Jade Janks biography: 13 things about Solana Beach, California interior designer

Jade Sasha Janks is an American woman from California, United States. Here are 13 more things about her:

1. Her biological father Steve Janks was born in South Africa. Her mother Jeni Janks is a resident of La Jolla, San Diego County, California.
2. She was 27 years younger than her stepfather Thomas “Tom” Merriman, the chief executive officer of Butterfly Farms, a nonprofit he co-founded in Encinitas, San Diego County.
3. In July 1995, Merriman married her mother.
4. In 2008, her mother divorced Merriman.
5. In April 2020, she moved next door to Merriman in Solana Beach, San Diego County where she worked as an interior designer.
6. On December 15, 2020, Merriman was brought to Scripps Hospital in Encinitas, San Diego County to be treated for alcohol withdrawal and his injuries after falling inside his apartment in Solano Beach. On December 23, 2020, while he was recovering in a rehab center, she cleaned his apartment and allegedly found hundreds of nude photos of her saved on his computer taken from 1999 to 2009.
7. On December 31, 2020, she picked Merriman up from the rehab center, went to a CVS store and a liquor store and bought gloves, towels and a nylon cord at a hardware store. She sent a text to Alan Roach, saying, “I just dosed the hell out of him.” She later allegedly strangled him insider her car and asked her friend Adam Siplyak to help her move the body. Siplyak allegedly went to her location but refused to help and left.
8. On January 1, 2021, Siplyak called the San Diego Sheriff’s Department and said she “might have possibly killed her stepdad”. Investigators went to Merriman’s apartment and saw her heading out of the driveway in her sport utility vehicle. She was brought into the police station where she said she did not know where Merriman was and invoked her right to an attorney.
9. At around 7:00 a.m. on January 2, 2021, Merriman was found dead in his driveway. At 7:15 a.m., she was arrested for his murder. On January 3, 2021, the medical examiner found Merriman had high levels of the prescription sleeping medication Zolpidem in his system along with several other prescription medications.
10. On December 7, 2022, prosecutors Jorge Del Portillo and Teresa Pham made the case against her for Merriman’s murder. Her defense attorney was Marc Carlos.
11. On December 21, 2022, a jury in Vista, San Diego County found her guilty of first-degree murder.
12. On March 6, 2023, Superior Court Judge Robert Kearney sentenced her to serve 25 years to life in prison for Merriman’s murder. 
13. She was 40 years old when CBS aired on October 14, 2023 a “48 Hours” episode featuring her story.