A woman who killed her former stepfather after discovering hundreds of nude images of herself on his computer was convicted in California on Wednesday of first-degree murder.
via People:
The murderer, Jade Janks, murdered Thomas Merriman, who was one of the founders of Butterfly Farms, a research and education non-profit dedicated to the conservation of butterflies located in Encinitas, Calif., according to The San Diego Union-Tribune.
Janks faces life in prison.
During a weeks-long trial, prosecutors argued Janks, a 39-year-old Solana Beach interior designer, drugged, strangled and suffocated Merriman, 64, with a plastic bag on New Year’s Eve 2020, after she stumbled upon racy photos of herself on his computer while cleaning his bedroom following his hospitalization for a fall, The Coast News reports.
Authorities discovered Merriman’s body is his driveway under a pile of trash on Jan. 1, 2021, according to the paper.
Citing Janks’ defense team, KFMB-TV reports the photos discovered on Merriman’s computer were organized by body part, and included snapshots of Janks in the shower, among other instances, captured as far back as when she was a teen.
“It was the most violating, awful, gut-wrenching feeling ever,” Janks 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.”
Prosecutors argued the discovery left Janks “disturbed to the core” and prompted her to orchestrate his murder, which was executed after she picked him up from the care facility he was receiving treatment at, per the Union-Tribune.
Prosecutors said Janks admitted to Merriman’s slaying to at least two individuals, including a “fixer,” who she turned to for assistance.
“I just dosed the hell out of him,” she texted the fixer, KNSD-TV reports.
Prosecutor Jorge Del Portillo told the courtroom, per KNSD, “The motive is the photographs she found, the means were all the items found inside her car, the opportunity was that she was the one who picked him up … the confession is the text messages: ‘I just dosed the hell out of him.'”
Janks’ attorney, Marc Carlos, did not immediately respond to PEOPLE’s request for comment.
A sentencing hearing is scheduled for April 3.
We don’t blame her one bit.
