HOPE, B.C. — Police said Monday they have identified and are investigating a woman who allegedly helped a former reality television show contestant hide from authorities in his native Canada after his ex-wife was found dead in the U.S.
Sgt. Duncan Pound of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police did not release the identity of the woman who checked Ryan Jenkins into a remote motel in British Columbia days before he was found dead there Sunday of an apparent suicide.
Pound said the two had a history together and that police were investigating whether she would face charges for helping Jenkins. She is not in police custody, he said.
Jenkins, 32, a contestant on VH1’s “Megan Wants a Millionaire,” was charged in California with first-degree murder for allegedly killing his ex-wife, Jasmine Fiore, a model whose body was so badly mutilated when found in a trash bin outside Los Angeles it had to be identified by her breast implants’ serial numbers.
Police in California have still not located the crime scene and said Monday they believe the victim’s missing white Mercedes-Benz could be the key.
Sunday evening, Canadian police responded to a call from motel staff about a dead person, and then called investigators who were part of the manhunt for Jenkins, Pound said.
The manager of the Thunderbird Motel and his nephew said they found Jenkins hanging from the bar of a coat rack by a belt.
Kevin Walker, who manages the 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 — 140 Canadian dollars ($130) — for three nights’ stay.
“He stayed in the car far, far away from the front of the office,” Walker said.
Walker said he never saw the woman or the car again, and another tenant said the woman left after about 20 minutes after check-in.
Pound said Monday said they are investigating whether the woman could face charges of being an accessory after the fact to a border violation and evading police.
Buena Park police Sgt. William Kohanek said Monday that Fiore’s missing car, a white 2007 Mercedes-Benz CL S550, is part of a “big unsolved puzzle” as they try to determine where she was killed.
Fiore’s mother, Lisa Lepore, said Monday that she had a mixed reaction to news of Jenkins’ death.
“It brings some closure to what’s been going on,” Lepore, who lives in Maui, Hawaii, said on NBC’s “Today” show. “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.”
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