from www.guardian.co.uk – A reality show contestant wanted for the murder and mutilation of his ex-wife was yesterday found dead after hanging himself in a Canadian motel, officials said.

Police called to the Thunderbird motel in Hope, east of Vancouver, brought in investigators leading the search for Ryan Jenkins, Sergeant Duncan Pound, of the Royal Canadian mounted police, said.

The manager who found Jenkins said a young woman had checked him in to the motel.

“He was found by a hotel employee hanging in his hotel room,” Farrah Emami, a spokeswoman for the Orange County District Attorney’s Office in California, which worked with Canadian police during the hunt for Jenkins, said.

Jenkins, a 32-year-old real estate developer and investor, was wanted in California on first degree murder charges after the dismembered body of Jasmine Fiore was found in Buena Park, about 20 miles (32km) south-east of Los Angeles.

Her teeth had been pulled out and her fingers cut off in an apparent attempt to impeded her identification.

Prosecutors said investigators used the serial numbers on her breast implants to identify her.

Pound said police were not yet certain how long Jenkins had been at the motel before his body was discovered. He was identified by fingerprints.

“Any further details will not be released at this time as this investigation remains in its infancy,” he added.

The Thunderbird manager, Kevin Walker, said Jenkins had arrived in a Chrysler PT Cruiser with Alberta license plates, and stayed in the car while the woman checked him in.

Walker said the woman had paid cash for three days. When Jenkins failed to check out at the specified time, he unlocked the room and discovered the body.

Hope is about 100 miles from Point Roberts, in Washington state – the last place Jenkins was reported to have been seen before he crossed the border into Canada.

“The sadness of this all is that Jenkins will not stand before an Orange County jury for his crime,” Buena Park police lieutenant Steve Holiday said, adding that his department’s investigation would continue.

“There’s additional information we’re following up on,” he said.

After Jenkins disappeared last week, his boat was found at a marina near the US border, south of Vancouver, on Wednesday.

After the US Justice Department issued an extradition request, Canada put out a nationwide warrant for his arrest.

Canadian authorities launched a huge border search using helicopters, ground police and dogs.

“The ring was tightening on him,” Tom Hession, the chief inspector for the US Marshals Service’s regional fugitive task force, said. “He obviously was desperate.”

British Columbia coroners are investigating Jenkins’s death, and police are trying to determine how he got to Hope.

Jenkins and Fiore met in Las Vegas in March, marrying a few weeks later. They separated soon afterwards, but had reportedly recently reconciled.

Earlier this week, Fiore’s mother told the Associated Press that her daughter had the marriage annulled in May.

However, there were no court records of an annulment in either Nevada or Los Angeles County, where the couple had most recently lived.

Friends said Fiore was a model who worked mostly in Las Vegas and Los Angeles. She was also an aspiring actress and had a bit part in a small 2008 horror science fiction film.

Jenkins was recently a contestant on the VH1 reality show Megan Wants a Millionaire, in which wealthy young men tried to win over a materialistic blonde. The network cancelled the show on Friday.

Jenkins and Fiore married soon after filming for the series finished in early March, with court records showing the date of their wedding as 18 March.

But in May “they had a big blowout” and fought because Jenkins was jealous about her ex-boyfriends, Lepore said.

Jenkins then went to Mexico to take part in another reality TV show, but struggled to win Fiore back when he returned.

Court records reveal that, in June, he had been charged in Nevada with a misdemeanour count of “battery constituting domestic violence” for allegedly hitting Fiore in the arm. He had been due to stand trial in December.

In January 2007, he was sentenced to 15 months probation on an unspecified assault charge in his home town, Calgary.