SAN DIEGO — This Saturday’s episode of 48-hours is airing, coincidentally, on Jade Janks’ 40th birthday. Chances are she will not be watching. Janks currently is serving a 25-year to life sentence in a state prison north of Fresno.
In December, a jury found Janks guilty of drugging and suffocating her 64-year-old stepfather, Tom Merriman.
Janks testified at trial in her own defense, telling jurors she had found hundreds of nude photos of herself on Merriman's computer ten days before he died. “I couldn't believe it. I was in complete shock,” Janks testified.
Prosecutors allege Janks gave her stepdad sleeping pills and alcohol, rendering him unconscious before suffocating him in the back of her truck.
“Police discovered him wrapped in a blanket under a pile of trash in his driveway,” said Tracy Smith, the correspondent for 48 Hours.
Smith conducted new interviews with prosecutors, attorneys, and people on both sides of the Janks case.
“Jade says that he overdosed in her car and when she discovered he was dead, she panicked and she didn't know what to do and she left him in the driveway,” said Smith.
But in the end, it was the text messages that convinced jurors to come back with a guilty verdict.
“There are dozens of text messages between Jade and a man she was trying to get to help her that say things like ‘I just dosed the hell out of him’ and ‘And I can't keep a kicking body in my trunk.’ But as far as physical evidence, there's not a lot. Prosecutors say that Jade overmedicated Tom and then strangled him, but there was no physical evidence of strangulation. So, this is this is a huge problem for the prosecution,” Smith said.
The Jade Janks episode of 48 Hours airs at 9 p.m. on Saturday on CBS 8.
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