Merriman’s body was found under a pile of trash in Janks’ driveway
A woman who found nude photos of herself on her stepdad’s computer has been found guilty of murdering him in a decision she didn’t seem to be expecting.
Jade Janks, from Solana Beach, San Diego, had been on trial since 7 December over the death of Thomas Merriman, whose body was found under a pile of trash in her driveway on 1 January 2021.
Merriman, 64, was one of the founders of Butterfly Farms, a research and education non-profit dedicated to the conservation of butterflies located in Encinitas, California, according to The San Diego Union-Tribune.
On Wednesday, 39-year-old Janks was convicted of first degree murder.
Video of the moment the verdict was read out was shared by CBS 8 and shows Janks’ sheer disbelief.
The interior design business owner now faces 25 years to life when she is sentenced in April.
Janks pleaded not guilty to the charges, with her defence team arguing that her 64-year-old stepfather had died as a result of ill health and substance abuse.
Toxicologist Raymond Gary stated at a preliminary hearing that Merriman was found to have high levels of Ambien in his system.
During a weeks-long trial, prosecutors argued Janks drugged, strangled and suffocated Merriman with a plastic bag on New Year’s Eve 2020 after she discovered photos of herself on his computer while cleaning his bedroom following his hospitalisation for a fall, The Coast News reports.
Deputy District Attorney Jorge Del Portillo told the court: “This was no accident. This was murder by design.”
KFMB-TV reports the photos discovered on Merriman’s computer were organised by body part, and included snapshots of Janks in the shower, among other instances, captured as far back as when she was a teenager.
“It was the most violating, awful, gut-wrenching feeling ever,” Janks earlier testified, according to the station.
“I felt sick, I felt I couldn’t… even touch my own skin. I don’t know if there [are] words, not even in a movie have I seen something so sick.”
On 16 December, Janks told the court how she had bumped Merriman’s computer mouse while cleaning “and it shook the screen awake”.
“There’s a picture of female breasts on the screen. I have a beauty mark on my chest, those are my breasts.”
She went on to claim there were more than 100 photos of her on the device, with all of them being divided into folders based on different body parts.
Some of the pictures, Janks told the court, were from when she was 16 and had been taken from private folders on her laptop.
One piece of damning evidence against Janks was a text message she sent a friend on the day she picked him up from the healthcare facility, which read: “I just dosed the hell out of him. Stopping for whiskey then at Dixieland to stall. LMK.”
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