In August 2009 the worlds of reality television and the Playboy universe were shaken by the brutal murder of Jasmine Fiore.
Her new husband Ryan Jenkins had just filmed Megan Wants a Millionaire, a dating show that was airing at the time, and recently wrapped I Love Money 3, where contestants competed for a $250,000 cash prize.
Ryan married Jasmine impulsively after not being able to handle rejection from Megan Hauserman on the show Megan Wants a Millionaire, but was unable to cope with Jasmine leaving him when she was dissatisfied with the situation.
In a chilling twist, Megan had actually planned to be with Ryan after she wrapped the show despite the fact that he had lied about being a millionaire. The two had carried on what Megan considered to be a real romance behind the scenes, and she had only rejected him to honor the wishes of the show’s producers.
The story behind Megan Wants a Millionaire
The VH1 show Megan Wants a Millionaire centered on finding a wealthy love interest for Megan Hauserman, a former Playboy model.
In 2005 Megan was a Playboy “Cyber Girl,” which means she featured on the Playboy website. She also did runway shows with their fashion line and worked with their concierge service where she would fly to different nightclubs. She also got to attend Playboy mansion parties.
In 2007 Megan got too busy with reality television to continue working for Playboy. She won the third season of Beauty and the Geek, which included a $125,000 grand prize, and found herself in the reality show competition machine at the time.
She then appeared on the second Season of Rock of Love where she competed for the affection of Bret Michaels.
Megan reached the finals of the first season of I Love Money, but quit after she refused to participate in a game where she would have had to face a jury of former contestants she had helped eliminate.
She then appeared on Rock of Love: Charm School, which was hosted by Sharon Osbourne. She finished in 10th place and filed a lawsuit against Sharon Osbourne that was later settled.
Then, Megan was granted her own show: Megan Wants a Millionaire, where seventeen bachelors who were supposed to be worth at least $1 million competed to be picked by Megan.
Ryan Jenkins was one of the contestants, but he had fudged his millionaire status. He claimed to be worth $2.5 million, but his net worth wasn’t near that amount. His father was a wealthy Canadian real estate developer, but Ryan himself wasn’t actually rich.
While on the show Ryan made an effort to get Megan’s attention when the cameras weren’t rolling, and it worked.
He would write love letters to Megan, and she felt like they were developing a real life relationship that had to be kept secret.
Because of how she genuinely felt about Ryan, Megan didn’t care that he wasn’t really wealthy. By the time the contestants were down to three people, Megan let the producers know that she had planned to pick Ryan, but they told her that she couldn’t.
Megan didn’t have time to let Ryan know that she wasn’t allowed to pick him before she filmed the elimination scene.
Ryan was shocked when Megan didn’t pick him to win the show, and had a tough time accepting this rejection. When he got back to his hotel Ryan started calling Megan incessantly.
Megan says she was too busy filming the end of the show and didn’t have time to talk to him and explain the situation.
She says she truly wanted to be with Ryan in real life after the show ended, but two days after the elimination episode was filmed Ryan told Megan he was now married to the love of his life.
How Jasmine’s body was found and identified
A person looking for cans to turn in for cash in the early morning hours of August 15, 2009 found a suspicious suitcase in a dumpster in Buena Park, CA>
When he investigated it, he found the suitcase of was unzipped and had a small human body in it. The person thought it was a child, but it was a woman: 28-year-old Jasmine Fiore.
Her fingers and teeth were missing, and her face was beaten to be unrecognizable, making her identification exceedingly difficult.
They had a sketch artist make an approximation of what she looked like in real life and put that image out into the media.
What really helped investigators were her breast implants, which had serial numbers that could be traced back to her.
Who was Jasmine Fiore?
Jasmine grew up as an only child in the small town of Bonnny Down near Santa Cruz, California. Her father left her mother when she was nine years old, and her they struggled financially.
Jasmine dreamed of leaving her small-town life and went to work with Playboy as a pool party girl. She soon got a position as one of the Girls of Playboy Golf.
After a year of working with Girls of Playboy Golf, she was asked to coordinate Girls of Playboy Golf events in Las Vegas and L.A.
How did Jasmine meet Ryan Jenkins?
After Ryan was eliminated from Megan Wants a Millionaire, he immediately went to Las Vegas where he met Jasmine at a night club on March 16, 2009.
When he found out that they shared the same birthday, he took that as a sign that they were meant to be together. They married on March 18, just two days after meeting, at the Little White Chapel.
The marriage started to fall apart immediately
They got married so quickly that they had no idea who they were. Jasmine soon realized that Ryan didn’t have money, and she had to pay for things, which she resented. Ryan explained it away by saying that he was having trouble getting money from Canada.
Ryan started texting Megan that he’d realized that he wasn’t with his soul mate with Jasmine.
Ryan’s secret past
Megan still had a place in her heart for Ryan, but she didn’t realize that he had a dark secret in his past that the background checks for the show had missed.
Ryan had a domestic violence charge in Canada. He was sentenced to 15 month probation and a sex addiction therapy program for assaulting his then-girlfriend. The charges had been expunged, so that’s why he was able to pass background checks for Megan Wants a Millionaire.
Ryan Jenkins was intensely jealous
Megan says that Ryan had been insanely jealous of her having to kiss all the other guys on the show, which was part of her job.
He was also deeply jealous of Jasmine even though he admitted to Megan that he didn’t like her.
Ryan Jenkins was arrested for assaulting Jasmine a month after marrying her
Ryan’s exhibited his jealous and violent nature just a month after he married Jasmine Fiore. He was arrested in Las Vegas in April 2009 after he pushed Jasmine in a pool because she was talking to some guys.
Jasmine didn’t want to be with Ryan, but he obsessed over her
In June 2009, Ryan called Megan Hauserman and asked her if she wanted to go to dinner with him in L.A. When he showed up Megan noticed that he had lost several pounds and looked pale and shaky. He was also very paranoid.
Ryan told Megan that he thought Jasmine was ruining his life, but he didn’t want her to leave him because he wanted to “win.”
Megan gave Ryan some career advice at the meeting that he took. She recommended that he join Season 3 of VH1’s “I Love Money” to put some distance between himself and Jasmine.
In July 2009, Ryan took Megan’s advice and filmed “I Love Money” in Mexico.
While Ryan was away Jasmine dyed her hair black and tried to get their marriage annulled.
Meanwhile, the producers of “I Love Money” said Ryan was obsessed with winning the show so he could “win back his wife.” He would call her incessantly from the show.
July 27, 2009 Jenkins sent an email to Jasmine begging for her back. He told her he couldn’t live without her.
Jasmine Fiore’s last day
The day before Jasmine died, she and Ryan went to a poker tournament in San Diego, CA. The hotel had surveillance video footage of the two of them, which helped investigators piece together the mystery of what happened to Jasmine that night.
On August 13, 2009 Jasmine and Ryan arrived to the hotel at 3:28 p.m. One of the pieces of luggage they brought with them was the one Jasmine’s body was found in.
That night Jasmine texted her ex-boyfriend Robert Hasman during the poker tournament.
Robert Hasman was a high-end real estate broker in Las Vegas, and during the poker game Jasmine asked Robert to please send a plane for her because she was done with Ryan.
Ryan and Jasmine got into an argument and left the tournament. They then went to a nightclub called The Ivy, where they continued to argue.
The last message Robert Hasman received was “suck it,” which was out of tone with everything else Jasmine had texted him that evening. This led detectives to believe that Ryan had discovered her texts and had sent the final one.
Jasmine and Ryan left The Ivy at 1:30 a.m. and then left the casino at 2:30 a.m. Ryan Jenkins wasn’t seen again by security cameras until 4:30 a.m.
Jasmine was missing from security cameras, but was murdered in the hotel room
Ryan returned to the room panicked and in a rush, but Jasmine was no longer with him.
Police found Jasmine’s blood and hair on the back patio, which was accessible because they were on the ground floor, meaning that Jasmine had been injured in the hotel room somehow. She most likely entered the room that night from the back patio.
Ryan strangled her to death in the hotel room and then cut off her fingers so she wouldn’t have prints. He also broke her teeth, and then put her into a suitcase.
He must have taken the luggage out through the patio because none of the luggage is ever seen leaving from the door from the interior hallway.
Ryan dumped Jasmine’s body in a dumpster at an apartment complex, then drove to Las Vegas where he got his wakeboard boat out of a storage unit.
Ryan also reported Jasmine missing to the police, but said he couldn’t come talk to them because he had to get back to Canada. Soon, police learned that Ryan was on the show Megan Wants a Millionaire, which was currently airing.
Another one of Jasmine’s exes was a suspect
Only three days before her death, Jasmine had been with her first husband Michael Cardosi, after he had been released from prison on parole, on August 11, 2009. They had divorced in 2005 after he went to prison.
His DNA was found on her body, which made him look like a prime suspect.
Michael looked guilty at this point, but he had a solid alibi. His ankle monitor tracked his every move and proved that he wasn’t at the scene of the murder.
He was re-arrested on August 15, 2009, the day Jasmine died for violating probation. Police searched his apartment that day and found that he and Jasmine had maintained a romantic correspondence via letters despite being divorced.
How Ryan escaped to Canada
After Ryan got his boat out of storage, he hitched the boat to his car and headed to Washington. He then got into his boat to cross the border into Canada.
The U.S. Coast Guard spotted him, but ultimately lost track of him.
Right before he reached the border, Ryan parked his boat and simply walked into Canada.
His sister picked him up and drove him to the Thunderbird Motel in Hope, Canada, where he hung himself.
Ryan blamed Jasmine for her murder
At his death scene, Ryan left a note on his computer saying that while everyone must think that he’s a monster, Jasmine was a bigger monster than him.
He claimed to have “pure and powerful love” for her and called her the “key” to his happiness. Now, he said there was no place in the world for him.
What happened to the reality shows
VH1 canceled the show Megan Wants a Millionaire, which was airing while all of this happened. This essentially ended Megan’s reality show career and modeling career. “People just didn’t want to be associated with murderers, and that was that,” she explained on the show Playboy Murders airing on Investigation Discovery and Discovery +.
Season 3 of I Love Money was never aired, but they did return for one more season.
