Original subtitles

- And I lifted up the lid to the case.

It's a small female, but that's no child.

She doesn't have any fingers. They've been cut off.

She doesn't have any teeth either.

This is brutal.

- And who was your victim? - Jasmine Fiore.

Jasmine was reported missing by her husband.

- Ryan's a "reality TV star."

- Megan is definitely into me.

I'm definitely not going home tonight.

- Jasmine's an aspiring "Playboy" model.

- I'm Jasmine. Have a good time.

- According to witnesses,

they get in some type of argument.

Then we get a DNA hit

from the semen found during the autopsy.

But it wasn't Ryan Jenkins' semen.

This is my smoking gun.

[dramatic theme music]

- In America, we are the first line of defense.

Drug busts, serial killers, armed robbers,

predators of every kind--

we take them off the streets.

People love telling stories about us...

♪ ♪

They don't know the half of it.

We save that for when we're talking cop to cop.

♪ ♪

This is "PD True."

[upbeat music]

♪ ♪

- Let's go back to August, right? August 2009.

- Yes. It was a Saturday.

I got woken up by my phone, and my sergeant at the time,

and he called and said, "we got a dead child

in a suitcase in a dumpster."

- Greg Pelton is a 30-year police veteran,

who climbed the ranks from patrol officer

to sergeant in charge of the homicide department.

- I get the phone call as well. And I'm really preparing myself

'cause I'm gonna see a child in a dumpster.

- Sergio Lepe began his career in law enforcement

over 35 years ago.

He now serves as a sergeant

for the Buena Park Police Department.

- As somebody who has handled a few of those in my history,

there's nothing worse than that,

if you're expecting that. - Yeah.

- Charlie Beck served with the LAPD

for over four decades,

working his way up from patrol officer

to the chief of police.

- We got briefed that some guy was out

looking for cans through the dumpsters.

And he saw a suitcase inside.

He unzipped it, opened it up.

Saw it was a child in the suitcase.

So then he went to a nearby apartment block

and told them to call 911.

[suspenseful music]

♪ ♪

- What was going through my mind was,

how did this end up in this particular area?

Where the trash bin was, it's in a long corridor

on this duplex-- apartment duplex.

So they would have to travel

quite a bit of distance to go in and it's hidden.

- I went to one of the patrol officers who was on scene,

and I say, give me your baton.

And he handed me his baton. And I reached inside,

and I lifted up the lid to the suitcase.

I go, "well, that ain't no child."

- There you go.

- It's a small female, but that's no child because,

you know, she had implants. - Right.

- So you could tell right away OK, we don't have a child.

- And then once the coroner investigator removed the victim

from the suitcase, then that's when

it really got interesting for us.

- And tell me about that.

- Her face was swollen.

And it wasn't from her position,

with the blood rushing to her head or anything.

She'd been beaten.

I mean, her face had been beaten.

Now I'm looking inside, I'm looking, like,

what's wrong with the fingernails?

I'm looking down real close, and I go,

she doesn't have any fingers. They've been cut off.

We opened up her mouth and, sure enough,

she doesn't have any teeth either.

And now I'm looking at this, going,

somebody doesn't want her to be identified.

One of the other things we noticed about her is

she looked like she had been washed.

There's not blood all over the place.

Well, we could see that there was blood inside the suitcase,

but there's not, like, caked-on,

dried-on blood on her.

So I go to Sergio. I told him what we had.

I go, I don't know, dude. This is brutal.

- We were taken aback because, one,

we hadn't experienced a homicide of that nature,

of that gruesomeness.

And then, two, how are we gonna identify the victim?

- Without knowing who she is,

we're not gonna solve this crime.

- Right. - Yeah, that's key.

Because most likely, there's gonna be some connection

between the victim and the suspect.

- And then we start going through all

the missing person reports

from the area, trying to get something.

And you could only go on a physical description

of size, weight, that type of thing.

We couldn't find anything like that.

- I ended up contacting a sketch artist to come out,

do a sketch of the victim, and that way--

in hopes that we could put that out to the media--

and maybe, once that's out,

they can get some information as to who this person was.

♪ ♪

But that didn't take place

because the results of the autopsy came in.

- What things were revealed during the autopsy?

- The coroner investigator called me and said,

"hey, we got a possible match."

I'm like, "OK, how?"

He says, "the breast implants." - Yeah.

- And so he goes on to explain

how any time you have anything put into your body,

there's a lot number or a serial number put on it.

So they removed the breast implants,

got the lot number off of it.

So they got a hold of the manufacturer.

The manufacturer told them who the doctor was.

They get a hold of the doctor.

The doctor has to go in, look at his records,

and go, I put them in this patient.

So he says, "based on those, we've identified her."

- And who is your victim? - Jasmine Fiore.

- I'm Jasmine. Have a good time.

- She was a 28-year-old swimsuit model

and aspiring "Playboy" centerfold from California.

Another interesting fact that came out of the autopsy was

all of her injuries-- or the mutilation part--

was all postmortem. - Postmortem.

- So, which was relieving because, obviously,

it would be a lot of pain. - Horrific.

- The manner of death was strangulation.

And then she had blunt trauma to the back of her head,

which we believed,

he might have pushed her against the wall

and strangled her.

- Any time they're doing an autopsy on a female,

they're gonna, you know, do a rape test

and they found semen in her.

We sent that off to testing, in hopes that we'd get a hit.

- And once we identify the victim,

we ran her and then we get information from LAPD

that they were working a missing person of Jasmine,

who was reported missing by her husband.

Her husband, 32-year-old Ryan Jenkins,

said in the report that he had not seen Jasmine since Friday,

when she left their apartment to go run errands.

- And the reason we didn't know about that

is because she wasn't reported missing until Saturday night.

We found her Saturday morning. - OK, right.

- The detectives working that missing told us that

they tried to contact Ryan,

but he replied that he could not meet with the detectives

because he had a visa issue in Canada

and he was on his way to Canada.

- Canadian citizen? - Yes. Yes.

- I've got a husband who says he's got visa issues.

But doesn't strike you weird?

So I'm trying to call him. He's not answering the phone.

And I was just like, did he do it? We don't know.

But we all know you've got to look at the husband first.

- You guys know who he is. You know his name.

But what do you know about him? - So we do a background on him.

We know that he's a Canadian citizen.

And then we find out his family history.

His father was a successful developer

in Central America, Honduras.

His parents, they are wealthy.

We then dig a little further, and we find out that

he was a reality TV participant on a show, "Megan Wants--"

- Megan wants to marry a millionaire.

- Megan is definitely into me, and I'm definitely into her.

And I'm definitely not going home tonight.

- One of those guys that likes to be,

like, in Hollywood and stuff, right?

- So tell us a little bit about your victim--

I know you're looking at their life

and what kind of relationship they have. Tell me about that.

- One of Jasmine's friends had spoken to the detective

because she was concerned about Jasmine.

And so the detective gave me her name,

and I went right over to her house.

"What can you tell me?" - What do you find out?

- We find out that Ryan had met Jasmine in Las Vegas one night.

And then, the following morning, they're married.

- Then the friend told us that she was exchanging

text messages with Ryan Friday night,

which was the day before Jasmine's body was found,

because she couldn't get a hold of Jasmine

and that Ryan didn't seem all that concerned about it.

So they're going back and forth over a few hours.

Jasmine's friend, she's like,

"hey, you got to report her missing."

And he's like, "yeah, you think I should?"

She goes, "if you don't, I'm going to."

- These text conversations, what do they make you think?

What are your suspicions?

- His behavior is incredibly odd.

And then we found out that Ryan has a criminal record.

He got arrested in Las Vegas

for domestic violence to Jasmine.

'Cause apparently he pushed her,

and she had him arrested.

And that case hadn't gone to court yet.

We need to talk to him now.

- We're thinking he might already be in Canada.

And the thing that we learned fairly quickly was,

in order for the agencies to help another agency,

they need a warrant in the system.

So we split the investigation, so to speak.

So he was working diligently to get a murder warrant.

- Yeah. - He had to deal with

all of the investigative stuff,

the interviews, following leads.

My whole purpose was to find Jenkins.

We had all of these resources lined up.

So I had contact with the United States marshals.

I had a contact with the Department of Justice,

the surveillance teams with RCMP within Canada.

- Yes. - As soon as we get

this warrant, we're moving.

- There's starting to be a little media

going on with this, right? - It was a madhouse.

Ryan's a reality TV star

and Jasmine's an aspiring "Playboy" model.

- They're photogenic,

and there's pictures all over the place.

- Right. It just took off.

- In California, a woman's body found in a dumpster

has been identified as a swimsuit model

who disappeared over the weekend.

Now, police want to talk to the man who reported her missing.

Ryan Jenkins filed a missing person's report for his wife,

28-year-old Jasmine Fiore.

♪ ♪

- While we're waiting for a murder warrant for Ryan,

we get a call from the pathologists.

They happen to have a hit on the semen,

but it wasn't Ryan Jenkins' semen.

- That must have been a shock.

- It throws a wrench in my plans.

It throws a wrench in my investigation.

I'm just like, OK, is Ryan Jenkins really just an idiot

and really does have a visa issue?

I may be focused on Ryan Jenkins,

but it's not just about proving their guilt.

It's about trying to prove them innocent.

- Yeah, you can't be single-minded.

Now you have a new suspect. So what do you know about him?

- His name is Michael Cardosi.

And turns out, Michael Cardosi is Jasmine's ex-husband.

And he just got released from prison.

So now I'm thinking, how did his semen get in my victim?

- Now I know that there's semen belonging to

a guy who just got out of prison.

We run Michael Cardosi, and he just got released

for drug charges.

We realize he's down in San Diego.

So I get my detectives to

go down there and interview him.

Michael told us that Jasmine and her mother

came down to San Diego to visit with family

and that she came to visit him on Thursday morning,

which was only three days before her body was found.

Michael says, "yeah, we hooked up when she came down here,"

which explains why his DNA is with her.

♪ ♪

Michael, having just been released from prison,

is on parole.

Well, it turns out, he's got an ankle monitor.

- Yeah.

- And so it takes a phone call to his probation officer

to find out his exact locations.

- Yeah.

- And his ankle monitor was showing that

he was nowhere in the vicinity

of where the body was.

So now, we talk to Jasmine's mother,

who corroborates Michael's story.

Then mom told us that she left San Diego Thursday afternoon

but that Jasmine stayed behind

to meet Ryan because they had plans

to go to a celebrity poker tournament.

That eliminates Michael Cardosi as a suspect

and puts all of our concentration

back on Ryan Jenkins.

- And you don't have to make

that very difficult phone call to Sergio.

- Yeah. [chuckles] - True.

- The mom was able to tell us

where Jasmine and Ryan were staying that night.

I'm like, "fantastic."

I had my guys drive out to the hotel in San Diego.

- San Diego, yeah.

- Just find out whatever you can find out.

So they go out there and

they said, "yeah, they got video."

I said, "OK, get copies of it."

And I sit there, and I watched all the videos.

And the first video is when

Jasmine and Ryan arrived on Thursday.

[soft dramatic music]

A bellboy goes out there with one of those rolling carts

and takes all their luggage.

♪ ♪

And I'm looking at it, and I'm just like,

that's the suitcase we found her in.

♪ ♪

And I was just like, "oh, you got to be fricking kidding me."

You see Ryan go in. And he checks into the hotel.

♪ ♪

They go to their room.

They come back out, dressed up nice, and they leave.

And then we don't see anything for several hours.

The next thing I see is

Ryan Jenkins running through the hallway back to his room.

- By himself? - By himself.

And he's in there for a while.

And then he comes back out. He's got an ice bucket.

And he's got less clothes on now.

Now he's got like a tank top on or something.

He comes in and out and it looks like he's getting ice.

And a few hours later, he checks out.

♪ ♪

But we still haven't seen Jasmine.

And we never see all the luggage.

There was quite a bit of luggage.

We never see all the luggage come back out

that we saw go in.

The detectives go to where the poker game was being held.

And according to the story that they got from the valet,

they arrive in a white Mercedes,

which happens to be Jasmine's white Mercedes.

According to witnesses at the poker game,

at some point in time, they get into

some type of argument there.

They left the poker game around 2:00 in the morning.

They get in the Mercedes and they leave.

It's like two hours later before we see Ryan Jenkins

running into the hotel.

It was only two miles away.

What were you doing for two hours?

And we still haven't found the car.

Later, we get a call.

It was parked in a parking structure,

just a two-story one, with some restaurant or something.

So the people in charge of it called the tow company.

The tow company calls the PD to say,

"hey, we're about to tow this car.

"Here's the license plate,

in case somebody tries to report it stolen."

They're like, don't touch that car.

That car is on a "be on the lookout."

- Right. - So they contact us.

We send a tow truck out there.

We collect it to have it taken straight to the crime lab.

We're processing the car.

And it just--it shocked me. It's full of blood.

There's blood on the headliner.

There's blood on some of the windows.

There's a puddle of blood on the back seat,

probably from where the suitcase was.

And it was gruesome.

Meanwhile, my guys are searching the hotel room

that Jasmine and Ryan had stayed at.

They call me, and go,

"you're not gonna believe this."

They had found blood on the back patio.

And they found a strand of hair.

This is a ground floor hotel room

that goes out to a patio

and then steps out into the parking lot.

Then the pieces start coming together, right?

- Tell me what you're thinking. - Jasmine and Ryan

got into a fight at the poker tournament.

Maybe Ryan found out about Michael Cardosi.

Then they got in a white Mercedes and left.

Now, she got beaten in the vehicle, bad.

It explains where they were for two hours.

don't know if it was that parking lot,

but they were parked somewhere.

Then Ryan takes her back to the hotel,

but he knows he can't take her through the lobby

in that state.

He must have brought her in through the back.

I know that she was alive at the time

because the detectives tracked down other people

that were staying in the hotel that night,

and they say, "yeah, we heard arguing

about 4:30-ish in the morning."

We know that she was beaten pretty bad,

that she wasn't getting up and running anywhere.

Realized his keycard doesn't work on the back door.

He has to run around, get himself in,

open up the back door, bring her into the room.

He goes and gets ice.

He's probably wrapping it up in a towel,

putting it on her face.

He's like, "oh, baby, baby, I'm so sorry.

We're gonna fix this,"

begging her, "don't call the police."

And from what I understand,

she's a pretty strong-willed woman

and probably told him to shove it,

she's gonna call the cops.

And he's a pretty boy. Jail's no place for this guy.

- Yeah. - He ends up strangling her.

He's just like, "oh, shit, what am I gonna do?"

Then this thought process starts going,

"how am I gonna get away with this?"

Well, he's watched plenty of cop shows, right?

Identifying people through

fingerprints-- - Dental records.

- Identifying people from dental records.

And due to the lack of blood at the hotel room,

we're able to ascertain that

he probably cut off her fingers, pulls her teeth,

in the bathtub or shower.

He probably flushed the fingers down the toilet

because it's right there next to the shower.

- Right.

- It just so happens he didn't know about breast implants.

The maid also reported that,

when she came, after they checked out,

and cleaned the room, that the comforter on the bed was wet.

So it makes sense, and goes back to when we found the body.

It looks like she'd been cleaned.

It looked like she'd been showered.

Then Ryan puts her body in the suitcase.

He takes her out the back patio,

drives to a rough neighborhood in Buena Park...

And he dumps her and the suitcase in a garbage bin,

where he thinks no one will find her.

Then he ditches the vehicle in a restaurant parking lot.

I'm just like, this is my smoking gun.

I call our DA. I said, "you got to get down here

"because you're gonna sign me a warrant for his arrest

right here, right now."

- So once the warrant's in place,

the marshals come in.

They are already in contact with RCMP in Canada.

That was our mission, to go find Ryan.

- Ryan Jenkins is now the subject of

an international manhunt.

This former dating show contestant

is considered armed and dangerous.

- So we were tracking his phone.

And now we find out that he's in Blaine, Washington,

which is the closest city to the Canadian border.

We notified US Border on our side,

and in the meantime, I'm gonna make my way

up to Blaine, Washington. - Right, right, right.

- And then, from there, meet the US marshals

and then physically start looking for him.

Well, before we get to that point,

we get notified that the United States Coast Guard

spotted a speedboat at the border,

the US-Canadian border. It's Ryan.

[chuckles] So they go into pursuit.

- Like a movie? - Yeah, they go into pursuit.

And they're relaying this information

to the US marshals, who's relaying it to me.

From what I understand, it was choppy waters and dark.

I guess his boat's pretty fast.

Well, they lost it

because he ends up in Canada.

We believe he went into Canadian soil through the ocean

because I would imagine he knew that

the Borders were gonna be asking questions.

- Right. Right, right, right.

- The Canadians are now helping us track him

through their side.

But our biggest concern is that his family

is helping him

and we know his father has connections in Honduras,

where we don't have an extradition treaty.

So he would have had the means to flee to Canada, for sure.

He could have easily just jumped on a plane

and flew down to Honduras,

and that would have been the end of it.

[tense music]

♪ ♪

So now we have the information

that he has made it into Canada.

So he eludes the Coast Guard.

He eludes the troopers in Washington.

And now we get another phone call

that says, "hey, we spotted him,

and he's somewhere around a hotel in the city of Hope."

♪ ♪

So then, the following morning, like around 10:00,

I get a phone call from the Border Patrol,

saying that they had responded to a suicide in the hotel.

♪ ♪

It potentially could be Ryan.

- Your guy. - Right.

Around 11:30, I think, if I'm not mistaken, a call comes in,

and then we got confirmation that it was him.

He had actually hung himself in the room.

- I just cracked the door, and I seen the computer

sitting on the bed and a few other things.

And then, as I follow through with the door,

there he was, hanging from the coat rack by a belt.

- He wrote a last will and testament on his computer,

saying, "I know you've all seen the media

"that's displaying me as a monster.

Well, the real monster was Jasmine."

- So he doesn't take responsibility.

- He doesn't admit killing her but he doesn't deny it.

- This is a tragic event all around for both families.

And our hope is, now that it's over,

they can find some kind of peace.

[suspenseful music]

♪ ♪