By David K. Li -
NBC News
A California interior designer was convicted Wednesday of first-degree murder after prosecutors said she killed her stepfather, a butterfly collector, when she found nude photos of her on his computer.
When the San Diego County jury read the verdict against Jade Sasha Janks, the 39-year-old Solana Beach resident's eyes widened and she appeared to be stunned and incredulous as she turned to face her defense attorney.
Janks, who was out on bail, was immediately taken into custody and faces between 25 years and life in prison for the murder of Thomas Merriman, 64, co-founder of Butterfly Farms in Encinitas.
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Jade Sasha Janks in court before the verdict in her murder case.Via KNSD
Assistant District Attorney Jorge Del Portillo thanked the jury for their verdict.
“They have been excellent, patient, kind and caring throughout this trial and we are happy to have achieved some justice for Tom and his family,” the prosecutor said at a press conference outside the Vista courtroom.
Merriman was murdered on December 31, 2020, shortly after Janks found the compromising photos on his computer.
Janks drugged Merriman and then strangled and suffocated him with a plastic bag to death, according to prosecutors.
A text message he sent to an acquaintance on the day of his stepfather's death, and shown to the jury, read: "I just gave him a tremendous dose."
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Janks's defense insisted that Merriman died of ill health and his own chronic drug abuse.
Merriman's official cause of death was listed as an overdose of prescription sleeping medication.
Defense attorney Marc Carlos said he is evaluating all alternatives to appeal.
He admitted that the text messages Janks sent were instrumental in the jury's decision to convict his client.
Jurors declined to charge her with lesser charges such as manslaughter, which could have allowed a judge to consider mitigating circumstances for her sentence.
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Janks now faces a sentence of between 25 years and life in prison, to be handed down at his next hearing on April 3.
“The reason Jade went to trial was because she believed she was not guilty of this and that has been her position throughout the entire case,” Carlos told NBC News on Thursday.
The lawyer said he understood his client's shocked reaction to the guilty verdict.
"It's a surreal situation that he's in," he said. "From the time the jury walks in, hands the note to the judge, the judge reads the note and then hands the note to the clerk and the clerk starts reading it, forever goes by. So there is a lot of psychological stress," he said.