Just Another Orange County Murder: Jasmine Fiore Car Found

UPDATED THROUGHOUT!

The final piece in the puzzle explaining how swimsuit model Jasmine Fiore was brutally murdered and mutilated, as well as whether anyone helped now dead murder suspect Ryan Alexander Jenkins kill and/or dispose of the body in a Buena Park dumpster, could have been found with the discovery of the victim's missing luxury car in West Hollywood.

A Trader Joe's shopper called police Wednesday afternoon to report the white 2007 Mercedes-Benz was parked next door at the closed Union Bank at 8623 Santa Monica Blvd. Police called it a key p

iece of evidence because investigators believe the car was used to transport Fiore to Buena Park.
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Courtesy of Buena Park Police Department

Ryan Alexander Jenkins

The international manhunt for 32-year-old Jenkins–who was suspected of strangling his former wife Fiore, stuffing her nude and mutilated body into a small suitcase and tossing the luggage into a Buena Park apartment complex dumpster–ended Aug. 23 when the reality television ontestant was found hanging from a belt looped over the closet bar in a British Columbia motel room.

Canadian mounties have not confirmed it, but national television network CBC reports that Alena Jenkins checked her older brother into the Thunderbird Motel in Hope, British Columbia, for a three-night stay–at least a day before Fiore was brutally murdered. The young woman has not been charged. When she and her brother did not check out, a motel employee entered the room and discovered the suicide scene.

Fiore, 

hours before Jenkins reported Fiore missing, a resident looking for recyclables in the dumpster behind an apartment complex in the 7400 block of Franklin Street in Buena Park discovered an unzipped, mustard-colored, blood-stained, 2-foot-wide by 3-foot-long by 2-foot-tall suitcase with a small-framed, naked woman stuffed inside. Her teeth and fingers were missing, but the county coroner was later able to identify her as Fiore thanks to the identification numbers on her breast implants.

Fiore was last seen alive the night of Aug. 14 accompaning Jenkins, who was playing poker in San Diego. He filed the missing person report the following night at the LASO's West Hollywood station. Deputies say he told them he had not seen Fiore since the previous afternoon, when she left their Los Angeles home to get her nails done.

But police now say Jenkins lied to them about the timeline of events leading up to Fiore's disappearance, which prompted the Orange County District Attorney's Office to charge him with her murder. The by-then fugitive's bail was set at $10 million and the international manhunt was launched.

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Megan Hauserman, the star of the reality show that featured 18 men (including Jenkins, who was nicknamed “Smooth Operator”) vying for her affections, told TMZ.com that Fiore and Jenkins met in a Las Vegas strip club where Fiore was a dancer and that they married two days later. The Orange County Register , citing the Clark County, Nevada, website, reported the couple married on March 18, but also quoted Fiore's mother saying her daughter had the marriage annulled.

Lisa Lapore, the mother, and Fiore's previous fiance have given media interviews in recent days contending Jenkins had a dark, violent side. Jenkins' former fiancee, family, friends and people associated with the reality shows have countered with interviews of their own saying the man they knew was not violent and could not have committed the murder.

But Jenkins was reportedly arrested in late April and charged with “battery constituting domestic violence” after he allegedly hit Fiore in the arm with his fist. There were also reports of a separate assault on a different woman in Calgary in January 2007 that led to Jenkins being sentenced to 15 months probation.

TMZ quoted a close friend of Fiore's saying their relationship was on the rocks and the model was headed back to Las Vegas to hook up with an ex-. But a neighbor in Los Angeles saw the couple shortly before Fiore disappeared. They were embracing one another.

Jenkins is believed to have slipped into Canada last Wednesday by driving his black BMW SUV to the northern tip of Washington state, where his speedboat called the Night Ride Her was waiting. He then is thought to have sped across the international border before docking in a marina in Vancouver.