A reality TV contestant was charged with murder on Thursday in the death of his ex-wife as the manhunt for the suspect spread to Canada and police provided gruesome new details of 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 on Aug. 13 and Jenkins checked out the next morning.
Fiore was not seen alive again.
He reported her missing on Saturday night and then vanished after the body was found.
Authorities suspect he drove 1,600km 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 100 percent sure of that,” US Marshals Service Chief Inspector Thomas Hession said. “There will be no stone unturned and we’ll look under every rock for him.”
Buena Park police Lieutenant Steve Holliday said he may be 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 on Wednesday that a man matching Jenkins’ description arrived by boat at Point Roberts, Washington, about 16km 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 at a Las Vegas casino and the two got married on March 18, Fiore’s mother, Lisa Lepore, said.
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.”
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 allowing Canadian authorities to take Jenkins into custody there, Captain 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 had not been addressed yet.
Prosecutors recommended bail of US$10 million.
“Mr Jenkins is considered dangerous, possibly armed, and has the financial means to hide anywhere in the world,” Orange County District Attorney Tony Rackauckas said. “Anyone helping Mr Jenkins hide from the police may go to prison themselves.”
Court records show that Jenkins was charged in June in Clark County, Nevada, with a misdemeanor count of “battery constituting domestic violence” for allegedly hitting Fiore in the arm and was to face trail 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, the Alberta Ministry of Justice said. No further details were available.
A preliminary coroner’s report indicated Fiore was strangled.
At least one actor who appeared on Millionaire with Jenkins at a mansion in the Hollywood Hills was shocked by the 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.
Jenkins, variously described as an architect, real estate developer and investment banker from Calgary, appeared in at least three episodes of Millionaire, about a woman seeking to land a wealthy bachelor by putting suitors through tests, such as designing a marketing campaign for her pet Chihuahua.
Republican US lawmakers on Friday criticized US President Joe Biden’s administration after sanctioned Chinese telecoms equipment giant Huawei unveiled a laptop this week powered by an Intel artificial intelligence (AI) chip. The US placed Huawei on a trade restriction list in 2019 for contravening Iran sanctions, part of a broader effort to hobble Beijing’s technological advances. Placement on the list means the company’s suppliers have to seek a special, difficult-to-obtain license before shipping to it. One such license, issued by then-US president Donald Trump’s administration, has allowed Intel to ship central processors to Huawei for use in laptops since 2020. China hardliners
Conjoined twins Lori and George Schappell, who pursued separate careers, interests and relationships during lives that defied medical expectations, died this month in Pennsylvania, funeral home officials said. They were 62. The twins, listed by Guinness World Records as the oldest living conjoined twins, died on April 7 at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, obituaries posted by Leibensperger Funeral Homes of Hamburg said. The cause of death was not detailed. “When we were born, the doctors didn’t think we’d make 30, but we proved them wrong,” Lori said in an interview when they turned 50, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported. The
RAMPAGE: A Palestinian man was left dead after dozens of Israeli settlers searching for a missing 14-year-old boy stormed a village in the Israeli-occupied West Bank US President Joe Biden on Friday said he expected Iran to attack Israel “sooner, rather than later” and warned Tehran not to proceed. Asked by reporters about his message to Iran, Biden simply said: “Don’t,” underscoring Washington’s commitment to defend Israel. “We are devoted to the defense of Israel. We will support Israel. We will help defend Israel and Iran will not succeed,” he said. Biden said he would not divulge secure information, but said his expectation was that an attack could come “sooner, rather than later.” Israel braced on Friday for an attack by Iran or its proxies as warnings grew of
IN PURSUIT: Israel’s defense minister said the revenge attacks by Israeli settlers would make it difficult for security forces to find those responsible for the 14-year-old’s death Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Saturday condemned the “heinous murder” of an Israeli teenager in the occupied West Bank as attacks on Palestinian villages intensified following news of his death. After Benjamin Achimeir, 14, was reported missing near Ramallah on Friday, hundreds of Jewish settlers backed by Israeli forces raided nearby Palestinian villages, torching vehicles and homes, leaving at least one villager dead and dozens wounded. The attacks escalated in several villages on Saturday after Achimeir’s body was found near the Malachi Hashalom outpost. Agence France-Presse correspondents saw smoke rising from burned houses and fields. Mayor Amin Abu Alyah, of the