Police: Slain model's fingers, teeth were removed
Aug 20 2009
By GILLIAN FLACCUS
(AP Photo/Los Angeles Police Department)
This image provided by the Los Angeles Police Department shows Jasmine Fiore, who has been identified as the woman whose body was found stuffed inside a suitcase and placed in a dumpster and discovered Aug. 15, 2009. Police said Ryan Alexander Jenkins, 32, a reality TV personality, is a ''person of interest'' in her death.
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. Fiore's body ultimately was identified through her breast implants.
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 Aug. 13, and Jenkins checked out the next morning. Fiore was not seen alive again.
He reported her missing Saturday night and then vanished after the body was found. Authorities suspect he drove 1,000 miles to Washington state and then hopped in a boat to a peninsula on the border, where he walked into Canadian territory. Canadian police said ground, air and canine units are involved in the search.
"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 said. "There will be no stone unturned and we'll look under every rock for him." Buena Park police Lt. Steve Holliday said he's possibly armed with a handgun.
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.
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, the two were fighting because he was jealous of her ex-boyfriends, Lepore said. "She had the marriage annulled."
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.
The federal government was issuing a federal warrant which Canadian authorities can use to detain him on the murder charges, Buena Park Police Capt. Ken Coovert said.
If Jenkins is apprehended north of the border, authorities there could extradict him but only with assurances that he would not face the death penalty. Farrah Emami, a spokeswoman with the Orange County district attorney's office, said the death penalty issue hasn't been addressed yet.
Prosecutors recommended a bail of $10 million.
Associated Press writers Robert Gillies in Toronto, Jeremy Hainsworth in Vancouver, Robert Jablon and Raquel Maria Dillon in Los Angeles, Ken Ritter in Las Vegas, Amy Taxin in Buena Park and Doug Esser in Seattle contributed to this report.
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