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foreign [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] last year we covered the Kanika Jenkins
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case we covered it in like September and she was found dead in that hotel in the
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freezer of that hotel in September so for us it was like you know for as far as the garage is concerned Captain it
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was like breaking news for us because usually we're talking about cases you know a year or two yeah sometimes
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decades yeah some of them have already gone cold and this one was this one was crazy because there was so
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much and pardon my language here but there was so much crap about this case on the
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internet at the time dirty and a lot of this stuff was was junk information um there wasn't a whole lot of
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information about the case the police there was such a uproar and that's one of the reasons why we decided to cover
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it so early yeah and we did take some Flack you know some people were like what are you're
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covering accidents now and now keep in mind that was like it's it's at the time it's whose perspective are you listening
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to right was it an accident was it a murder and that's what we wanted to really look at was look deep into this
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thing and find out if it was a murder because it's a very strange situation to see a
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young woman just 19 years old right walking zombie style through the hotel hallways all by herself all by her
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Lonesome and then eventually she's found dead inside this freezer and her family was in an uproar
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rightfully so I think because her mother God bless her she wanted to answer she just wanted to know what happened to her
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child well what's so sad about the whole thing is that the mom actually went down
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to the hotel you know and said hey my daughter's missing and she's here and the hotel
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said ah she's not here and if people would have went and looked for her and they would have searched all all the
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areas of the hotel I think they would have found her and I don't think she would have been dead and I think uh you
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know this would just be we probably never would have heard of this story if that's what happened right and I wish we
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I wish that's how it turned out but that's not how it did well in the the wild thing here was you know the media
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and the community and people wanted to the police came under Fire you know oh you're not really investigating this
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very well and the hotel came under Fire and where my heart lied was in and I followed kanika's mother's good example
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she said you know what her friends are the ones that I'm looking at and I followed her good
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example because if what was this what was she out doing by herself you know she's clearly messed up is the best way
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to put it when you watch that video of her walking around she is messed up and she's out walking by herself a very
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vulnerable situation for her to be in and her friends her quote-unquote friends so-called friends weren't there
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to keep an eye on her and I know they're not you know we covered uh Brittany Drexel recently and and one of her
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acquaintances said you know I wasn't there to babysit somebody and I get what they're saying but still this is this is
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this was weird to me that that not only did her friends let her walk around and wander the hotel but they I almost
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almost dropped the F-bomb there because I got all worked up they left the hotel they their friend they don't know where
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the hell she is and they leave well into their credit though they did call her mother yeah so that's one good
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thing but also thank you for for talking me off the ledge there but when you also
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have a situation where you can watch a lot of footage of Kanika walking through the hotel and it's very it is very scary
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because we know that in result and it's very zombie-like it's very uh it's I mean I've seen drunk walking
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before this is beyond that and so you just kind of wonder what was her actions beforehand what was how was she acting
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in the hotel room beforehand and and that's where I questioned them as friends because you would have had some
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sign that she was beyond talk intoxicated right I can't believe that this just like in the blink of an eye
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she's all messed up all of a sudden this this so here's the thing though too which is wild because
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where we had a few a few people saying hey what are you doing covering accidents now we had quite the reverse
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by most of the people that heard our episodes and if you want to go back and listen to those that's episodes 144 and
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145 we covered it September of last year but we had well on all the old episodes
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are available for free on the Stitcher app well what we had the reverse of that was we had loads of people saying crying
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screaming out for an update on kanika's case because there was good information that was learned once you sifted through
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all the crap that was on the internet about this case there was good information that was learned and we'll
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go through some of that today and discuss that now uh first being the Cook County medical examiner's report showed
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that kanika's blood alcohol level was at .112 now the legal limit in Illinois is
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.08 it's been reported that can was drinking cognac so we knew she was drinking you know we
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talked about that Captain and we we actually speculated that there might have been somebody that drugged her
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drink right um and this might have led to this unfortunate situation but I think her
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mom also said that she had a kind of a I think the bomb had an interesting relationship with alcohol
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where if she drinks she got a little more drunk than most people a little I think she said like she I what her words
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were something to the effect of like we don't drink in this family because it messes us up so much like right she's
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like I have one drink and I'm I'm severely intoxicated right so now we have a situation where Kanika is above
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the legal limit so again it kind of explains the walking through the hotel in which in the manner
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in which she did well moms and dads I don't mean to scare anybody Captain but uh I guess roughly 5 000 teenagers die
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each year from alcohol related incidents um 5 000 teenagers and I know Kanika was 19
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and she's technically an adult but lump her in with the teenagers here that's more than than auto crashes more than
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homicides more than suicides so something to be aware of but on top of her alcohol blood alcohol level being so
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high uh she had a quote therapeutic level unquote of top I'm going to try to say
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this Captain this is why I didn't become a doctor because I can't pronounce the medications right that's the only reason
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that that was the only reason why I didn't get into it the medical field with college or med school or any of
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that for all those books all that reading you had to do it's Topiramate to pyromate
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t-o-p-i-r-a-mate and this is something that she is uh prescribed no so this this drug is not prescribed to her but
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it would be prescribed for things such as seizures migraines and I guess sometimes people use it to like for
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weight loss don't I'm putting my stamp on this right here don't use prescription drugs for weight loss Nick
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told you so sure um but anyway like you said she did not have a prescription for this drug uh I
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guess this drug can be unsafe if mixed with alcohol like most drugs uh you wonder how she got this I mean maybe a
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friend was saying hey take this before we drink because then that way you won't get a headache and I think there there
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lies the issue there lies the problem was she drugged was her drink drugged um I here's the thing
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we talked about this and I don't think that the the if that were the case police have not been able to prove that
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right you know they would need people to say hey we saw so and so do this or after the fact we were told so and so
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did this and they're quite proud of what they did now the official cause of death
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for Kanika was hyperthermia um and like we said she was locked in a freezer um and
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but Sheik very likely could have put herself in the freezer and that's the way that this situation looking back on
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it now appears to have gone down that she put herself in that freezer that for days so
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we saw the video footage of her walking into the kitchen area I guess that video
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footage the clarification that they offered later after we covered it was that that those cameras had been running
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their motion detectored motion censored cameras they had been running for days and not
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had picked up anything because nobody went into that kitchen until she did right so she was the first one in there
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last one in there and then they find an employee found her in the freezer this is after they're sent off looking for
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her yeah so I mean what the police think and I believe what the family now thinks
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is that she you know was roaming the hotel went in the kitchen opened up the freezer door when inside got locked in
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yeah and I tell you what anybody that's worked in restaurants or um you know bars any of these big
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walk-in freezers you can walk into them and they do latch behind you they do you
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know it's a secured door it's it's sealing off airtight right and if it's dark in there
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you know not always is it obvious how to get out of those things and I think it's also extremely
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intoxicated she's intoxicated you know maybe a little bit above legal limit right but
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for her and again what we know about her family her reaction to this is probably
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above that and then we have a little bit of prescription pills if you mix that you know where where was her mind at she
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gets into this uh situation and she might not be able to get out of it well and the hotel came under Fire and the
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course they should have the reason being too I mean not only do they have a a kid that that died on their premise
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but uh on their um property but we also have this suspicion of people saying well
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you know the the video appears to be edited or somebody's image has been removed from the video right again to
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remove somebody's image from a video would take hours upon hours and it would take extreme amount of Technology it's
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not as simple as people try to make it out to be on the internet well and I'll tell you what I I have to I couldn't do
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this at the time because we didn't have enough information but you know looking at this now here we are what nine months
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later and I can say that I think that the police actually did a fairly decent job
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on this thing I think this was not an easy case to look into I think that especially with people screaming
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shouting from the hilltops of wrongdoing of possible police cover-up or the hotel
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cover-up well because conspiracy of some level and we do know that they looked at
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this quite a bit um you know Kanika was tested for all kinds of possible drugs being in her system
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and no illegal drugs were found in her system which after seeing her walking in those videos is shocking to me
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um they also double checked that it was not any type of date rape drug now I'm not gonna lie to you Captain I don't
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know much about this type pyromate uh I don't know why it would be in her drink it it well nobody said it's in her drink
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it's in her system thank you thank you so so again I I think if this is something that somebody was uh
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prescribed one would know who's prescribed in that area or that group of friends with this drug and I'm sure they
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know and it could be a simple explanation like I said if this is for migraines there's a lot of times that
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I've you know headed out to the bar and I'll I'll take a couple Advil beforehand
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chicken glass of water take a couple Advil so could it be something as simple as that and like we said we have a
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situation where this um mom is claiming that she reacts to alcohol in a different way than most
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people so let's just assume that she's going to act different with alcohol plus the prescription pills well and here's
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one thing that we didn't know at the time either was that the uh police they did issue several search warrants in
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this case and they also did multiple forensic cell phone searches including kanika's cell phone so yeah that's good
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that's that's big obviously and so they obviously we know they didn't find anything suspicious to lead to this and
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then here's where I start to wander Captain is this something where okay so sometimes when people are
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selling illegal drugs or doing illegal drugs sometimes they're passing off prescription meds as such
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could she have thought she was taking something to you know get her High yeah like ecstasy or something right and in
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trade it's just it's just some jerk that's selling these pills off at you know 10 15 20 a pop yeah his son his
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mother's uh migraine medicine right which causes dizziness so it might make you lead you to believe hey maybe I just
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got some low-grade stuff it kind of messed me up a little bit oh I mixed it with this Cognac
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and you know it's it's having double the effect I almost wonder if that's the case that we have here because we know
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we have teens partying we have a whole bunch of people partying uh what else do we know about the case that leads me to
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believe that it was investigated well was not only those forensic cell phone searches but that room I think it was
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room like 9 9 26 or something like that is where they stayed well that room was rented with a stolen credit card there
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were two men that were eventually taken into custody regarding this stolen credit card I
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don't know I don't know if they were prosecuted or where that led but it certainly gave them a starting point for
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investigating and it gave them a bit of the upper hand a little leverage when they're interviewing these people going
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okay we don't really care so much about your stolen credit card we're here to figure out what happened to this girl
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that turned up dead and nothing came of this well I think the biggest sign for me is the fact that
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the Kanika Jenkins mother decides hey I'm going to step back I understand that there's a bunch of rumors Happening Here
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I understand there's a bunch of stuff on the internet you know calling for some kind of conspiracy or tampering with the
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tapes I'm going to take a step back I'm going to let the the police do their job
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we're gonna we're gonna get an autopsy done let's figure out what the findings are
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and let me see if I can see the evidence do I believe the evidence right and she
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she does so I think to me that's a big sign that not only did they do a good job
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um but they also did a good job of keeping her in the loop keeping her informed I mean we've seen we have
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another accidental death Kendrick Johnson and that's a family that the police kept
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in the dark and they're they're they're pulling a a third autopsy now they're gonna dig up his remains again to do
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another autopsy and I think that that shows that in this case that the police were um kept the family in the loop kept
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her lawyers in the loop did everything that they could and the mother believes the police well and you know where
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conspiracy theorists on this case on the Kanika Jenkins case where they were shouting out that they had you know her
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clothes being partially removed right you know that is it's part of the hypothermia me a process it's a natural
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thing that that people will do when they're dying in that manner it's uh undressing them themselves as you know
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and then the other thing too you know that that's not so surprising I think we all kind of knew that but the
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the thing that I've learned since we've covered this was there were some uh sores that were were seen on her body
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and so a lot of people attributed that to her having been beaten being attacked before death
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um and I what I've learned is that those Legions those those are they're there are erosions that occur from
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hypothermia so it's another frequently occurred thing that takes place during that process so she wasn't there where
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that looks like there might be evidence of her being beaten or attacked beforehand that's just not the case I
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love I love a good conspiracy I just always have and I think um I think in initially is there
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was there cause for rumors yes is their cause to look into it as possibly a conspiracy definitely but now that we
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have the autopsy now that we have the police findings now that we have the statements from her family I think you
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can kind of put that to bed but it's sadly enough that's not what's happening we're getting emails
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um every day and messages on Instagram and Facebook going hey do an update on this
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well it's like one just Google it right but uh you know I I prefer to do an update on
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something where there's new information on a case that's not solved right but but I think some of the people that I
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said okay yeah we're gonna do update on this you know they're going okay yeah because I'm interested on the conspiracy
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angle and it's just not there it's just not there right well and here's the thing nobody you know listening back to
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our coverage of the case I don't know that there was anybody that's you know far removed from the case such as myself
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that was more angry I wanted somebody to blame I thought that somebody was you know needed to be brought to Justice
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well I still think there is somebody to be blamed and I think when the mother of
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a 19 year old girl shows up to a hotel and says I was contacted by my daughter's friends that she's here and
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that she's you know at a party she's drinking and she knows again she was super calm when she calls 9-1-1 she's
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super respectful I mean you cannot applaud Kanika Jenkins mother anymore and she goes down there and says hey
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she's here let's look for her right and I think if they would have done that we wouldn't have a 19 year old that died
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from this we would have a 19 year old that would hopefully learn a lesson from this and um and so yeah I do think their
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negligence is awful and look this is just a rant because I would I think when you pulled up to the garage
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I was listening to the Nick Offerman book canoe your own paddle or something like that
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canoe your own panel uh Paddle Your Own Canoe let's put it raining endorsement for his book yeah yeah it's called a
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canoe your own Pato Um well hey this is a post show man so douche Your Own Canoe
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no so I think that that's where I have a problem with the state of the union for America and I
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don't want to get too preachy but if you have a job do it to the best of your ability
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and and that's it put a bunch put effort in I don't give a [ __ ] if you're making
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a you know double cheeseburger at McDonald's make it the best you can and and I think in this scenario is
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people that came in if I'm working at a hotel and a mom says hey my daughter is missing and she's in here I understand
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that the the hotel is big I understand there's a lot of ground to cover but get off your freaking ass man and
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and and and try to help try to make the world a better place and I think I think that's what they could have done
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that's what they should have done and I think again it would have been that story that we never would have heard of
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and this girl would have learned something from this her parents would have learned something and her friends
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would have learned something now it's it's a tragedy well and I I agree with you 100 and what I didn't
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realize was when we covered it that I opened myself up to some good good and warranted criticism let's
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say and you know I had several people point out to me saying hey look Nick you can't say the hotel should have done
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this and that because you know they have certain privacy issues to adhere to for
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their guests yeah and I get that I get that but let's let's talk about a couple things this room was booked under a
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stolen credit card and of all I don't know that Kanika Jenkins was actually listed as a guest
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in that hotel was not and then thirdly this is not like some dude running in there going my wife's in here with some
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other guy yeah find him so I need to know what room they're in so I can choke this bastard yeah so I can douche his
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canoe this is a mother that comes in there visibly upset and visibly concerned that her daughter who's only
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19 is in there yes 19 is an adult but can we make an exception can we make one exception can can I go you know what
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it out of who I understand that there are policies in place and I understand that these hotels have rules however I
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also understand as a human being if I'm presented with that all I can offer to you is what I would do in that given
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situation I would go and I would search the hotel and I would look for that young lady and I'm not saying that I
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guarantee that I'd be able to find her but I would at least look for her try to offer that poor woman some information
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some information to say hey look we've searched we don't think that she's here well let's go back a little bit I don't
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think she was visibly upset I think that Kanika Jenkins mother showed up she was obviously concerned
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but I I think her level of intent you know if a mom came in and she's just crying hysterically I could see maybe
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that putting off the hotel staff but when somebody comes in with this intent that she is here let's find her I'm I'm
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showing you a lot of respect wake up and do your freaking job right um and again like you said now maybe you
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don't find her but at the end of the day you know Kanika Jenkins family could walk away and say not only did the cops
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do everything they could in their ability to help figure out what happened here but they showed us a level of
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respect and so did the hotel and the that the hotel did everything that they could to do to help us but we were
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walking away from this tragedy and the family can I would say if I was the family one I'm gonna sue your ass but
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you didn't show me a level or respect you didn't show my daughter to love or respect you this was in your power to at
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least look for her and you didn't and look you have cameras you can just start start by sending one or two people out
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and then start going back by looking through some of the footage and you know of course we're going to email saying
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well they would had to do this or we had to do that I don't know how that hotel works but I know a lot of people could
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have said that you got somebody monitoring it you could have somebody could have said you know what actually
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Somebody went into the kitchen well and here's the thing too I don't know how that hotel works but I know how
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all hotels work in the sense that people only want to stay at these hotels if they're nice if they're affordable
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and if they feel safe while they're there and here's the thing the hotel other than not looking for they really
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don't hold much blame however this was something that they came under Fire in the Public's eye and rightfully so the
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problem with them is they're a business they have a business to run and now they
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look very bad in the public right this is what they're famous for they're famous for a girl turning up dead on
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their on their property that they didn't go and search for being lazy Beast is a
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[ __ ] and so that I hope that I you know while I sit here and I still am angry and I still want somebody to blame
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there's just there's no weight to any of these conspiracies where I think that where I I where I can feel a little bit
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good about is that I hope that that business has suffered uh greatly because I don't think that they handled this the
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proper way and I guess there's something the Chicago city council will pass some
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ordinance that will punish hotels where like injuries or deaths are the result of
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quote-unquote unsecured areas you know that they they they're supposed to secure these areas they're supposed to
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lock them down and uh provide signage uh that's that's easily seen easily visible
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and so they the city has taken this seriously but again I I think this thing has been investigated I don't think that
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there's unfortunately I don't think that there's any criminal charges that can be
00:27:03
brought upon anyone I wish that her friends would have handled this better I wish that the hotel would have handled
00:27:10
this better and I you know I just say I say a little prayer for her mother [Music]
00:27:20
thank you [Applause]