Thunderbird Motel manager Kevin Walker pauses as he talks to reporters about finding the body of fugitive Ryan Jenkins in one of his rooms in Hope, B.C., on Sunday. (Darryl Dyck/Canadian Press)

Police have identified the mysterious woman who apparently helped accused swimsuit model murderer Ryan Jenkins check in to a B.C. motel three days before he was found dead by staff.

The RCMP refused to release any specific information about the woman's identity or whereabouts, including whether she was in police custody. But they did say that she is not considered a risk to public safety and they were not asking the public for any assistance in locating her.

"Our interest is not to identify her at this time," Sgt. Duncan Pound said Monday. "The specifics regarding her movements and how they ended up at the hotel together, we are not going to discuss at this time."

RCMP said the woman could be charged by Canadian authorities for helping Jenkins illegally enter Canada, and she could also be charged by U.S. authorities with being an accessory after the fact for the murder of Jenkins's wife, Jasmine Fiore.

Dismembered body found in L.A.

Jenkins, a 32-year-old real estate developer and investor from Calgary who had been living in California and competing in a reality TV show, was found hanging in his room at the Thunderbird Motel in Hope, B.C., on Sunday.

He was charged with first-degree murder in California last Thursday after Fiore's dismembered body was found in a suitcase in a dumpster in Buena Park, about 32 kilometres southeast of Los Angeles.

Jenkins was checked in to the Thunderbird Motel on Thursday by the unidentified woman while he waited in a car — a Chrysler PT Cruiser with tinted windows and Alberta plates.

Motel manager Kevin Walker described the woman as an attractive blond in her early 20s who paid cash to stay for three nights. He never saw the woman again, though another guest said she left after 20 minutes.

When shown a picture of one of Jenkins's former girlfriends from Calgary by reporters on Monday, Walker said he was 100 per cent certain that the woman in the photo was the one who checked in to the hotel with Jenkins on Thursday, but that allegation was not confirmed by police.

Staff found Jenkins in room

Before Jenkins was found dead by motel staff on Sunday, they said, he "looked spent" and did not resemble the photo that had been all over the news.

A man, left, sits outside his room at the Thunderbird Motel as a television cameraman, right, films the room where fugitive Ryan Jenkins was found dead in Hope, B.C., on Sunday. (Darryl Dyck/Canadian Press)

"He didn't look like the dude on the television. He was worn out. He wasn't the buff gigolo that they presented him as on TV," but looked "tired, gaunt, sunken in cheekbones," Walker said.

Adam Burt, who works as an assistant manager at the motel, said Jenkins "looked stressed out," and "wouldn't look anybody in the eye," but there was nothing particularly unusual about his behaviour over the course of the weekend.

"He just walked by, nodded at me a little bit," Burt said.

When nobody checked out from the room by 2 p.m. PT Sunday, Walker and Burt went to check. After failing to get a response to a series of knocks, they unlocked the door and looked inside.

"The computer was on the bed and I continued to swing the door open and there he was right in front of me, hanging from a belt off the coat rack," Burt said.

"He definitely wanted to die. I smelled death," Walker said, who also said he's having a tough time coming to terms with what he saw.

"You don't know what goes through your brain when that takes place. You have to process it after. I'm still processing it."

Burt said it seemed surreal that someone charged with such a high-profile murder — and described as armed and dangerous — had literally been next door. He believed it may have been a good thing that nobody recognized Jenkins and called police.

"Who knows what he would have done to anyone that found out it was him, right? It's a tragedy that someone has lost his life, but the guy's not going to do any harm to anyone else, right?" Burt said.

Police took away Jenkins's belongings, including his laptop, Walker said.

Hope is about 160 kilometres from Point Roberts in Washington state, the last place Jenkins was seen before he crossed into Canada.

It's believed Jenkins drove from California to Washington, and then took a boat from Blaine to Point Roberts, where he crossed the border on foot into Tsawwassen, B.C.

Death brings closure

Jenkins's death has brought some closure, his wife's mother said Monday.

Ryan Jenkins and Jasmine Fiore are seen at their wedding in Las Vegas on March 18. (TMZ/Associated Press)

"We don't have to worry about looking for him anymore or being worried that he is a threat to any other women or men," Lisa Lepore told NBC's Today show from Maui. "We still have a long process of closure."

Fiore's teeth had been pulled out and her fingers cut off, apparently to impede her identification. Investigators used the serial numbers on her breast implants to identify her.

Jenkins was a contestant on the VH1 reality show Megan Wants a Millionaire. He and Fiore met and married in Las Vegas in March, but Lepore said the marriage was annulled in May, though there is no record of the annulment.

The couple fought because he was jealous of her ex-boyfriends, Lepore said.

With files from The Associated Press