HOPE, British Columbia — Police said Monday that 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 was accused of killing his ex-wife, 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. He evaded an international manhunt for days as he crossed from the U.S. into his native Canada.
Jenkins’ dramatic end came at an isolated motel at the edge of British Columbia’s mountainous interior, on the outskirts of Hope.
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.
The 32-year-old real estate developer and investor was charged in California with first-degree murder Thursday after the body of Jasmine Fiore was found in a trash bin southeast of Los Angeles.
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.
Jenkins recently was a contestant on the VH1 reality show “Megan Wants a Millionaire,” in which wealthy young men tried to win over a materialistic blond. The network canceled the show Friday.
Jenkins and Fiore met in Las Vegas in March and married a few weeks later. The couple separated shortly afterward but had reportedly reconciled.
