Grim Reality: Jasmine Fiore and Ryan Jenkins
A Trophy Wife
Jenkins and Fiore met at an event sponsored by Hawaiian Tropic, a sun-care products company, in Las Vegas on March 16th, 2009, shortly after Jenkins had wrapped filming the VH1 reality show Megan Wants a Millionaire. Jenkins, a real estate developer from Calgary, Alberta, had been a contestant on the show, competing with 16 other men with a net worth of over $1 million for the affections of former Playboy "Cyber Girl" Megan Hauserman. The premise of the show was that Hauserman was seeking to become a "trophy wife," and her competing suitors were seeking to obtain one. Jenkins, nicknamed the "Smooth Operator" and touted as having a net worth of $2.5 million, finished the show as a runner-up. Only two days after meeting, Jenkins and Fiore were married at the Little White Wedding Chapel in Las Vegas. Described by her friend and former co-worker Andrea Guevera as a hardworking, well-spoken woman who "didn't need to have a boyfriend," Jasmine Fiore, née Kinkade, had appeared in several commercials, including one for a chat line, and worked as a bodypaint model. She had also worked for Playboy to promote their events, such as "Girls of Golf," but never posed for the magazine. According to her mother, Lisa Lepore, Jasmine had quit modeling two years ago and obtained a real-estate license and was making plans to open a fitness center with a friend.
It was not long, though, before their spur-of-the-moment marriage hit a rough patch. On April 22, only five weeks after their wedding, Jenkins allegedly struck Fiore "in the arm with his fist," according to a criminal complaint filed in Las Vegas on June 12. Jenkins was charged with "battery constituting domestic violence." This was not the only item on Jenkins' rap sheet — in January 2007 he had been sentenced to 15 months probation and counseling after being convicted of the 2005 assault on Faern Jewell, a former girlfriend in Calgary, Alberta. The Canadian conviction somehow slipped through the screening process conducted by 51 Minds Entertainment, the company that produces both Megan Wants a Millionaire and I Love Money.
When Jenkins was named as a person of interest in Fiore's murder, though, another former flame of his came forward in his defense, saying that Jenkins was a "nice guy." The woman, Paulina Chmielecka, told the Canadian network CTV that she had never seen Jenkins display a violent side during the entire two-and-a-half years of their engagement. But Lisa Lepore described Jenkins as a jealous man, who "did everything [Fiore] asked him not to do." With several former lovers still in her circle of acquaintances, Fiore gave Jenkins plenty about which to be jealous, and a text message that left her phone on the night of her murder suggests that it may in fact have been this jealousy that cost Jasmine her life.