Jenkins’s family expressed disgust at the Rosemont Police Department’s careless handling of the missing person’s case.
“If it weren’t for us studying [the Facebook Live video], pushing to find out what happened, my sister’s life would still be in that freezer right now,” said Jenkins’s sister Leonore Harris.
Harris said she and Jenkins last spoke via text message around 1:30 a.m. Saturday. She said she filed a police report about 12 hours later.
Martin and Harris said they went to the hotel several times looking for Jenkins.
“These are all precious hours, especially when I went between four-ish and five-ish,” Martin said. “Within that time, maybe we could have saved my child’s life.”
She said they even knocked on hotel room doors until police stopped them.
A sympathetic officer listened to Martin’s tearful pleas and allowed her to review hotel surveillance video with him. She said they saw Jenkins staggering near the front desk early Saturday, but she never left the hotel.
“‘We do see your daughter again on this camera,'” Martin said police told her. “‘At this point, she can barely hold herself up. She’s like holding onto the rail, walking along the wall.'”
Jenkins’s family say they might have saved her if the found her in time.
“I had all the hope in the world that she would just come back,” said Harris. “Maybe there was something wrong, but I asked God, not death. He let me down. He let me down.”
