Jade Janks faces LIFE in prison for murdering stepdad who stole more than 100 nude photos of her
VISTA, CALIFORNIA: A Solana Beach interior designer was found guilty Wednesday, December 21, of murdering her former stepfather after she discovered nude photos of herself on his computer, one of which he had used as a screensaver. Jade Janks, 39, was found guilty of murder by a jury in Vista Superior Court after about a day of deliberations. She will be sentenced to 25 years to life in prison at an April 3 hearing.
According to prosecutors, Tom Merriman, co-founder of the nonprofit Butterfly Farms, which maintained a six-acre vivarium in Encinitas, was drugged and strangled by Janks. According to prosecutors, the 64-year-old Merriman was murdered on New Year's Eve 2020, just hours after Janks picked him up from a hospital where he was receiving rehabilitation after a fall.
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According to local reports, Janks had taken the pictures consensually with her then-boyfriend more than ten years prior. Merriman obtained access to the exclusive photos in an unknown manner. The images were found by Janks while cleaning Merriman's residence after Merriman had been hospitalized, the prosecution told the jury. Although her mother was no longer married to him, Janks and Merriman remained close.
Additionally, the attorneys showed the jury texts that Janks sent after bringing him up from the hospital, in which she claimed to have "dosed the hell out of him." As he woke up, she texted, "I am about to club him on the head as he is waking up." They claimed that she told two different people that she had killed him, as reported by New York Post.
She insisted she was innocent throughout the trial and denied killing Merriman, 64, on December 31, 2020, saying instead that he died from a disease. However, Janks acknowledged that she was mortified to discover more than 100 photos of herself in her underwear on his computer, The San Diego Union-Tribune reported. “This was no accident,” Deputy District Attorney Jorge Del Portillo told North County Superior Court, jurors. “This was murder by design.”
After the conviction, Janks' attorney Marc Carlos addressed the media and insisted there was "zero" proof she strangled him. It was established that Merriman's cause of death was acute zolpidem poisoning, also known as the sleeping pill Ambien. On January 2, 2021, his body was discovered in his driveway, buried under a stack of cardboard boxes.
Carlos made certain to fault Merriman's behavior during the trial, saying, "Jade Janks loved her stepfather,” he said. “Tom Merriman loved Jade Janks. Unfortunately, Tom Merriman was a troubled individual, and he loved her in different ways.”