Police: Slain model's fingers, teeth were removed
BUENA PARK, Calif. - A reality TV contestant was charged with murder Thursday in the death of his ex-wife as the manhunt for the suspect spread to Canada and police provided gruesome new details about the killing.
Police said Ryan Alexander Jenkins removed the teeth and fingers of Jasmine Fiore, presumably to impede authorities in their efforts to identify the naked body after it was found stuffed in a suitcase in a California trash bin over the weekend.
The former swimsuit model and Jenkins were briefly married after a quickie Las Vegas wedding this year, and had been fighting in recent months. Prosecutors said the two checked into a San Diego hotel last Thursday, and Jenkins checked out the next morning. Fiore was not seen alive again.
He vanished after the body was found Saturday and Buena Park police Lt. Steve Holliday said he's possibly armed with a handgun.
Jenkins is believed to have driven 1,000 miles to Washington state and then hopped in a boat to a peninsula on the border, where he walked into Canadian territory. A Canadian police official said ground, air and canine units are involved in the search for Jenkins.
"At this time, although we believe he crossed the border, we're not one hundred percent sure of that," U.S. Marshal Chief Inspector Thomas Hession. "There will be no stone unturned and we'll look under every rock for him."
A car and empty boat trailer belonging to the 32-year-old Calgary, Alberta native were found at a marina in the remote northwest Washington town of Blaine.
Whatcom County Sheriff's deputies received a report Wednesday that a man matching Jenkins' description arrived by boat at Point Roberts, Wash., about 10 miles from Blaine at the tip of a peninsula. The point is reachable by land only from Canada, and Jenkins is believed to have walked across the border from there.
Canadian Public Safety Minister Peter Van Loan said police agencies across Canada are on the lookout for Jenkins.
Constable Sharlene Brooks in the Canadian border city of Delta said ground, air and canine units are involved in the search.
Fiore's ex-boyfriend, Robert Hasman, urged Jenkins' friends and family to help police find him.
"Ryan Jenkins is an animal, what he has done to Jasmine is unspeakable and it's just not right and I'd appreciate your help," Hasman said at a news conference.
Jenkins was a contestant on the VH1 reality TV show "Megan Wants a Millionaire."
After taping for the VH1 series finished in early March, Jenkins met 28-year-old Fiore in Las Vegas casino and the two got married on March 18, said Fiore's mother, Lisa Lepore.
But in May, "they had a big blowout," and fought because he was jealous of her ex-boyfriends, Lepore said. "She had the marriage annulled."
The federal government was in the process of issuing a federal warrant Thursday afternoon, which would allow Canadian authorities to take Jenkins into custody there, Capt. Ken Coovert said.
If Jenkins is arrested in Canada, California can request that he be extradicted to the U.S.
At least one actor who appeared on "Millionaire" with Jenkins at a mansion in the Hollywood Hills was shocked by the latest developments and remembered a suave bachelor who grew in confidence as taping progressed.
Jenkins earned the nickname "Smooth Operator" because of "his cheeky cockiness. And I mean that in a friendly way," said Rob Locke, who played the host, a butler named Niles.
"We were all under the impression that he was single. Then I saw on Facebook that he got married and there were photos of him and his wife. My personal observation was, 'Wow, that was quick,'" Locke said, adding that taping ended in March.
Court records show that Jenkins was charged in June in Clark County, Nev., with a misdemeanor count of "battery constituting domestic violence" for allegedly hitting Fiore in the arm and will be tried in December.
Jenkins also has a criminal history in his hometown of Calgary, Canada. He was sentenced to 15 months of probation in January 2007 on an unspecified assault charge, according to the Alberta, Canada Ministry of Justice. No further details were available.
Neal Tomlinson, a partner at the law firm representing Jenkins in the Nevada case, declined to comment and declined to say if his firm was representing Jenkins in the current matter.
Fiore was last seen alive with Jenkins at a poker game in San Diego. Jenkins reported her missing Saturday night to the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department, police said.
A preliminary coroner's report indicated Fiore was strangled.
Jenkins, variously described as an architect, real estate developer and investment banker from Calgary, appeared in at least three episodes of the series "Megan Wants a Millionaire," about a woman seeking to land a wealthy bachelor by putting suitors through their paces, such as designing a marketing campaign for her pet Chihuahua.
On the show, Jenkins was identified as an investment banker who had a couple million dollars.
A resume posted on the professional networking site LinkedIn.com says Jenkins graduated from Mount Royal College in Calgary in 1999, has a license to fly commercial airplanes and worked in investment sales and as president of a boutique development company focused on cutting-edge green technologies.
By May, Fiore "didn't trust him because he was doing (things) behind her back," Lepore said. She declined to say what the incident involved.
Jenkins then went to Mexico to do another reality TV show, but struggled to get Fiore back when he returned. It was not immediately clear which show he appeared on.
"He convinced her during that month that he was really the guy for her," Lepore said. "He wrote poems and stories, and prayed, and (claimed he) had this huge spiritual awakening."
VH1 said it has postponed any future airings of the show. The statement also said that the show was an outside production licensed to VH1, but that it was produced and owned by 51 Minds Entertainment.
--AP
Police say fugitive reality TV star found dead
VANCOUVER, British Columbia - Canadian police say fugitive murder suspect Ryan Jenkins has been found dead of an apparent suicide in a motel in British Columbia. Sgt. Duncan Pound of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police border integrity unit says police responded to a call about a dead person in Hope, east of Vancouver, and then called investigators who were part of the massive manhunt for Jenkins.
The real estate developer and reality show contestant was wanted in California on first-degree murder charges after the mutilated body of his ex-wife was found near Los Angeles.
Jenkins, 32, disappeared last week but his boat was found Wednesday at a marina not far from the U.S.-Canada border south of Vancouver.
Pound says police don't yet know how long Jenkins was at the motel before his body was discovered.
--AP
so grouse! What have become of the human heart becoming so evil???
karma caught up with him eh. eventually crime and murder doesnt pay, either in this life or next.
OMG....
Never get raped before she was killed?