VISTA — A Solana Beach woman accused of killing her former stepfather testified that she found him dead in her car after bringing him home from the hospital on New Year’s Eve 2020 and hid his body out of panic.
Jade Janks, 39, took the stand in her murder trial at the Vista courthouse on Thursday and Friday following five days of testimony from the prosecution, answering questions from defense attorney Marc Carlos about her relationship with her stepfather Thomas Merriman, 64, and the days leading up to his death.
Closing statements in the case are set to begin Monday, followed by jury deliberations.
According to Janks, she and Merriman lived together and had a close relationship until she moved out in her early 20s, and later reconnected when she happened to move into a home on South Nardo Avenue directly neighboring Merriman’s in April 2020. The two would see each other around once a week, and both lived there until Merriman’s death.
Merriman entered the hospital around mid-December 2020 with heart issues, and Janks said she was checking in on him via phone every day and, at times, going over to clean his house.
While cleaning, she said she accidentally bumped the mouse to his computer and discovered something disturbing — a photo of breasts she recognized as her own, set as his desktop background. She found what looked like “hundreds” more naked pictures of her as she searched his computer files.
“It was the most violating, just awful, gut-wrenching feeling ever. I felt sick … I couldn’t even touch my own skin,” Janks said, adding that she believed he had obtained the private photos from her old cameras, SD cards and laptop.
From there, Janks said she reached out to a man who she understood to work in private security named Alan Roach, who could not be contacted to testify during the murder trial.
Janks said she wanted Roach to stand guard while she showered because she felt “vulnerable” after finding the photos. Eventually, she said they worked out a plan where Roach would also confront her stepfather about the images and make sure he deleted them.
In the days leading up to his release from the hospital, Janks said she grew increasingly anxious about Merriman coming home, finding out she knew about the photos and possibly reacting aggressively. She confirmed that she kept a knife and a tarp by her bed.
Janks testified that after bringing Merriman home from the hospital on Dec. 31 following treatment for alcohol withdrawal symptoms, he took a Gabapentin pill that was in her car. He was also left alone in her car with a bag of medications from the hospital while she stopped in a few stores in Solana Beach.
He then began to grow groggy and not make sense, and upon attempting to bring him out of the car at his home on South Nardo Avenue, he fell twice, leaving a scrape on his head and the back of his hand.
At that point, she said a close friend and her boyfriend helped place Merriman into the back of Janks’s 4Runner, with the seats folded down so Merriman could lay comfortably with pillows and blankets.
Janks testified that after trying to get him back to the hospital and being unable to get him checked in and later being unable to get him out of the car, she ended up leaving him in her 4Runner overnight on New Year’s Eve.
This on its own was not uncommon, according to Janks, who noted previous occasions where Merriman would be highly intoxicated and “sleep it off” in her car after she picked him up. Usually, he would always wake up in the car within a few hours and walk the short distance back to his home.
“You pick up after Tom enough, you kind of pick your battles. I can’t carry him myself,” Janks said, recalling how she was often relegated to the role of his caretaker for many years.
That night, she said she also poured whiskey on Merriman’s computer and took what she thought was the hard drive.
On the morning of Jan. 1, Janks went out to her car and discovered that Merriman was still in the 4Runner and not moving. Speaking through sobs, Janks described how she drove her car to his driveway and found that his leg was cold upon touching him. When asked why she didn’t call 911, Janks said she panicked.
“I was scared. I didn’t want to get blamed. I was the one who had just picked him up; I had destroyed his computer… I didn’t want to be blamed for killing him,” Janks said through sobs.
Janks said she was unsure of what to do but tried to pull his body into his wheelchair so she could get him inside his house. However, his body fell to the ground in his driveway, and she decided to pull a blanket over him where he lay and cover his body with cardboard boxes and debris so her neighbor wouldn’t see him.
She would be arrested later that day, and deputies would discover Merriman’s body in the same spot on the morning of Jan. 2.
“I wasn’t planning to leave him there,” she said. “I didn’t really know what to do. I wasn’t trying to dump his body.”
During cross-examination, Janks later testified that she suspected that morning that he might be dead before feeling that he was cold to the touch. She admitted that she even drove to Scripps Hospital in Encinitas to pick up a wheelchair, with him still in the car, before confirming he was dead that morning.
The District Attorney’s Office’s case argues that Janks intentionally drugged her father, strangled him and suffocated him and that she planned out the murder ahead of time with Roach.
During her testimony, Janks was questioned by the prosecution and defense about a series of texts exchanged with Roach from Dec. 23 to Jan.1 about a “plan” for when Merriman was released from the hospital.
According to Janks, this plan never involved having her stepfather die but referred to having Roach confront him about the photos and make sure he deleted them.
One of the texts the prosecution focused on was sent by Janks to Roach on Dec. 31 after she had picked up Merriman from the hospital when she said, “I just dosed the hell out of him.”
When pressed about the message by Deputy District Attorney Jorge Del Portillo, Janks said she had not deliberately given her stepfather any drugs that day and claimed she sent that message so Roach would come to her home quicker.
She admitted on the stand that the message was a “poor choice of words,” along with another text from that day telling Roach, “I am about to club him on the head as he is waking up.”
Despite their apparent plan, Janks said Roach never made his way over to her home that day. However, at one point, he sent his associate Brian Salomon, who came to Janks’ home but then quickly left.
In September 2022, Salomon told the District Attorney’s Office that Janks had asked him to strangle her stepfather when he came to her home that day, something he had not told detectives in previous interviews.
“Mr. Salomon said that initially, he had failed to provide information about what Ms. Janks had said to him when he was at her property on the 31st … saying he had information he was too afraid to give law enforcement at the time.” Detective Matthew Gibson testified during the trial.
Gibson testified that Salomon had two other criminal charges at the time — one related to a case in San Bernardino and another in Oceanside — but there were never discussions about a plea deal or immunity in exchange for the information he provided.
The defendant denied ever asking Salomon to strangle Merriman and also denied accounts from a man named Adam Siplyak, who claimed that Janks confessed to murdering her father on the evening of Dec. 31 and asked him to help her move the body.
Janks’ last text to Roach said she was getting pulled over, telling him to “Lose my number” on Jan. 1, just moments before she was arrested.
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