Speaking with a small handful of reporters, Martin was greeted by hundreds of strangers who offered hugs, cash in envelopes or their opinions of what happened to Kenneka. I witnessed this very thing during a memorial balloon release for Jenkins in Douglas Park on the city’s West Side not long after her death. These years later, I still can’t get over how brazenly strangers could walk up and offer theories of murder to the family seemingly without filter. Hopefully the conspiracy theories-affecting-real life isn’t a trend, though months after Jenkins’ death, authorities in rural Virginia were forced to publicly release graphic details of a 22-year-old woman’s fatal mauling by dogs after rumors persisted that she had been killed by a human. Mistrust in public institutions and authority is common today, as an April 2019 Pew Research poll found that only 17 percent of Americans say they can trust the government in Washington to do what is right “just about always.” It feels like a relative,” one mourner told me outside Jenkins’ 2017 packed funeral at House of Hope church. “We’ve been following this ever since it happened - crying, staying up late at night - it’s heartbreaking. The fear of an unknown stalker prowling the South or West sides for vulnerable young women is a real concern, and actual women and trans women have wound up dead or disappeared in recent years. The lawsuit filed this week has no merit and we will vigorously contest it. Meanwhile in Chicago, people in the neighborhoods were concerned that Jenkins, a young woman they’d never met, died suspiciously and its evidence hushed up. The Crowne Plaza Hotel responded to the lawsuit in a written statement: 'The death of Kenneka Jenkins was a tragedy.
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