with me as a veteran
(21:37):
trial lawyer, Larry Rogers Jr. And Director of the Cold
Case Institute, Cheryl McCollum, Jacqueline Gray, Crime Online investigative reporter,
What more can you tell me? My whole I was
having while I was writing about this and reading about
it was there was why was she down there? You
know that it was an under construction area. They had
(21:59):
cam us everywhere but the freezer, which I would feel
like that would be lucky, huge liability of freezer, you know,
heavy freezer. It's not being supervised. That whole part I
feel like hasn't been acknowledged by the hotel. It seems
like right now they're doing a lot of damage control,
but they're not really giving still giving us enough information
to work with to get a timeline out of the
(22:21):
forty six or so cameras that they had surveillance cameras
that they had there on the premises, there are two
significant ones that would have captured her path towards this kitchen,
and for some and strange reason, they're claiming those were
not working. Just a lot of unexplained um issues here
(22:43):
with this case, and we want to get to the
bottom of them. Nathan, I got to jump in here
as a Crown State investigator. I'll pull a video from
hotels all the time. All you have to do is
type in the date and the time it is all digital.
It would have shown them immediately. It would not have
taken ten minutes Nancy to see her path and to
(23:07):
follow it. And Carl, Cheryl, Larry, I know I told you.
Larry knows this story, Cheryl. Did I ever tell you?
When I was in Arizona, and of course I knew
I'd be gone over two nights, so I took the
children with me. They at that time where I guess five.
It was during the Jodi Arias trial, and we were
(23:29):
staying in this high rise hotel and we were on
the waiting for the elevator, and it was a big
bank of elevators, like ten elevators, five on each side,
and we were waiting and one open at the far end,
and I said, that's not the one going the right way, guys, honey.
Lucy at the last second jumped on the elevator and
(23:50):
it closed. I dove for it. I dove head first
for it, Cheryl, I tried. I dove into the elevator
and it closed, just like in the movies. Cheryl, do
you hear what I'm saying? There was me and John
David and I and Lucy lost on an elevator and
it was one of those fancy elevators. I couldn't tell
what floor she got off at anything. I Oh, dear
(24:11):
Lord in heaven. I immediately went to the lobby, screaming
my head off. Left. John David with security, told them
what was happening, and I started going up floor to Florida,
Florida floor, screaming off the elevators. I was can you
imagine if some creepy, pervy tude got Lucy at four
or five years old, and the little thing thought she
(24:33):
was on our floor where we were staying, and was
trying to find it. Well, I went every floor, I
couldn't find her. I was dialing nine on one, I
was on the elevator and it wouldn't go through. I
got off the elevator, hit sin for nine on one
and turned to my left and there was a security
with Lucy, A lady with Lucy and John David. A
lady had found her like three floors down, wandering the
(24:56):
hall alone. Cheryl a to where she was going and
took her down to the lobby. What I experienced and
that twenty minutes I never want to think about again.
And that's what this mom has been living through ever
since this happened, Cheryl, inexcusable and according to the Lauren
(25:18):
lawyer with me right now, Larry Roger says, the hotel
quote never checked, they never searched, they never did anything
while a young teen girl was dying in their freezer.
Why why, Larry. It's inexplicable. It's inexcusable, and we expect
the hold of the before we accountable for it. The
(25:40):
Crown Plaza has not produced any legitimate explanation for why
they couldn't do the simple thing of looking at the cameras.
Why do you have the cameras if you don't even
take the time to do what I'm just so beside
myself about this child. And if you look at her
in the kitchen, Cheryl, this is just before she is
(26:01):
in the freezer. Her hair is straight, her pants are
on on her, her shoes are fine. There's no cut,
nothing like that. She's perfectly fine, still all dressed up,
with her hair all done up and a little Jeane
outfit on. She's fine. I'm looking at her right now
as we're talking. I'm looking at the video walking through
(26:21):
that abandoned kitchen, probably trying to find her way out
of there. She's fine. Well, Nathy, let me just safety obvious.
We keep being told that nobody was watching those cameras.
We don't know that maybe somebody did see her, maybe
somebody followed her after a little while. Another thing. Larry Rogers,
junior lawyer for the Kannika Jenkins family. The mother told
(26:43):
me that when she went down to see the freezer,
when they finally let her see it, that there was
a video camera on top of it, blinking red and
she said, what did that camera show? Remember what she said, Larry,
that's correct. She thinks that she She's described consistently a
(27:04):
camera that she says should have captured her daughter walking
in that freezer. And we've been able to identify any
footage that they've produced from a camera that that depicts that. Uh,
and not only that, there are other cameras that would
should have caught her path that Again, we've got no
footage from their claiming that they weren't working at the time.
(27:26):
So again, a lot of unanswered questions, um, a lot
of questions about her. Now we have reached out to
the Crown Plaza, the Crown a Plaza hotel and have
not heard anything back from them. Now, I don't know
what that means nothing, but I'm anxious to hear their
side of this. I want to hear their side of this.
(27:47):
What else does the autopsy reveal? Uh, Larry Rogers Junior
with me, Cheryl McCullum with me, Cheryl, what did you
see that sparked her interest in her autopsy? Well, be
plee that were a boid. Alcohol was not that high
to you know, be indicative of her walking the way
she was walking. But the drugs in her system or
(28:07):
the drug in her system again, some of the folks
that have wh were at that party that have not
been interviewed by the police need to come forward. There
needs to be a full investigation of how that drug
got into her system and called her to be incapacitated. Jacqueline,
what do you make of the autopsy? What I make
(28:30):
out of it is that there's not really much hair.
It just seems like another effort to brush off her
death as an accident. Um. One of the biggest things
that I noticed in the autopsy was they had said
she died from hypothermia with alcohol intoxication and to pyramid,
which is a drug that's used for to treat epilepsy
(28:52):
and migraines, and they said that that was in her
system and that it was an contributing factor. But from
what we're hearing from her family is that she was
never prescribed this drug. They have no clueoud got in
her system, and there's really no explanation why it was
in her system. They mentioned that there was no date
rate drugs in her system, that her her blood alcohol
(29:13):
content was point one one two, and at one point
they said there was no evidence that she was forced
to take the drug, which at this point I don't
get how they could tell whether she was forced or
whether it was slipped in her drink. But there's really
no explanation on why, of all the drugs, party drugs
or what not, why was this in her system. Yeah,
(29:34):
we are very concerned with Rosemont's police department having closed
the investigation so quickly and concluded that there was no
file play. A lot of the questions have not been answered.
Their hotel staff that was president in the hotel, who
has not been interviewed. UH this this investigation is far
from over and rose My prematurely that there was no
(29:58):
file play here. We need to figure exactly what happened.
Why is her why does she have the injury to
a foot that we see under the un the under
the pictures um Why does her hair look the way
it is? Why? Why if her clothing displaced? All of
those are questions that need to be answered. In addition,
why is this camera footage and video footage missing? The
(30:22):
Crown Plaza has not provided any legitimate explanation for why
there is missing video footage and in particular, why would
it be video footage? They would you know, yeah, And
I don't understand why they wouldn't let them look at
the video footage. Now, this is what they're saying now.
A spokesperson for the Crown Plaza Hotel said that they
have extended the offer to Kinnikua's family to privately view
(30:44):
thirty six total hours of surveillance footage from forty different cameras.
Inside quote. Our hearts go out to the the Kinnikua's mother,
her family and friends. We hope covering the funeral costs
provide a small bit relief for them, says the hostel
hotel spokesperson Glenn Harston. Huh, what do you what do
(31:07):
you think about that? Larry Rogers Jr. That was an
offer they extended early on, we received the video footage
and looked at it, and again there is footage that's
missing from cameras we know to have been present. And
we've got no explanation about why those cameras didn't capture
this young lady and what would have happened to that
(31:27):
video footage. Huh. So you really believe that there's missing
video footage. I know that there are cameras. I saw
them myself. I've toured the facility. I saw the cameras
and they would have captured the path that they are
describing Kanika to have been, to have traveled towards this
freezer area. And no, no video footage from those cameras
(31:49):
that she was alive at one a because she sent
a text message at one thirty a m. And that's
the last that was heard of her. You know, another
thing that really hurt me when I was talking to
the mom, Larry Rogers, was that she kept trying to
quote rein it in stay in control. And I'll tell
(32:10):
you what I think. I believe that if I told
Dr os this and said, Oz, if you had gone
to that lobby and you had asked to seeing surveillance
video and report your daughter missing. That has showed it
to you. But I think that they totally discounted her
(32:32):
because she was a woman, because it was late at night,
because she's a minority, because the whole group was perceived
as partying. And in fact, what she called one which
I'm gonna play for you in a minute, the mom
trying to report the daughter missing. And what did they
(32:52):
tell her? Larry Rogers Jr. They told her to give
it a few hours. You know, this is a mom
who knew her daughter. She got up out of her
bed and went to the hotel. She knew that Knika
would never have left the premises alone or with anyone voluntarily,
and she went out there. She reported to the Crown
Plaza staff. They didn't help her. She called nine one one.
(33:15):
Rosemont told her to give it a few hours. I
want you to hear Kniqua's mom calling nine one one,
judge for yourself. Number one was the address your emergency. Yes,
I'm at this Crown Crown Plaza O heare Air Force
(33:36):
And I was calling because my daughter came to this
to a party here last night, I gathering with her
friends and um now her friends. They said that they
left on the front of the hotel and she's not
able to be found. Now she's ninety years old, so
so what the wol would you suggest? Well again again,
(33:58):
the only thing I would just maybe just um, you know,
give her a couple of hours. You know, she could
have won. You know, she could have once some more
with one of her other friends. I mean, and who
knows what her friends are saying. It's true, you know
what I mean exactly. That's the day you could say
and not to be saying. You could say it. Don't
say I'm right, I'm a parent. I've been young before,
(34:19):
and it's not saying it right. It don't sound right here.
That's why I came. I heard myself. So when do
you come out desitate for me to fallow me? Some
person report? Well, well you can, you can file it
and at any time. It's just like I said, you know,
just do you just give it a little bit of time.
You know, if if you hadn't heard from her by
I want to say about end eleven o'clock, then by
(34:40):
all means, you'll give us a call again. You can
come to the station and we can help you out
from there. Okay, thank you, I do that okay, thank
you very much. Okay, okay, are you very welcome, have
a good day. That and I woman call. It's seven
fifteen a m. Man, but she gets called a little
left or four a m. Gets dressed, goes to the hotel,
(35:03):
tries to get help searching, finally with no help at all.
In fact, the mom's nearly arrested. She makes a missing
person's report around seven fifteen a m. Where she's told basically,
I don't worry all this time. Her daughter is dying
right there in the hotel in the freezer. Let me
(35:25):
stop briefly and thank our partner making our investigation into
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k C dot com code Nancy link a k C.
Thank you for being our partner today in our search
for the truth in the Kanika Jenkins case. And now
I hope you've got your seatbelts buckled. I want you
to hear the dispatch call when Kanika's dead body was
(37:40):
found three oh one. Everything's in for negative. I have
that UH subject in the kitchen in a free prod
gollids give a few hours, Sery McCollum. I have never
(38:04):
heard of a nine one one dispatch going, you know what,
she's finally, she's probably fine, just given a couple of hours,
she's probably with her friends. What I've never heard that
in my life. And I'm gonna say again, the person
that pulled the fire alarm is a hero. Who did
pull the fire alarm Larry Rogers Jr. I don't have
the name of the individual, but it was one of
the one of the family or friends that were They
(38:27):
were desperately looking for Kennika throughout that hotel UH and
again that desperation led to them pulling the fire alarm,
and finally, finally a response came that really asked them
what's going on? And that's what triggered them to begin
to look at the video footage. And it shouldn't take
that much, Nancy, as you're indicated, it shouldn't require a
(38:48):
desperate movement. Well, I'll tell you what. When I went
down to that lobby Larry Rogers Jr. Uh in the
hotel in Arizona, I said, my daughter, it's just gotten
on an elevator. I can't find him looking for right now.
Help me. This is my son. Don't lose him. And
I turned around and they helped. They helped, you know,
they held John David and I went up looking. They
(39:10):
sent people looking, and a good Samaritan found her and
brought her back. And by the way, I never I said,
and hugged the lady and thanked her. But I never
got her name. I never found out who she was.
Nothing the lady that got my little girl Lucy, and
you know, potentially could have saved her life. I'm just
imagining Kanika staggering around and ending up in that freezer.
(39:36):
My EP executive producer Alan Deep joining me, Alan, what
do you think of all of the disturbing aspects of this.
The thing that bothers me the most is the idea
of Kanika's mom in the hotel shortly after her daughter
went into that freezer, on the phone with police, asking
(40:00):
for help at the hotel, asking employees staff there to help.
Yet when she called nine one one, she was told
go home, wait for her to come home, because that's
what kids do, call us back maybe in about three
or four hours. Well, those are fatal three or four hours.
(40:21):
And it disturbs me to think what would have happened
if that that law enforcement agent who answered the nine
one one call had said, you know what, we're sending
an officer down there immediately to search the hotel, and
we're going to find your daughter, and maybe they would
(40:43):
have found her before she froze to death. We see
this too many times in missing person cases, where law
enforcement doesn't initially treat it as a case. They think
it's a voluntary disappearance. They think that this especially if
it's a young person, that they're off partying someplace, or
(41:04):
they think that drugs are involved, and they don't want
to put their resources into searching for this missing person.
And I can tell you just in this this year,
while we've been doing the show, there have been several
cases where I personally talked to the families and heard
their frustration about this. Weeks later, their their daughter, their sister,
(41:27):
whoever they were found dead, and police had waited days
or weeks before they started investigating. That is the most
disturbing thing and I wish I knew what we could
do about it. Again, Larry Rogers Jr. What was her
condition when her body was found in the Fraser? Larry,
(41:47):
she was stiff, Rigor mortiss At said in she was frozen,
and um, she was positioned and just the most odd
position that you could imagine. It was pretty traumatic for
her mom to see those photos. We actually asked the
Rosemont Police Department not to make them public because they
(42:08):
were so traumatic, and her pleas in that regard were
dismissed as well. You know, when you say she was
in this weird position, what position was it? She was
positioned sort of on her left side with a face
down towards the ground and um, more or less position
position into a corner of the freezer. And this is
(42:28):
a small freezer that was about four ft by five
ft in dimension, and it was just a very sad
and tragic photographed to see. It must have been terrible
for that getting lady. What do you think of that position?
Sheryl McCollum, because I've now discovered I believe that there
is an opening, a release valve within the freezer that
(42:52):
she could have gotten out unless she was disabled. The
way she positioned in that corner, like her face is
down literal in the corner. Again, it doesn't look like
something she did naturally. And her hair is all in
her face. It's not like away from her faith where
she just got cold and fell over and close to death.
(43:13):
It looked violent, like she was struggling. And I'm looking
at the video right now of her walking toward the freezer,
her closer in place. Her hair is perfect, She's got
in a little jean shirt, everything's fine, both shoes on, everything,
she's perfectly in order. None of it makes sense to me.
And now it has been decided it's an accident. Now
I'm waiting to hear back from the Crown Plaza hotel.
(43:35):
I want to hear what they have to say. So
far nothing but according to her mother, Teresa, Teresa Martin,
she says, quote to me, I feel they helped kill
my child, the police department and this hotel. Why is
she saying that Larry Rogers Jr. About the police feels
that her please, her help were ignored from the early beginning.
(43:58):
And if they had only just responded to her there,
taking the time and look at the cameras they begun
to look for her when she first called, we wouldn't
be here today. The young lady would be alive and
we wouldn't be here. That's the tragedy of it all.
What now, Larry Rogers Jr. Well, what we've done now
is we've commissioned a private autopsy to investigate on to
(44:19):
investigate her injuries. UM. We've done a private toxicology testing
that we expect to get the results on shortly. We've
done a for in the examination of the freezer and
are in the process of agreeing to have the doors
and framework removed so we can have that test it,
possibly by an engineer. UM. And then we expect to
(44:41):
explore specifically what happened with this missing video footage again
to try and help this this poor mom get to
the bottom of what happened to her to her daughter. Well,
another thing I don't understand, Larry, is Teresa tells me
that police tried to arrest her a she tried to
search the hotel for her little girl. She's dead. Okay,
(45:07):
why was the mom? Why police trying to arrest her.
That's true, that's true. They were more concerned with why,
with the fact that people were in the hotel looking
for Kanika than the fact that that Kanika was missing. Again,
just a tragic, a tragic way of addressing a desperate
mom in search of her daughter. Wait, they were more
(45:29):
concerned about what the police department and the hotel staff
was more concerned, all right, they were in the hotel
knocking on doors and trying to keep them from knocking
on doors than they were about the fact that Kanika
was missing. Rather than focusing on the fact that there
was a young nineteen year old girl who had entered
that hotel and was missing and couldn't be located, they
(45:52):
were more concerned about can't get my head around. Can
you imagine a cop when I'm running up in on
the hall, screaming and crying for Lucy, trying to drag
me out while she could be dying or molested or
being hurt at that very minute, to come and try
to arrest the mother. Cheryl, You've got two children. I
(46:15):
cannot fathom how they are more concerned with the serbing
the peace than they are with somebody dying on their property.
That doesn't have to and literally, literally, if they were
worried about them running up down the hall, all they
had to do was showing the video tape. All they
had to do get him in an office showing the tape.
Let's go find her. Perious. I'm just I'm just sick.
(46:36):
The windness says told police that they lost traffic track
of Kanika when she left just for a moment. Do
you fetch her car keys and her cell phone from
another room? That never happened. Somehow everything went sideways. How
(46:57):
is the mom Theresa Martin doing now, Larry Rogers Jr.
Because when I met with her, she was just, oh, oh,
my star, she was just she looked like she was
just nubs. She could hardly even talk. Yeah, she's a
very strong woman and an amazing woman. Um, she's been
(47:18):
just just perfect in terms of a client, um, in
terms of her disposition. You know, she did any and
everything she could do to try and locate her daughter
as quickly as possible. She's hurt. I think she indicated
that to use herself, Nancy. She's hurt by the fact
that her pleas were ignored, and those pleas really would
(47:39):
have likely made a difference and whether her daughter was
alive Today with me is Larry Rogers Jr. A veteran
trial lawyer or the lawyer for Connickas family, and my
friend and longtime colleague, Cheryl McCollum, Director of the Cold
Case Institute, and Alan Duke, of course, joining me from
l A. Our search for justice is not over. Nancy
(48:03):
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to try it for free. Go to zip recruiter dot
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with Nancy Grace on Sirius XM Triumph Channel one thirty
two number one. There emergency And I was comming because
(01:52):
my daughter came to this party here last night. I
gathering with a frand now her friends. They said, to
the left on the front of the hotel, and she's
not able to be found. Now give a couple of hours.
You know she could have won, you know, she could
once more. With one of her other friends. The mom
went to the front desk, asking will you please look
at the videos from the very beginning, and got nothing
but resistance from the Crown Plaza Hotel. The inference today
(02:13):
that had Kannika and how or the security cameras jack
sooner she might be alive. They never looked for they
never did anything while a young nineteen year old disoriented
girl was sitting in their freezer. We beg if I happen,
No one happens. Uh subjects in the kitchen and a freezers.
A beautiful young girl dead trapped in a freezer? How
(02:40):
did that happen? Right now? Many theories swirling as the
investigation goes on into the death of a beautiful young girl,
Kanneka Jenkins. I mean, I see grace. This is crime Stories.
Thank you for being with us. With me special guest
Larry Rogers, junior lawyer for the family of Kannika Jenkins,
(03:02):
a well known a veteran trial lawyer. Also with me
Cheryl McCullum, crime scene analyst and the director of the
Cold Case Institute. Questions swirling around the death of this
young girl, Kaneka Jenkins found debt in highly questionable circumstances.
(03:24):
Out to Crime online dot Com investigative reporter Jacqueline Gray, Jacqueline,
tell me what you know about this case. Kannica left
out of her house late on September eight to go
to the Crown Plaza hotel in Rosemont, Illinois, and by
about three am the next day, her friends alerted her
(03:46):
mother that they couldn't find her. So her mother went
to the hotel searching for her daughter, and over the
course of what twelve hours, they end up finding her body.
In a freezer in an area that was under construction.
From what I recall, Larry Rogers, when she was found
(04:11):
dead from hypothermia inside an industrial type refrigerator there in
the bottom of pretty high end hotel. Her pants were
pulled down around her hips, her shirt was pulled up
around her bra her her jeans were filthy as if
(04:31):
she had been dragged along the ground. There were abrasions
to her knee area, her legs, her face. There is
no way this is accidental. And what's interesting, Larry Rogers,
is the night before she had been all dressed up
to go to a fancy party there in the hotel.
(04:54):
There's no way this girl, who took so much care
getting all dressed up with all her little friends, went
anywhere covered in dirt. That's not how it went down, Larry.
Let's start at the beginning. What happened? You know, That's
exactly what her mother, Uh the question she raised when
she contacted me. She wanted me to help her figure
(05:17):
out what happened to Kanika, her daughter. Uh. This is
this is one of the worst tragedies I've seen, um
and it's quite frankly, as you indicated, shocking that this
young lady was found in the condition she was found
where she was found. Her shirt had been pulled up
with her breast exposed, her pants were slightly pulled down
(05:39):
below her waistline, her her shoe, one of her shoes,
was off, and she was her clothing was dirty. And
as you indicated, she had gone out for a night
of fun with some friends. Uh and and then she
ends up in this remote area of the hotel, in
an unused kitchen, in a freezer that, for I'm explained
(06:00):
unexplained reason, was on a freezer that was not being used.
It had nothing in it, but it was on in
a in an abandoned portion of the kitchen. So there
are a lot of questions that need to be answered,
and we've committed to the mind and we'll get to
the bottom of it. Joining me Cheryl McCullum, crime scene
analysts and expert renowned in her field, now the director
(06:22):
of the Cold Case Investigative Research Institute. Cheryl, thanks for
being with us along with Larry Rogers, junior trial lawyer
representing Knnika's family. Let's take it from the beginning. You know,
I met with her mother, Cheryl, along with Larry when
we were all at Dr Oz and her mom just
(06:43):
broke my heart because I got the feeling that she
felt if she yelled or cursed or through some kind
of a fit trying to find her daughter should be mistreated.
And you know what, she was right because os they
go to the hotel. What was the hotel, Larry, the Crown,
Crown Plausa. That's right, Clouds Crown in Rosema, Chicago, really
(07:08):
high end. The Crown hotels are pretty nice. So she
was there, Cheryl with all her little girl friends, all
dressed up and cute, and you know how teen girls are,
and um, so she goes then this is what the mom.
I heard the mom say that she gets to call
(07:29):
at four o'clock in the morning and Kanick a little
friends say, we can't find Kanka, And the mom is
like what because they were all three together. So she
immediately dials her daughter her teen girls phone, and one
of the three friends picking up go, we've got her
cell phone too, So the mom they come get the mom.
(07:50):
The mom comes over there, they totally blow the mom off.
They asked to see the security video, which got a
huge security bank a video Cheryl. They won't let them
look at the video. And they won't start searching the hotel.
They say, basically, oh, she's at with friends. Now, this
child has been described as drunk. She was not drunk.
(08:10):
She was not repeat, not drunk or high on drugs.
That's not true. So they look and they look and
they look Cheryl like, I forgot how many eighteen twenty
four hours later, the police finally, somebody finally finds her
dead in a freezer. You know, she could have been saved,
(08:31):
you know that, right if they had just looked at
the crime at the video surveillance is shows her and
it shows where she was going to, like a construction
type unused area that completely abandoned. I don't know how
she got down there because that Crown hotels like a maze.
So what do you make of it? Now that I've
given you the setup, Nancy Cook a little bit of
(08:54):
time to really go over these calm seen photographs. And
these are the things that jumped out at me as
four main things. One the shoe that's off, the shoe
that is off of her body, the right shoe you
can see blood on her foot, so that shoe was
not taken off because her body started to heat up.
She removed that shoe because she was injured. You can
(09:17):
see the blood plain is day. The other thing that
bothers me about her shoes is their brand new. They
are clean, they are white. I mean, she was excited
about putting on this outfit. But there's some scuff marks
on the shoe that they're gonna have to explain to me.
And specifically they are scuff marks up near the ankles
(09:37):
on the inside that to me could very possibly be
indicative of somebody being drugs um. The other problem that
I'm having is the pocket of her pants has turned
inside out, like somebody went into her pocket. She wouldn't
have done that. She would have corrected her pocket immediately
if she had gone to look for a key or
(09:58):
something like that. U And then the other thing that's
very telling to me if you watch the video where
she's walking in the kitchen area toward what looks like
would be where the freezer is, even though it's a
video of that, for some reason, her hair is straight.
If you look at the crime scene photograph, her hair
is now curly. Now, hold on, hold on to Larry Rogers,
(10:23):
junior lawyer for Kannika Jenkins family. Do you remember what
the mom told us Larry. She said that she went
to go and she wanted to see the crime scene,
and they went and't let her. Then she said she
saw the body and she just looked at She said
Kanika's hair was a mess and she would never have
(10:44):
done that. Uh. Yes, this this is a beautiful young girl.
She by all accounts, she was just having a night
out with some friends. She was not a bad girl.
She was working. She was a great young ay. Her
mom had a great relationship with her. And a testament
to that is the fact that when her friends told
(11:05):
her they were missing, no one for one moment that
she ever left that hotel. Her friends now, she had
to be somewhere in the hotel. When her mom, Teresa
came out within hours, she went straight to the front
desk and said she would never have left. She's here
in this hotel and they would not take a moment,
just a moment to take a look at the video
surveillance cameras and that would have saved this young lady's life.
(11:29):
Investigative reporter her crime Online Jacqueline Great Jacqueline, what jumps
out at you about what went wrong that night? A
few things jump out and most of the things that
jump out is after Teresa Martina's mother went to the
hotel looking for help, the hotel staff wouldn't look at
(11:50):
the footage until much hours later. She was also threatened
with the rest. She called the dispatcher and they told
her to just take it easy, you know, go home. Um,
she'll probably turn up. And that's not, in my opinion,
not the appropriate response to a mother who knows her
child's missing. And she was right, you know, her child
(12:12):
end up dying. Meanwhile, she was trying to find her
and she was getting no help from police or from
the hotel staff. And that's you know, one thing that
pops out to me right now. It would have saved
her life. It absolutely would have saved her life. Cheryl McCollum,
maybe there's no question about it, But I want to
get back to the importance of her hair for a minute.
(12:35):
When ever I was on your show, sometimes y'all was
occasionally straightened my hair. Well, I've got an actually curly hair.
The minute there was any humidity, any moisture, my hair
would revert back to being curly. That means her hair
was either wet or she was sweaty. Something happened to
make her hair go back curly, Nancy. That is not
(12:58):
somebody that went into a free there, passed out and
froze to death. That's not what happened here. And you
don't have to look any further than her hair to
know that. And something else that needs to happen. Um,
unless they already know, because I haven't seen the photograph,
it doesn't appear that there's scuff marks on the inside
of that door where she would have been kicking it
(13:20):
trying to get out. I don't see any marks like that.
Her fingernails are feel intact. There's there's so many questions
surrounding this case. For me, Nancy, it is horrifying. Newly
released surveillance video shows Kanika stumbling in the hallway, she
got lost within the hotel, and then we later discover
(13:42):
apparently someone had slipped a very dangerous drug. Chryl McCollum
is called to a pyramid and it is an anti
seizure drug. It is also a pain drug and um
it can make you very very disoriented. This little girl
had never in her life been caught with drugs, been alcohol,
(14:07):
nothing like that in her life. This was a good student.
Her mother depended on her. She had a job the works.
Very actually, I don't want to say a loner because
that has a bad connotation. She reminds me a lot
of my little girl, Lucy. She's very, very shy, you know, Cheryl.
(14:30):
Any night I say, hey, do you guys want to
go out to dinner? And John David is all like, yeah, Mom,
let's go for tacos and then we'll go to frozen yoga.
And Lucy's like, I just want to go home. You
know what, No matter how are you trying to tempt
them that she always wants to come home. That she
really was a sweet girl. Yeah, her mom convinced me,
(14:51):
and the sister that I talked to also she was
a real homebody. And I just don't see it. Cheryl,
I don't see it at all. I don't see it either,
nath You know, I'll tell you something else that really
confirms me. As you know, I've got two teenagers now,
and to get them away and separate them from the
cell phone takes they act the Congress practically. The fact
(15:13):
that she was somehow separated from her cell phone confirms
me greatly. She would not have done that, and that
means she had no way to call for help. Cheryl
I left something out to Larry Rogers Jr. Uh renewed lawyer.
There's representing Kannika Jenkins family. So the mom comes to
the hotel. They won't let her look at the security video.
(15:35):
They won't look at the security video. Finally, some of
the kids that were at the party, they have cell
phone pictures of Kanika before that night, and they start
going from door to door begging people, have you seen her?
Have you seen her? Do you know what they do?
They throw the family out, They kick them out and
(15:56):
call police. All the family, hello is the right? Did
not take their Their pleas, for their pleas for assistance
and for help, even just looking at the cameras were ignored,
and they got desperate. They were looking for her. They
knew that she was not the type of young lady
they would have left the hotel. They knocked on doors,
(16:16):
someone even pulled a fire alarm, and the only wait, wait, wait,
tell us that part, tell us that part. They were
so desperate to find her, and nobody was helping them.
Tell them. What tell Sheryl? What happened? Larry Rodgers, one
of the one of the young people pulled the fire
alarm because they felt she was somewhere in the hotel.
(16:36):
They didn't know if she was in the room and
someone had abducted her exactly what had happened. And that's
the only thing that really prompted the beginnings of an
investigation by by the Roseman Police Department. They finally came
out and said, what's really going on here? And that's
really what prompted. So a lot of credit has to
be given to this family and to these young people
(16:58):
knowing Kinika and knowing that she might have left that hotel.
If they're pleased, had only been heard by the hotel staff,
this young lady would be alive today. Well, I'm telling
you it's a it's a sorry day. It is a
sad day, Cheryl, when you you can't get any help
and you have to pull the darn fire alarm to
(17:20):
get someone to pay attention to you trying to say
your daughter is missing and she's somewhere in this hotel,
can you help me find her? They had to pull
the fire alarm. Now listen to this timeline and correct
me if I'm wrong, Larry Rogers, because you know the
timeline better than me. This team girl was seen leaving
the elevator alone, which she had not left alone. She
(17:43):
was with the little girlfriends to start with. At three
twenty a m. Somebody somewhere had slipped her topiramate, okay,
which is not a street drug, all right, Nobody in
her family has ever had topiramide. It's a seizure medication.
And she is just struggling to even keep her balance,
(18:04):
and you see her. I don't know where the security
guards were at the Crown Plaza Hotel, but they sure.
We're not looking at the security bank because she can
hardly walk. She's falling into the walls, and this is
not from being drunk. She then espotted somehow down in
this maze of a kitchen there beneath the Crown Plaza Hotel,
(18:25):
and she gets somehow, somehow to completely abandoned area that
has not been locked off from for people to come into.
Then there's no camera that shows how she got put
into that freezer, but we know somewhere something went wrong.
Her hair is a mess, there's blood on her foot,
(18:46):
her pants are pulled down, her shirt is pulled up.
Everything is askew. There's no scuff marks, nothing to show
she tried to get out I don't quite understand it,
but the whole thing was she did a three twenty
a m or should have been spotted on the security video.
That's what it shows now that we've gotten a chance
(19:07):
to look at it. Do you know when they finally
told police they were on the phone with a mom
at four am, we can't find Kanika one pm. Then
that day that almost twelve hours passed. Actually it was
more like twenty one hours. It was the next morning
(19:27):
that they finally looked Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, it was
by the time they found her. She goes missing at
three twenty am. It was after one am she's found dead.
All that time, Cheryl, the parents, the mom was begging
for help, couldn't get anybody to listen. Let me pause
(19:50):
right now in our search for justice in this case
and thank our partner who is making our investigation possible.
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Zoom thank you for making our investigation into the death
of Kannika Jenkins possible today with me as a veteran
(21:37):
trial lawyer, Larry Rogers Jr. And Director of the Cold
Case Institute, Cheryl McCollum, Jacqueline Gray, Crime Online investigative reporter,
What more can you tell me? My whole I was
having while I was writing about this and reading about
it was there was why was she down there? You
know that it was an under construction area. They had
(21:59):
cam us everywhere but the freezer, which I would feel
like that would be lucky, huge liability of freezer, you know,
heavy freezer. It's not being supervised. That whole part I
feel like hasn't been acknowledged by the hotel. It seems
like right now they're doing a lot of damage control,
but they're not really giving still giving us enough information
to work with to get a timeline out of the
(22:21):
forty six or so cameras that they had surveillance cameras
that they had there on the premises, there are two
significant ones that would have captured her path towards this kitchen,
and for some and strange reason, they're claiming those were
not working. Just a lot of unexplained um issues here
(22:43):
with this case, and we want to get to the
bottom of them. Nathan, I got to jump in here
as a Crown State investigator. I'll pull a video from
hotels all the time. All you have to do is
type in the date and the time it is all digital.
It would have shown them immediately. It would not have
taken ten minutes Nancy to see her path and to
(23:07):
follow it. And Carl, Cheryl, Larry, I know I told you.
Larry knows this story, Cheryl. Did I ever tell you?
When I was in Arizona, and of course I knew
I'd be gone over two nights, so I took the
children with me. They at that time where I guess five.
It was during the Jodi Arias trial, and we were
(23:29):
staying in this high rise hotel and we were on
the waiting for the elevator, and it was a big
bank of elevators, like ten elevators, five on each side,
and we were waiting and one open at the far end,
and I said, that's not the one going the right way, guys, honey.
Lucy at the last second jumped on the elevator and
(23:50):
it closed. I dove for it. I dove head first
for it, Cheryl, I tried. I dove into the elevator
and it closed, just like in the movies. Cheryl, do
you hear what I'm saying? There was me and John
David and I and Lucy lost on an elevator and
it was one of those fancy elevators. I couldn't tell
what floor she got off at anything. I Oh, dear
(24:11):
Lord in heaven. I immediately went to the lobby, screaming
my head off. Left. John David with security, told them
what was happening, and I started going up floor to Florida,
Florida floor, screaming off the elevators. I was can you
imagine if some creepy, pervy tude got Lucy at four
or five years old, and the little thing thought she
(24:33):
was on our floor where we were staying, and was
trying to find it. Well, I went every floor, I
couldn't find her. I was dialing nine on one, I
was on the elevator and it wouldn't go through. I
got off the elevator, hit sin for nine on one
and turned to my left and there was a security
with Lucy, A lady with Lucy and John David. A
lady had found her like three floors down, wandering the
(24:56):
hall alone. Cheryl a to where she was going and
took her down to the lobby. What I experienced and
that twenty minutes I never want to think about again.
And that's what this mom has been living through ever
since this happened, Cheryl, inexcusable and according to the Lauren
(25:18):
lawyer with me right now, Larry Roger says, the hotel
quote never checked, they never searched, they never did anything
while a young teen girl was dying in their freezer.
Why why, Larry. It's inexplicable. It's inexcusable, and we expect
the hold of the before we accountable for it. The
(25:40):
Crown Plaza has not produced any legitimate explanation for why
they couldn't do the simple thing of looking at the cameras.
Why do you have the cameras if you don't even
take the time to do what I'm just so beside
myself about this child. And if you look at her
in the kitchen, Cheryl, this is just before she is
(26:01):
in the freezer. Her hair is straight, her pants are
on on her, her shoes are fine. There's no cut,
nothing like that. She's perfectly fine, still all dressed up,
with her hair all done up and a little Jeane
outfit on. She's fine. I'm looking at her right now
as we're talking. I'm looking at the video walking through
(26:21):
that abandoned kitchen, probably trying to find her way out
of there. She's fine. Well, Nathy, let me just safety obvious.
We keep being told that nobody was watching those cameras.
We don't know that maybe somebody did see her, maybe
somebody followed her after a little while. Another thing. Larry Rogers,
junior lawyer for the Kannika Jenkins family. The mother told
(26:43):
me that when she went down to see the freezer,
when they finally let her see it, that there was
a video camera on top of it, blinking red and
she said, what did that camera show? Remember what she said, Larry,
that's correct. She thinks that she She's described consistently a
(27:04):
camera that she says should have captured her daughter walking
in that freezer. And we've been able to identify any
footage that they've produced from a camera that that depicts that. Uh,
and not only that, there are other cameras that would
should have caught her path that Again, we've got no
footage from their claiming that they weren't working at the time.
(27:26):
So again, a lot of unanswered questions, um, a lot
of questions about her. Now we have reached out to
the Crown Plaza, the Crown a Plaza hotel and have
not heard anything back from them. Now, I don't know
what that means nothing, but I'm anxious to hear their
side of this. I want to hear their side of this.
(27:47):
What else does the autopsy reveal? Uh, Larry Rogers Junior
with me, Cheryl McCullum with me, Cheryl, what did you
see that sparked her interest in her autopsy? Well, be
plee that were a boid. Alcohol was not that high
to you know, be indicative of her walking the way
she was walking. But the drugs in her system or
(28:07):
the drug in her system again, some of the folks
that have wh were at that party that have not
been interviewed by the police need to come forward. There
needs to be a full investigation of how that drug
got into her system and called her to be incapacitated. Jacqueline,
what do you make of the autopsy? What I make
(28:30):
out of it is that there's not really much hair.
It just seems like another effort to brush off her
death as an accident. Um. One of the biggest things
that I noticed in the autopsy was they had said
she died from hypothermia with alcohol intoxication and to pyramid,
which is a drug that's used for to treat epilepsy
(28:52):
and migraines, and they said that that was in her
system and that it was an contributing factor. But from
what we're hearing from her family is that she was
never prescribed this drug. They have no clueoud got in
her system, and there's really no explanation why it was
in her system. They mentioned that there was no date
rate drugs in her system, that her her blood alcohol
(29:13):
content was point one one two, and at one point
they said there was no evidence that she was forced
to take the drug, which at this point I don't
get how they could tell whether she was forced or
whether it was slipped in her drink. But there's really
no explanation on why, of all the drugs, party drugs
or what not, why was this in her system. Yeah,
(29:34):
we are very concerned with Rosemont's police department having closed
the investigation so quickly and concluded that there was no
file play. A lot of the questions have not been answered.
Their hotel staff that was president in the hotel, who
has not been interviewed. UH this this investigation is far
from over and rose My prematurely that there was no
(29:58):
file play here. We need to figure exactly what happened.
Why is her why does she have the injury to
a foot that we see under the un the under
the pictures um Why does her hair look the way
it is? Why? Why if her clothing displaced? All of
those are questions that need to be answered. In addition,
why is this camera footage and video footage missing? The
(30:22):
Crown Plaza has not provided any legitimate explanation for why
there is missing video footage and in particular, why would
it be video footage? They would you know, yeah, And
I don't understand why they wouldn't let them look at
the video footage. Now, this is what they're saying now.
A spokesperson for the Crown Plaza Hotel said that they
have extended the offer to Kinnikua's family to privately view
(30:44):
thirty six total hours of surveillance footage from forty different cameras.
Inside quote. Our hearts go out to the the Kinnikua's mother,
her family and friends. We hope covering the funeral costs
provide a small bit relief for them, says the hostel
hotel spokesperson Glenn Harston. Huh, what do you what do
(31:07):
you think about that? Larry Rogers Jr. That was an
offer they extended early on, we received the video footage
and looked at it, and again there is footage that's
missing from cameras we know to have been present. And
we've got no explanation about why those cameras didn't capture
this young lady and what would have happened to that
(31:27):
video footage. Huh. So you really believe that there's missing
video footage. I know that there are cameras. I saw
them myself. I've toured the facility. I saw the cameras
and they would have captured the path that they are
describing Kanika to have been, to have traveled towards this
freezer area. And no, no video footage from those cameras
(31:49):
that she was alive at one a because she sent
a text message at one thirty a m. And that's
the last that was heard of her. You know, another
thing that really hurt me when I was talking to
the mom, Larry Rogers, was that she kept trying to
quote rein it in stay in control. And I'll tell
(32:10):
you what I think. I believe that if I told
Dr os this and said, Oz, if you had gone
to that lobby and you had asked to seeing surveillance
video and report your daughter missing. That has showed it
to you. But I think that they totally discounted her
(32:32):
because she was a woman, because it was late at night,
because she's a minority, because the whole group was perceived
as partying. And in fact, what she called one which
I'm gonna play for you in a minute, the mom
trying to report the daughter missing. And what did they
(32:52):
tell her? Larry Rogers Jr. They told her to give
it a few hours. You know, this is a mom
who knew her daughter. She got up out of her
bed and went to the hotel. She knew that Knika
would never have left the premises alone or with anyone voluntarily,
and she went out there. She reported to the Crown
Plaza staff. They didn't help her. She called nine one one.
(33:15):
Rosemont told her to give it a few hours. I
want you to hear Kniqua's mom calling nine one one,
judge for yourself. Number one was the address your emergency. Yes,
I'm at this Crown Crown Plaza O heare Air Force
(33:36):
And I was calling because my daughter came to this
to a party here last night, I gathering with her
friends and um now her friends. They said that they
left on the front of the hotel and she's not
able to be found. Now she's ninety years old, so
so what the wol would you suggest? Well again again,
(33:58):
the only thing I would just maybe just um, you know,
give her a couple of hours. You know, she could
have won. You know, she could have once some more
with one of her other friends. I mean, and who
knows what her friends are saying. It's true, you know
what I mean exactly. That's the day you could say
and not to be saying. You could say it. Don't
say I'm right, I'm a parent. I've been young before,
(34:19):
and it's not saying it right. It don't sound right here.
That's why I came. I heard myself. So when do
you come out desitate for me to fallow me? Some
person report? Well, well you can, you can file it
and at any time. It's just like I said, you know,
just do you just give it a little bit of time.
You know, if if you hadn't heard from her by
I want to say about end eleven o'clock, then by
(34:40):
all means, you'll give us a call again. You can
come to the station and we can help you out
from there. Okay, thank you, I do that okay, thank
you very much. Okay, okay, are you very welcome, have
a good day. That and I woman call. It's seven
fifteen a m. Man, but she gets called a little
left or four a m. Gets dressed, goes to the hotel,
(35:03):
tries to get help searching, finally with no help at all.
In fact, the mom's nearly arrested. She makes a missing
person's report around seven fifteen a m. Where she's told basically,
I don't worry all this time. Her daughter is dying
right there in the hotel in the freezer. Let me
(35:25):
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Thank you for being our partner today in our search
for the truth in the Kanika Jenkins case. And now
I hope you've got your seatbelts buckled. I want you
to hear the dispatch call when Kanika's dead body was
(37:40):
found three oh one. Everything's in for negative. I have
that UH subject in the kitchen in a free prod
gollids give a few hours, Sery McCollum. I have never
(38:04):
heard of a nine one one dispatch going, you know what,
she's finally, she's probably fine, just given a couple of hours,
she's probably with her friends. What I've never heard that
in my life. And I'm gonna say again, the person
that pulled the fire alarm is a hero. Who did
pull the fire alarm Larry Rogers Jr. I don't have
the name of the individual, but it was one of
the one of the family or friends that were They
(38:27):
were desperately looking for Kennika throughout that hotel UH and
again that desperation led to them pulling the fire alarm,
and finally, finally a response came that really asked them
what's going on? And that's what triggered them to begin
to look at the video footage. And it shouldn't take
that much, Nancy, as you're indicated, it shouldn't require a
(38:48):
desperate movement. Well, I'll tell you what. When I went
down to that lobby Larry Rogers Jr. Uh in the
hotel in Arizona, I said, my daughter, it's just gotten
on an elevator. I can't find him looking for right now.
Help me. This is my son. Don't lose him. And
I turned around and they helped. They helped, you know,
they held John David and I went up looking. They
(39:10):
sent people looking, and a good Samaritan found her and
brought her back. And by the way, I never I said,
and hugged the lady and thanked her. But I never
got her name. I never found out who she was.
Nothing the lady that got my little girl Lucy, and
you know, potentially could have saved her life. I'm just
imagining Kanika staggering around and ending up in that freezer.
(39:36):
My EP executive producer Alan Deep joining me, Alan, what
do you think of all of the disturbing aspects of this.
The thing that bothers me the most is the idea
of Kanika's mom in the hotel shortly after her daughter
went into that freezer, on the phone with police, asking
(40:00):
for help at the hotel, asking employees staff there to help.
Yet when she called nine one one, she was told
go home, wait for her to come home, because that's
what kids do, call us back maybe in about three
or four hours. Well, those are fatal three or four hours.
(40:21):
And it disturbs me to think what would have happened
if that that law enforcement agent who answered the nine
one one call had said, you know what, we're sending
an officer down there immediately to search the hotel, and
we're going to find your daughter, and maybe they would
(40:43):
have found her before she froze to death. We see
this too many times in missing person cases, where law
enforcement doesn't initially treat it as a case. They think
it's a voluntary disappearance. They think that this especially if
it's a young person, that they're off partying someplace, or
(41:04):
they think that drugs are involved, and they don't want
to put their resources into searching for this missing person.
And I can tell you just in this this year,
while we've been doing the show, there have been several
cases where I personally talked to the families and heard
their frustration about this. Weeks later, their their daughter, their sister,
(41:27):
whoever they were found dead, and police had waited days
or weeks before they started investigating. That is the most
disturbing thing and I wish I knew what we could
do about it. Again, Larry Rogers Jr. What was her
condition when her body was found in the Fraser? Larry,
(41:47):
she was stiff, Rigor mortiss At said in she was frozen,
and um, she was positioned and just the most odd
position that you could imagine. It was pretty traumatic for
her mom to see those photos. We actually asked the
Rosemont Police Department not to make them public because they
(42:08):
were so traumatic, and her pleas in that regard were
dismissed as well. You know, when you say she was
in this weird position, what position was it? She was
positioned sort of on her left side with a face
down towards the ground and um, more or less position
position into a corner of the freezer. And this is
(42:28):
a small freezer that was about four ft by five
ft in dimension, and it was just a very sad
and tragic photographed to see. It must have been terrible
for that getting lady. What do you think of that position?
Sheryl McCollum, because I've now discovered I believe that there
is an opening, a release valve within the freezer that
(42:52):
she could have gotten out unless she was disabled. The
way she positioned in that corner, like her face is
down literal in the corner. Again, it doesn't look like
something she did naturally. And her hair is all in
her face. It's not like away from her faith where
she just got cold and fell over and close to death.
(43:13):
It looked violent, like she was struggling. And I'm looking
at the video right now of her walking toward the freezer,
her closer in place. Her hair is perfect, She's got
in a little jean shirt, everything's fine, both shoes on, everything,
she's perfectly in order. None of it makes sense to me.
And now it has been decided it's an accident. Now
I'm waiting to hear back from the Crown Plaza hotel.
(43:35):
I want to hear what they have to say. So
far nothing but according to her mother, Teresa, Teresa Martin,
she says, quote to me, I feel they helped kill
my child, the police department and this hotel. Why is
she saying that Larry Rogers Jr. About the police feels
that her please, her help were ignored from the early beginning.
(43:58):
And if they had only just responded to her there,
taking the time and look at the cameras they begun
to look for her when she first called, we wouldn't
be here today. The young lady would be alive and
we wouldn't be here. That's the tragedy of it all.
What now, Larry Rogers Jr. Well, what we've done now
is we've commissioned a private autopsy to investigate on to
(44:19):
investigate her injuries. UM. We've done a private toxicology testing
that we expect to get the results on shortly. We've
done a for in the examination of the freezer and
are in the process of agreeing to have the doors
and framework removed so we can have that test it,
possibly by an engineer. UM. And then we expect to
(44:41):
explore specifically what happened with this missing video footage again
to try and help this this poor mom get to
the bottom of what happened to her to her daughter. Well,
another thing I don't understand, Larry, is Teresa tells me
that police tried to arrest her a she tried to
search the hotel for her little girl. She's dead. Okay,
(45:07):
why was the mom? Why police trying to arrest her.
That's true, that's true. They were more concerned with why,
with the fact that people were in the hotel looking
for Kanika than the fact that that Kanika was missing. Again,
just a tragic, a tragic way of addressing a desperate
mom in search of her daughter. Wait, they were more
(45:29):
concerned about what the police department and the hotel staff
was more concerned, all right, they were in the hotel
knocking on doors and trying to keep them from knocking
on doors than they were about the fact that Kanika
was missing. Rather than focusing on the fact that there
was a young nineteen year old girl who had entered
that hotel and was missing and couldn't be located, they
(45:52):
were more concerned about can't get my head around. Can
you imagine a cop when I'm running up in on
the hall, screaming and crying for Lucy, trying to drag
me out while she could be dying or molested or
being hurt at that very minute, to come and try
to arrest the mother. Cheryl, You've got two children. I
(46:15):
cannot fathom how they are more concerned with the serbing
the peace than they are with somebody dying on their property.
That doesn't have to and literally, literally, if they were
worried about them running up down the hall, all they
had to do was showing the video tape. All they
had to do get him in an office showing the tape.
Let's go find her. Perious. I'm just I'm just sick.
(46:36):
The windness says told police that they lost traffic track
of Kanika when she left just for a moment. Do
you fetch her car keys and her cell phone from
another room? That never happened. Somehow everything went sideways. How
(46:57):
is the mom Theresa Martin doing now, Larry Rogers Jr.
Because when I met with her, she was just, oh, oh,
my star, she was just she looked like she was
just nubs. She could hardly even talk. Yeah, she's a
very strong woman and an amazing woman. Um, she's been
(47:18):
just just perfect in terms of a client, um, in
terms of her disposition. You know, she did any and
everything she could do to try and locate her daughter
as quickly as possible. She's hurt. I think she indicated
that to use herself, Nancy. She's hurt by the fact
that her pleas were ignored, and those pleas really would
(47:39):
have likely made a difference and whether her daughter was
alive Today with me is Larry Rogers Jr. A veteran
trial lawyer or the lawyer for Connickas family, and my
friend and longtime colleague, Cheryl McCollum, Director of the Cold
Case Institute, and Alan Duke, of course, joining me from
l A. Our search for justice is not over. Nancy
(48:03):
Grace's crime Stories, signing off good bye friend,
Host
Nancy Grace
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