Lady Accused of Killing Stepfather Over Nude Images Discovered Responsible of First-Diploma Homicide

The decision was learn Wednesday in court docket, with the jury discovering Janks, 39, responsible of the first-degree homicide of Tom Merriman, 64 on New 12 months’s Eve 2020. The decision got here after a couple of day of deliberation.

Huge-eyed, she appeared to take a look at her legal professional in shock after the decision was learn (video beneath). She faces a 25 years-to-life sentence, with a listening to set for April 3.

Merriman’s official explanation for loss of life was deemed an overdose from sleeping tablets.

Prosecutors argued, efficiently, that the inside designer started plotting her stepfather’s homicide after she knocked into his pc and found nude pictures of herself on it whereas cleansing his house when he was within the hospital.

The DA claimed she picked him up from the hospital, plied him with sleeping tablets after which suffocated him in her SUV — pointing to textual content messages she despatched to mates studying, “I simply dosed the hell out of him” and “I’m about to membership him on the top as he’s waking up.” A witness additionally claimed she mentioned of Merriman, “I killed him” — and instructed him, “I suffocated him with a bag and I choked him.”

Taking the stand, Janks mentioned the textual content messages had been taken out of context, whereas her legal professional mentioned they had been “all topic to interpretation.” She did, nonetheless, say she deliberate to confront Merriman over the pictures. Her lawyer additionally argued throughout closing statements that there was no proof of strangulation.

“So, they need you to consider that this lady, Jade Janks, stood over her stepfather, grabbed him by the throat and strangled him, evenly, with out leaving marks,” he mentioned, per CBS8.

On the witness stand in her protection, Janks described how she found the pictures on the pc.

“Once I went to scrub in his workplace space, I am wiping issues down, I bumped the mouse, and it shook the display screen awake. There is a image of feminine breasts on the display screen. I’ve a magnificence mark on my chest, these are my breasts,” she mentioned in court docket final Friday, based on CBS8.

She mentioned there have been greater than 100 pictures of herself, claiming he cropped the pictures and divided them into pictures by physique half. She additionally claimed a few of the pictures had been taken when she was as younger as 16 and had been from her laptop computer and a digital digicam she did not assume he had entry to. She additionally mentioned she poured Jack Daniels over the pc and took out the onerous drive.

All through her testimony whereas questioned by her protection legal professional, Janks claimed Merriman had simply handed out after taking prescription tablets and consuming whiskey after she picked him up from the hospital. She mentioned that after nobody she contacted helped her transfer him, she left him within the automotive to sleep it off in a single day — and when she went out to her automotive the following morning, she noticed from afar he hadn’t moved in any respect and panicked.

She later admitted beneath oath that she lined up his loss of life — hiding him beneath a pile of trash within the driveway — and mentioned she “panicked” and “did not actually know what to do” as a result of she knew she was the sufferer’s final recognized acquaintance and due to what she had accomplished to his pc. “I did not need to get blamed for killing him,” she mentioned, per the San Diego Tribune.