The judge connected to the Kenneka Jenkins and Crowne Plaza O’Hare Hotel lawsuit, which involved the tragic death of a 19-year-old woman found frozen in the suburban Chicago hotel’s walk-in freezer in 2017, has revealed the amount reached in the case’s settlement.
The settlement, finalized in August, was not made public until October. While the parties involved disclosed the resolution in October, they did not reveal the specific dollar amount. Jenkins’ mother, Tereasa Martin, did not want the terms of the settlement revealed and requested that it remain sealed to the public, telling the court revealing the terms would compromise her family’s safety. Initially, Judge Thomas Cushing denied her petition but allowed Martin’s attorney to resubmit the request in October. This week, the record was unsealed.
Court records show the parties involved in this case settled on $10 million, a considerable reduction from the initial $50 million sought by Martin.
The breakdown of the settlement shows Martin will receive more than $3.7 million, Jenkins’ half-sister Leonore Harris will receive $1.5 million, and brother Kenneth Lee Jenkins will receive $1.2 million.
Funeral expenses for Jenkins’ homegoing service conducted in 2017 were reimbursed to the amount of $6,000. Over 1,000 people were in attendance for the memorial.
A portion of this settlement was allocated to cover legal fees. Approximately $3.5 million was designated for attorney fees and costs for Martin’s legal representation.
The settlement, arriving six years after the young woman succumbed to hypothermia in the hotel’s walk-in freezer, addresses a case the family claimed was marked by security lapses.
Jenkins had gone with friends to a party in a room inside the Rosemont, Illinois, hotel on the evening of Friday, Sept. 8, 2017. At some point, the group left the ninth-floor hotel room together, but when they got to the lobby, the other young women in the group left the inebriated Jenkins there alone as they returned to the room to retrieve personal effects she had left behind. They never saw her again.
Hotel security cameras later would show a disoriented Jenkins wandering around the building after her companions left her in the lobby. Around 1 a.m. on Sept. 9, 2017, family members attempted to reach Jenkins, presuming she was in Room 926 for the party. Alarmed, when neither friends nor family could locate her by 2:30 a.m., they contacted authorities.
At some point that morning, hotel security alerted to the girl’s disappearance and failed to review the hotel video recording her that later would show she went into the hotel’s restaurant, kitchen, and eventually, the freezer, where she never emerged even though the freezer opens from the inside.
According to the complaint, if someone had monitored the cameras in the hotel, that “would have saved her life,” according to the Chicago Sun-Times.
The lawsuit was filed in late 2018 and named the hotel, its security firm, and the restaurant renting the freezer. It alleged negligence on the part of the defendants and further asserted the hotel had inadequate security and a failure to conduct a proper search when she went missing.
The young woman’s body was discovered approximately 24 hours after her family reported her disappearance to both the hotel and the police.
