Mystery Woman Helped Reality TV Fugitive
Updated August 26, 6:38 p.m. Eastern
Reality show contestant Ryan Jenkins' life ended in a way that could have been scripted for TV: as police investigated the murder suspect's suicide at a secluded Canadian motel, word came Monday that a mysterious young woman had checked him in there.
Update: The Canadian Broadcast Corporation (CBC) said police sources have identified the woman who helped reality contestant Ryan Jenkins check into a motel while police were pursuing him for the murder of his bikini model ex-wife Jasmine Fiore.
Accused of the gruesome death of his ex-wife, a model whose body was so badly mutilated it had to be identified by her breast implants' serial numbers, Jenkins evaded a massive international manhunt for days as he crossed from California into his native Canada.
The dramatic end came at an isolated motel at the edge of British Columbia's mountainous interior, on the outskirts of Hope, a town known for its giant wooden carvings made with chainsaws and as the place where the first Rambo movie was filmed.
On Sunday evening, police responded to a call from motel staff about a dead person, and then called investigators who were part of the manhunt for Jenkins, said Sgt. Duncan Pound of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police border integrity unit.
The manager of The Thunderbird Motel and his nephew said they found Jenkins hanging from the bar of a coat rack by a belt. They said a young woman had checked him in to the two-story inn surrounded by trees.
The 32-year-old real estate developer and investor was charged in California with first-degree murder Thursday after the dismembered body of Jasmine Fiore was found in a trash bin in Buena Park, about 20 miles southeast of Los Angeles.
Fiore's teeth had been pulled out and her fingers cut off, apparently to impede her identification. Investigators used the serial numbers on her breast implants to identify her, Orange County prosecutors said.
On Monday, Fiore's mother, Lisa Lepore, said Jenkins "took the easy way out."
Speaking on ABC's "Good Morning America" show, Lepore said Jenkins didn't want to face the consequences of his actions and "that's how he dealt with it."
Lepore told NBC's "Today" show she had a mixed reaction to news of Jenkins' death.
"It brings some closure to what's been going on," said Lepore, who lives in Maui, Hawaii. "We don't have to worry about looking for him anymore or being worried that he is a threat to any other women or men."
She added: "We still have a long process of closure."
A cell phone message left with Lepore was not immediately returned.
Michael Welner, one of the country's top forensic psychiatrists, spoke with CBS Anchor Maggie Rodriguez about Jenkins on "The Early Show."
Welner compared Jenkins to Andrew Cunanan, who killed fashion designer Gianni Versace before committing suicide in 1997.
"The same vanity that targets celebrity and the same vanity that puts yourself on a reality show to search for a trophy wife is the same vanity that says, 'I do not want to be caught as a murderer. I'd rather die,'" Welner said.
Welner also talked about Jenkins's pursuit of a career as a reality television star.
"They actually aren't reality," Welner said. "They're people who have an emptiness that they want to fill with something that's very shallow and very trophy-like. This is the kind of tragedy that fathers should talk to their sons about, being able to learn about how to tolerate rejection, and that women should talk to their daughters about staying away from men who value them as trophies who can't handle the rejection of it when it ends because these are the cocktails that end in domestic violence, and this is an ultimate tragedy."
Kevin Walker, who manages the Thunderbird Motel, said Jenkins and the mystery woman arrived Thursday in a Chrysler PT Cruiser with tinted windows and license plates from Alberta, Jenkins' home province. He stayed in the car while the woman checked them in, he said.
She was blonde, in her early 20s and "naturally pretty, one of those wholesome little ladies," he said.
Walker said the woman paid cash for three nights' stay.
"He stayed in the car far, far away from the front of the office," Walker said. "I didn't think nothing of it because it's just a couple checking in."
Walker said he never saw the woman or the car again.
"I didn't see her leave, but apparently the tenant in No. 1 (next to Jenkins' room) said she only stuck around for about 20 minutes," he said.
Adam Curt, 19, a motel employee and Walker's nephew, said Jenkins "looked stressed out," said. "He wouldn't look anybody in the eye."
Walker said he didn't recognize the man although Jenkins' face had been all over the news.
"In no way shape or form did he look like the man on TV," he said. "He looked spent."
The motel manager said when the couple didn't check out, he unlocked the room and found him dead.
"I cracked the door and there he was, hanging there in front of me, feet touching" the floor, Walker said. "He definitely wanted to die. I smelt death."
Michelle Beck, who lives near the motel, said people who stay there are "kind of seedy - lots of drugs addicts and people down on their luck."
Police carried out bags of Jenkins' belongings, including his laptop computer, Walker said.
Hope is about 100 miles from Point Roberts, Wash., the last place Jenkins was reported to have been seen before he crossed into Canada.
Pound of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police said that an autopsy was planned.
He declined to comment on the woman who assisted Jenkins but said the investigation was by no means over.
"We're trying to determine as best we can how it is that he came to be in that motel," Pound said.
He also declined comment on what evidence they seized from the motel room.
"The sadness of this all is that Mr. Jenkins will not stand before an Orange County jury for his crime," Buena Park Police Lt. Steve Holiday said at a Sunday night press conference.
Holiday said his department's investigation would continue. The British Columbia Coroner's Service is also investigating Jenkins' death and police are trying to determine how he got to Hope.
After Jenkins disappeared last week, his boat was found Wednesday at a marina not far from the U.S.-Canada border south of Vancouver. Canadian authorities launched a massive border search using helicopters, ground police and dogs.
"The ring was tightening on him," Tom Hession, chief inspector for the U.S. Marshals Service's regional fugitive task force, said at the California news conference. "He obviously was desperate."
Jenkins and Fiore met in Las Vegas in March and they married a few weeks later. The couple separated shortly afterward, but had reportedly reconciled.
Friends said Fiore was a model who worked mainly in Las Vegas and Los Angeles, doing gigs such as being bodypainted at parties. She also was an aspiring actress and had a bit part in a small 2008 horror science-fiction movie, "The Abandoned," according to the Internet Movie Database.
Jenkins was recently a contestant on VH1 reality show "Megan Wants a Millionaire," in which wealthy young men tried to win over a materialistic blonde. The network canceled the show Friday.
Fiore's mother told The Associated Press earlier this week that her daughter had the marriage annulled in May. However, there were no court records of an annulment in either Nevada, where the couple was married, or in Los Angeles County, where they most recently lived.
The two were married in a Las Vegas casino after taping for "Megan Wants a Millionaire" finished in early March, Lepore said. Court records show the date of marriage as March 18.
But in May they fought because he was jealous of her ex-boyfriends, Lepore said.
Nada Jenkins, Ryan Jenkins' mother, who lives in Vancouver, said Sunday before learning of her son's death that she had been in touch with police.
"Hah! They're on my tail all day. I'm in contact with them constantly," she said before hanging up.
Local residents were shocked that he was found in Hope.
"This is not the kind of thing you want to be on the map for. I think everybody is kind of shocked and surprised," longtime resident Peter Scherle said. Hope has 6,600 residents.
Jenkins also was a participant in an as-yet-unaired competitive reality series, "I Love Money 3." A VH1 spokesman said no decision has been made on whether or not to run the show.
A resume posted on the professional networking site LinkedIn.com says Jenkins had a license to fly commercial airplanes and dabbled in several development enterprises.
Jenkins had been charged with allegedly hitting Fiore in the arm recently, court records showed.
In his hometown of Calgary, Jenkins was sentenced to 15 months probation in January 2007 on an unspecified assault charge.
Prosecutors said Jenkins and Fiore checked into a San Diego hotel Aug. 13, and Jenkins checked out the next morning. Fiore was never seen alive again.
© 2009 CBS Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report. Reality show contestant Ryan Jenkins' life ended in a way that could have been scripted for TV: as police investigated the murder suspect's suicide at a secluded Canadian motel, word came Monday that a mysterious young woman had checked him in there.
Update: The Canadian Broadcast Corporation (CBC) said police sources have identified the woman who helped reality contestant Ryan Jenkins check into a motel while police were pursuing him for the murder of his bikini model ex-wife Jasmine Fiore.
Accused of the gruesome death of his ex-wife, a model whose body was so badly mutilated it had to be identified by her breast implants' serial numbers, Jenkins evaded a massive international manhunt for days as he crossed from California into his native Canada.
The dramatic end came at an isolated motel at the edge of British Columbia's mountainous interior, on the outskirts of Hope, a town known for its giant wooden carvings made with chainsaws and as the place where the first Rambo movie was filmed.
On Sunday evening, police responded to a call from motel staff about a dead person, and then called investigators who were part of the manhunt for Jenkins, said Sgt. Duncan Pound of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police border integrity unit.
The manager of The Thunderbird Motel and his nephew said they found Jenkins hanging from the bar of a coat rack by a belt. They said a young woman had checked him in to the two-story inn surrounded by trees.
The 32-year-old real estate developer and investor was charged in California with first-degree murder Thursday after the dismembered body of Jasmine Fiore was found in a trash bin in Buena Park, about 20 miles southeast of Los Angeles.
Fiore's teeth had been pulled out and her fingers cut off, apparently to impede her identification. Investigators used the serial numbers on her breast implants to identify her, Orange County prosecutors said.
On Monday, Fiore's mother, Lisa Lepore, said Jenkins "took the easy way out."
Speaking on ABC's "Good Morning America" show, Lepore said Jenkins didn't want to face the consequences of his actions and "that's how he dealt with it."
Lepore told NBC's "Today" show she had a mixed reaction to news of Jenkins' death.
"It brings some closure to what's been going on," said Lepore, who lives in Maui, Hawaii. "We don't have to worry about looking for him anymore or being worried that he is a threat to any other women or men."
She added: "We still have a long process of closure."
A cell phone message left with Lepore was not immediately returned.
Michael Welner, one of the country's top forensic psychiatrists, spoke with CBS Anchor Maggie Rodriguez about Jenkins on "The Early Show."
Welner compared Jenkins to Andrew Cunanan, who killed fashion designer Gianni Versace before committing suicide in 1997.
"The same vanity that targets celebrity and the same vanity that puts yourself on a reality show to search for a trophy wife is the same vanity that says, 'I do not want to be caught as a murderer. I'd rather die,'" Welner said.
Welner also talked about Jenkins's pursuit of a career as a reality television star.
"They actually aren't reality," Welner said. "They're people who have an emptiness that they want to fill with something that's very shallow and very trophy-like. This is the kind of tragedy that fathers should talk to their sons about, being able to learn about how to tolerate rejection, and that women should talk to their daughters about staying away from men who value them as trophies who can't handle the rejection of it when it ends because these are the cocktails that end in domestic violence, and this is an ultimate tragedy."
Kevin Walker, who manages the Thunderbird Motel, said Jenkins and the mystery woman arrived Thursday in a Chrysler PT Cruiser with tinted windows and license plates from Alberta, Jenkins' home province. He stayed in the car while the woman checked them in, he said.
She was blonde, in her early 20s and "naturally pretty, one of those wholesome little ladies," he said.
Walker said the woman paid cash for three nights' stay.
"He stayed in the car far, far away from the front of the office," Walker said. "I didn't think nothing of it because it's just a couple checking in."
Walker said he never saw the woman or the car again.
"I didn't see her leave, but apparently the tenant in No. 1 (next to Jenkins' room) said she only stuck around for about 20 minutes," he said.
Adam Curt, 19, a motel employee and Walker's nephew, said Jenkins "looked stressed out," said. "He wouldn't look anybody in the eye."
Walker said he didn't recognize the man although Jenkins' face had been all over the news.
"In no way shape or form did he look like the man on TV," he said. "He looked spent."
The motel manager said when the couple didn't check out, he unlocked the room and found him dead.
"I cracked the door and there he was, hanging there in front of me, feet touching" the floor, Walker said. "He definitely wanted to die. I smelt death."
Michelle Beck, who lives near the motel, said people who stay there are "kind of seedy - lots of drugs addicts and people down on their luck."
Police carried out bags of Jenkins' belongings, including his laptop computer, Walker said.
Hope is about 100 miles from Point Roberts, Wash., the last place Jenkins was reported to have been seen before he crossed into Canada.
Pound of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police said that an autopsy was planned.
He declined to comment on the woman who assisted Jenkins but said the investigation was by no means over.
"We're trying to determine as best we can how it is that he came to be in that motel," Pound said.
He also declined comment on what evidence they seized from the motel room.
"The sadness of this all is that Mr. Jenkins will not stand before an Orange County jury for his crime," Buena Park Police Lt. Steve Holiday said at a Sunday night press conference.
Holiday said his department's investigation would continue. The British Columbia Coroner's Service is also investigating Jenkins' death and police are trying to determine how he got to Hope.
After Jenkins disappeared last week, his boat was found Wednesday at a marina not far from the U.S.-Canada border south of Vancouver. Canadian authorities launched a massive border search using helicopters, ground police and dogs.
"The ring was tightening on him," Tom Hession, chief inspector for the U.S. Marshals Service's regional fugitive task force, said at the California news conference. "He obviously was desperate."
Jenkins and Fiore met in Las Vegas in March and they married a few weeks later. The couple separated shortly afterward, but had reportedly reconciled.
Friends said Fiore was a model who worked mainly in Las Vegas and Los Angeles, doing gigs such as being bodypainted at parties. She also was an aspiring actress and had a bit part in a small 2008 horror science-fiction movie, "The Abandoned," according to the Internet Movie Database.
Jenkins was recently a contestant on VH1 reality show "Megan Wants a Millionaire," in which wealthy young men tried to win over a materialistic blonde. The network canceled the show Friday.
Fiore's mother told The Associated Press earlier this week that her daughter had the marriage annulled in May. However, there were no court records of an annulment in either Nevada, where the couple was married, or in Los Angeles County, where they most recently lived.
The two were married in a Las Vegas casino after taping for "Megan Wants a Millionaire" finished in early March, Lepore said. Court records show the date of marriage as March 18.
But in May they fought because he was jealous of her ex-boyfriends, Lepore said.
Nada Jenkins, Ryan Jenkins' mother, who lives in Vancouver, said Sunday before learning of her son's death that she had been in touch with police.
"Hah! They're on my tail all day. I'm in contact with them constantly," she said before hanging up.
Local residents were shocked that he was found in Hope.
"This is not the kind of thing you want to be on the map for. I think everybody is kind of shocked and surprised," longtime resident Peter Scherle said. Hope has 6,600 residents.
Jenkins also was a participant in an as-yet-unaired competitive reality series, "I Love Money 3." A VH1 spokesman said no decision has been made on whether or not to run the show.
A resume posted on the professional networking site LinkedIn.com says Jenkins had a license to fly commercial airplanes and dabbled in several development enterprises.
Jenkins had been charged with allegedly hitting Fiore in the arm recently, court records showed.
In his hometown of Calgary, Jenkins was sentenced to 15 months probation in January 2007 on an unspecified assault charge.
Prosecutors said Jenkins and Fiore checked into a San Diego hotel Aug. 13, and Jenkins checked out the next morning. Fiore was never seen alive again.
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You do have a point, I mean most women get their news from People magazine, but that rarely happens because they have their faces attached to, or looking down at their cell phones for text messages...so, you're right, most women don't have a clue about current events and the news...especially in a small town where in your world TV doesn't exist and the news doesn't reach it.
Well, the only thing anyone can get from your posts is that you are a woman hater. Sooo, there really isn't any point in reading them or taking them seriously.
I hope you get no rest until you turn yourself in. You are a pathetic human being to have helped this man escape justice. I hope Jasmine haunts you forever.
by pw08-2009 August 24, 2009 6:18 PM EDT
Are you for real? How would she not know what was going on with him, when literally everyone else in the world did - especially in light of the fact that she has a relationship with him and it has been on the news for a long time....wake up!
You wake up! There are a good many people that don't watch tv and the news. Not everyone is glued to the TV. Hope is a very small town. I doubt they even have CABLE!
I mean OMG...can the world please stop making excuses for women...don't women have a brain in their head? Why is it that we always assume their innocense with the stupidity they commit...
Nobody is making excuses for anyone. YOU all are SPECULATING on something you know nothing about. You have no idea what has happened. NONE. I'm just stating that fact. Why don't you idiots wait for the FACTS instead of speculating on what you THINK.
And actually there are SOME women that do not have a brain in their head. But that would be a mere fraction compared to how many brain dead men there are. : ) Of course I'm just going by some of the stupid posts that are written on here, like yours.
In fact wasn't it a STUPID man that committed the crime? Wasn't it a STUPID man that tried to erase her identity, only to forget about her boobs? : ) Now if that ain't stupid, I don't know what is.
Not necessarily. He could have told her anything. She may not have known who he was. Not everyone watches tv or the news. She was supposedly only 20, so at that age they can still be quite naive. Maybe she was a prostitute? You just never know.
He saved the American taxpayers money. But he used a woman to pull off the renting the the room. The staff who saw the awful sight they must see it.Pity..Hope they will be able to do their duties. He used them. He could han turnt himself in and faced the music. Yet the killer pulled this. The best to the sfaff of the place as they go about running the place. There are good people still. The lady should turn herself in for helping him. That dead man was a wanted man and she had to know that.