Model-killing husband dead in apparant suicide - RCMP

VANCOUVER — Fugitive murder suspect Ryan Jenkins has been found dead in a B.C. hotel room.

Jenkins was charged in California with murdering his ex-wife Jasmine Fiore, a swimsuit model whose corpse was found stuffed into a garbage bin about 30 kilometres south of Los Angeles. He was also charged with mutilating her body as_her fingers and teeth had been removed — fingerprints and dental records are often how homicide victims are identified.

Instead, the 28-year-old was identified by the serial number on her breast implants.

After an international manhunt and an apparent attempt to flee U.S. justice by returning to his native Canada, Jenkins apparently gave up his game of hide-and-seek Sunday. His body was found in a hotel room in Hope, 135 kilometres east of Vancouver. Police say he apparently took his own life.

"We were able to determine that it was Ryan Jenkins," said Sgt. Duncan Pound of the RCMP’s Federal Border Integrity Program, during an early evening news conference. "At this point it would be speculation as to how long he had been there."

The find came just hours after RCMP said Jenkins was in Canada, ‘desperate,’ and posing a public danger if approached.

“We don’t want anyone to have interactions with someone who’s obviously desperate to avoid the police right now,” said Pound earlier Sunday. “If someone approaches him, it could trigger the ‘fight or flight’ syndrome.“Do not approach him — get a licence plate, get a location, get information that can help police, then phone 911.”

Jenkins, 32, has been traced to Blaine and Point Roberts — two Washington-state communities just across the U.S. border from the Lower Mainland — and Pound said earlier Sunday that police believed he was hiding in Canada.

A visit on Sunday to the Vancouver building where mother Nada Jenkins lives turned up no sign of the fugitive’s mom. A ring on the building’s buzzer marked ‘Jenkins’ instead connected a Province news team with neighbour Mark Lanfranco.

“There have been lots of news crews around, and surveillance on the seawall,” said Lanfranco, 26, an environmental consultant who’s lived in the building for three months. “It’s a little scary for my girlfriend. I’m probably more worried for her than she is for herself.”