VISTA, Calif.—A Solana Beach interior designer convicted of murdering her stepfather because she found hundreds of nude photographs of herself on his computer was sentenced March 6 to 25 years to life in state prison.
Jade Sasha Janks, 39, was found guilty by a Vista jury of first-degree murder in connection with the death of 64-year-old Thomas Merriman, co-founder of Butterfly Farms in Encinitas.
Prosecutors say Janks killed Merriman on Dec. 31, 2020, by a combination of strangulation, suffocation and lethal doses of prescription pills. Police discovered his body underneath a pile of trash in his driveway on Jan. 2, 2021.
According to prosecutors, Janks’ discovery of the nude photographs—which were taken years earlier consensually with her then-boyfriend—prompted her to hatch a plan to kill Merriman with the assistance of several other people. She asked one of those people to strangle Merriman and told another she had done it herself, according to prosecutors, who said she planned to stage Merriman’s death as an accidental overdose….