In July 2022, when Holly Madison, former Playboy bunny and girlfriend of Hugh Hefner, began investigating the murder of 28-year-old Playboy party hostess Jasmine Fiore in 2009, the previous pin-up was struck by an unpleasant resemblance.
Although Madison didn’t know Fiore personally, they were each busty blondes with beaming smiles, bouncing forwards and backwards between sensual photo shoots and star-studded evenings at Hef’s mansion within the early 2000s. And so they each had a history of being abused by men.
“Jasmine’s story was terrifying. She was the victim of a horrific crime and was involved in an abusive relationship,” Madison, 43, told The Post.
“I’ve also been in relationships that were abusive,” she said, noting that the late Hefner was “emotionally” and “mentally” on top of things – dictating every little thing from hair length to lipstick shade.
![In August 2009, Jasmine Fiore's dismembered body was found in a suitcase and dumped in a dumpster in Buena Park, California.](https://nypost.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/01/jasmine-fiore-zuma.jpg?w=691)
“I can relate to her a lot,” she said.
As host and executive producer of Investigation Discovery’s latest six-part documentary The Playboy Murders, which premiered Monday, Madison sheds light on the tragic deaths of girls who once sported the enduring bunny ears, including the brutal murder of Fiore by the hands of her husband.
“Men discuss [dating] Playmates… some want this trophy on their shoulder,” Madison said. “But then they get so jealous.”
Fiore was raised by a single mother, Lisa Lepore, within the small town of Bonny Doon just outside Santa Cruz, California.
In 2000, 18-year-old Fiore auditioned for a Playboy centerfold. She didn’t get in, but was chosen because the hostess of “Girls of Playboy Golf”. Six years later, she was promoted to Playboy Events Coordinator, organizing branded events in Los Angeles and Las Vegas.
It was in Sin City that on March 16, 2009, she met Jenkins, a Canadian real estate entrepreneur in his twenties. On the time, he had just been fired from the VH1 reality show Megan Wants a Millionaire, starring former Playboy “Cybergirl of the Week” Megan Hauserman.
![Madison delves into the heinous murder of Jasmine Fiore and other slain playmates in the new ID documentary series,](https://nypost.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/01/holly-madison-playboy-murders-5.jpg?w=1024)
In the course of the filming of the series, Jenkins, who had misrepresented himself as an actual estate mogul value over $2.5 million to be forged on the series, expressed his love for Hauserman in a series of romantic letters.
In “The Playboy Murders”, Hauserman claims that the producers forced her to dump him and select one other suitor as her last fight. Two days later, she got a call from him.
“And before I could explain to him what happened, he said, ‘I met the love of my life and I’m married.’
Jenkins and Fiore were married on March 18 at Little White Chapel in Vegas – lower than 48 hours after meeting. He asked the query after discovering that their birthdays were only a number of days apart in February.
![Hauserman says Jenkins found her the love of his life just days before he met and married Fiore.](https://nypost.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/01/megan-hauserman-2.jpg?w=743)
“He thought it was an indication that she was the one and that he needed to marry her,” says Hauserman. “Ryan thought if he couldn’t marry me, he would find one other Playboy model to marry.”
But his admiration for Fiore’s beauty and fame had a dark side.
“A few month after they got married, he saw her talking to someone, got jealous, and pushed her into the pool,” says Buena Park detective Greg Pelton within the documentary.
Jenkins spent the night in jail after being arrested on domestic violence charges.
In June, the newlyweds were on the verge of divorce and largely lived apart. Jenkins contacted Hauserman again, in search of her advice over a dinner in Los Angeles.
“Ryan told me Jasmine was ruining his life. But he’s also obsessive about not leaving him because he desires to win. He cannot accept any refusal,” recalls Hauserman.
Jenkins then joined the forged of VH1’s “I Love Money” season 3 in Mexico. During filming, Jenkins focused solely on winning the $250,000 grand prize in hopes of regaining Fiore’s affection.
![Hauserman claims that Jenkins told her that Fiore was ruining his life.](https://nypost.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/01/murderer-ryan-jenkins-1.jpg?w=819)
“Producers told me he was so obsessive about winning money that perhaps he could get his wife back,” says Hauserman. “And he just kept calling her all of the break day the show. I attempt to regulate her.
Fiore eventually succumbed to his stubbornness.
On August 13, she agreed to accompany Jenkins to a poker tournament in San Diego, where they booked a room on the L’Auberge Del Mar resort.
Later that evening, during a tournament held at a close-by venue, Jenkins discovered that Fiore had been secretly texting an ex-boyfriend, Robert Hasman.
Her message to Hasman read: “Send a plane for me. Come get me. I’m coming back to Vegas to be with you. I’m done with Ryan Jenkins,” investigative journalist Mark Ebner says within the documentary.
The news infuriated Jenkins, sparking an argument.
At 4:30 a.m., L’Auberge cameras showed a frantic Jenkins returning alone to his hotel room.
But investigators say he then left the downstairs room through the patio door and dragged the badly beaten Fiore inside. When she tried to call the police, he strangled her to death.
On August 15, Fiore’s naked and dismembered corpse was present in a suitcase dumped in a dumpster in Buena Park, California.
But police were initially unable to discover the body, which was missing fingers and teeth.
Still, the killer “forgot one element,” says Pelton, her breast implants, which were removed in the course of the autopsy and contained unique serial numbers.
![The cops used Fiore's breast implant to positively identify her corpse.](https://nypost.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/01/murdered-playmate-jasmine-fiore-1.jpg?w=1024)
A global manhunt for Jenkins has begun.
He managed to cross the wakeboard boat near the Canadian border. When he was stopped by the US Coast Guard, Jenkins took off on foot and ran through the woods to Canada. There, Jenkins booked a motel room where he hanged himself on August 23. He left a suicide note that read partially: “I’m sorry for running away from responsibility.”
Madison – who told The Post she feels a “kindness” to Fiore as a survivor of relationship abuse – hopes her tragic story, in addition to others featured within the series, will encourage empathy for the victims.
“They’re all incredibly compelling, true stories that might occur to anyone,” she said.