Who Is Jade Janks, The Woman Who Killed Her Stepfather?

Jade Janks is an interior designer and native of San Diego who has been found guilty of murdering her stepdad Thomas Merriman.

Janks was accused of drugging and strangling Merriman and was subsequently convicted of first-degree murder.

A California jury deliberated the case of Jade Janks, an interior designer for less than 24 hours and announced the guilty verdict in the North County Superior Court.

Deputy District Attorney Jorge Del Portillo told jurors that the death of Merriman was not accidental and claimed:

“This was no accident. This was murder by design.”

Janks, however, claimed that she was innocent and said that she did not kill her stepfather, further explaining that he died of a longtime illness.

Officials previously revealed that Merriman died from an overdose from sleeping pills and his cause of death was acute intoxication of zolpidem.

However, according to evidence at hand, Janks killed her stepfather after she found out he was using her naked photos as a screensaver on his computer

Janks is reported to have found the photos while cleaning his apartment after he had been hospitalized in San Diego.

Janks told most of her that friends her stepfather had died from cancer, but in text messages to others, she confessed to killing him with an overdose of pills.

Janks, 39, faces life in prison after the jury in Vista took less than a day to find her guilty of killing Thomas Merriman, 64, on New Year’s Eve in 2020.