It was Dec. 15, 2020, when Jade Janks‘ stepfather, Tom Merriman, was admitted to Scripps Hospital in Encinitas, California, after a foul fall in his residence. Two-and-a-half weeks later, Merriman can be discovered useless in his personal driveway underneath a mound of trash. “48 Hours” correspondent Tracy Smith investigates the thriller of what occurred to him in “Jade Janks and the Secret Pictures,” airing Saturday, Oct. 14 at 10/9c on CBS and streaming on Paramount+.
Janks first met Merriman when he married her mom when Janks was 14, and Janks says they stayed shut, even after his divorce from her mother. After Merriman’s demise, Janks mentioned of their relationship, “He would name me his daughter and I might name him my dad.”
Janks moved subsequent door to Merriman in April 2020 in the course of the peak of the COVID pandemic. In an interview with Smith after Merriman’s demise, their neighbor Ramona Hamilton mentioned of Merriman and Janks, “I invited him for dinner, and he mentioned, ‘No, I all the time eat with my daughter.’ And he known as her his daughter.”
Smith requested, “He did not say stepdaughter?” and Hamilton confirmed, “No. He mentioned,’my daughter.'”
On Dec. 23, 2020, whereas Merriman was in a rehab middle, nonetheless recovering from that fall, Janks went to his house to wash — and made a devastating discovery. Janks says the pc monitor, which she guessed had been in sleep mode, got here awake whereas she was cleansing, and she or he noticed a screensaver photograph of a girl’s breasts. “I look,” she mentioned later, “and I am like, these are my breasts.”
Janks says she logged onto Merriman’s pc the place she quickly discovered extra nude photographs of herself — lots of of them, some in a carousel and others sorted into folders with specific names. Janks says she by no means shared these photographs, which had been taken consensually with former companions, or something like them with Merriman and mentioned she was “in full shock” upon discovering the photographs on Merriman’s pc.
San Diego Superior Courtroom
Crying as she described this expertise later, Janks mentioned, “It was essentially the most violating, simply terrible, gut-wrenching feeling ever. I keep in mind I felt sick. I felt I could not even contact my very own pores and skin.” Janks mentioned she was terrified to be alone, to make use of the toilet or change garments and wished “anyone to look out for me and be sure that I used to be secure.”
That was why Janks says she reached out by way of Fb to a person named Alan Roach, who labored in safety, on the identical day she discovered the photographs on Merriman’s pc. Of their preliminary messages on Fb, Roach instructed her, “You probably have an issue, I can repair it for you.” Janks and Roach quickly took their dialog off social media however the texts she despatched Roach within the days that adopted would come into play later, after regulation enforcement bought concerned within the case.
It was slightly over per week after Janks made that discovery, on New 12 months’s Day 2021, that investigators first heard about Tom Merriman and Jade Janks, after a name got here into the San Diego County Sheriff’s Division dispatch from a person named Adam Siplyak. Siplyak was a buddy of Janks’ and in that cellphone name, he instructed police Janks “may need presumably killed her stepdad.”
Siplyak instructed the dispatcher he was over at Janks’ home the evening earlier than when she instructed him she had killed her stepfather and requested him for his assist shifting the physique. Siplyak additionally mentioned he wasn’t certain this had occurred — he hadn’t seen Merriman alive or useless, and had left quickly after this dialog befell.
After that decision got here in, investigators spent the day calling relations and in search of Tom Merriman with out success. On the afternoon of Jan. 1, when officers went to Merriman’s residence to analyze additional, they noticed Janks driving out. They stopped her and requested her to come back in and reply questions. Janks got here willingly and instructed police she had picked Merriman up from the rehab middle the place he’d been since leaving the hospital the day earlier than, however that she did not know the place he was now. She then requested for a lawyer and stopped answering questions.
Fb
Sheriff’s deputies bought a warrant just a few hours later and spent the evening looking out Janks’ and Merriman’s residences however noticed no signal of Tom Merriman, alive or useless.
It was by the primary mild the subsequent morning, on Jan. 2, 2021, when San Diego Sheriff’s Detective Rosa Patron discovered Tom Merriman useless exterior his residence. Merriman’s physique was mendacity in his driveway, wrapped in a blanket and coated with trash, instruments and a stack of empty cardboard bins. Investigators instantly arrested Janks, and finally charged her with first-degree homicide.
Janks pleaded not responsible, and prosecutors started to assemble proof for a trial. Once they unlocked the textual content messages in Janks’ cellphone, detectives discovered a wealth of proof. Of explicit curiosity to investigators had been her messages with that freelance safety guard she’d discovered on Fb — Alan Roach.
In a 2023 interview, prosecutors Jorge Del Portillo and Teresa Pham instructed Smith that Roach, “is just not successful man. However what’s necessary is what does Jade assume Alan is?”
In these preliminary messages on Fb, Roach instructed Janks if she had an issue, “I am certain I can repair it for you.” And, so, the prosecutors determined to consult with Roach as “The Fixer” once they instructed the jury about his function on this case.
Janks’ homicide trial started in December 2022, virtually two years after a detective discovered Merriman useless in his driveway. Janks’ protection was that she had nothing to do with Merriman’s demise and that he died from his personal poor well being and off-label use of pharmaceuticals.
Janks instructed the jury that on the day she picked Merriman up, he had taken drugs on his personal that left him unable to stroll and she or he couldn’t get him into his home. Janks says she tried to get assist however when she couldn’t, she determined to let him sleep off no matter he had taken in her automotive in a single day. Janks mentioned when she wakened the subsequent morning and found Merriman had died, she panicked, considering she can be blamed for his demise. She admitted that she then wrapped him in that blanket and put trash and empty bins on prime of his physique to attempt to conceal it.
However prosecutors mentioned these texts between Janks and Roach raised questions on Janks’ model of occasions. One important textual content was the one she despatched Roach at 11:30 a.m. shortly after selecting Merriman up from the rehab middle which mentioned partly, “I simply dosed the hell out of him.”
When Del Portillo was cross-examining Janks at trial, she acknowledged these phrases had been “poor phrasing.” Del Portillo requested her, “You’d agree with me that the phrase ‘I simply dosed the hell out of him’ implies that you simply gave Tom an entire lot of medicine?” And Janks answered,” It does sound like that.”
However Janks despatched Roach many extra texts after that one. At 12:39 p.m., slightly greater than an hour later, she texted him, “I can not carry him both again to my automotive or to his home. I am not robust sufficient. Are you able to come, like, proper now?!”
Roach didn’t come and within the hours that adopted, Janks’ texts to Roach continued. At 2:59 p.m. she texted, “He’s waking up. I’m not certain how for much longer I can management my mood.”
At 4:12 p.m. Janks texted, “btw, he’s waking up and getting far more aggressive.” And at 4:28 p.m., “He’s tremendous medicated. I can not preserve a kicking physique in my truck. I am about able to membership him.” At 4:30 p.m., “He is waking up. I am about able to membership him.” After which at 4:35 p.m., “He’s very conscious. And I’m by myself.”
Roach by no means came to visit on the afternoon of Dec. 31 or any time on Jan. 1, though Janks continued to ask for his assist. Alan Roach was not charged in reference to Merriman’s demise and didn’t seem at her trial.
The final textual content Janks despatched Alan Roach was at 5:33 p.m. on Jan. 1, 2021, as police had been pulling her over in her automotive to ask if she knew the place Merriman is likely to be. It was the final textual content Janks despatched earlier than her arrest the subsequent day. It mentioned: “Lose my quantity. I am getting pulled over.”
