Interior designer Solana Beach sentenced to 25 years to life for murdering ex-stepfather

On Monday, March 6, a Solana Beach interior designer was sentenced to 25 years to life in prison for killing her ex-stepfather, who she said had hundreds of nude images of her on a computer, and attempting to frame it as an accidental overdose.

In December, a Vista Supreme Court jury deliberated for about a day before finding 39-year-old Jade Sasha Jenks guilty of first-degree murder in the death of Tom Merriman, co-founder of Butterfly Farms, an educational and research non-profit organization that ran half of the 1-acre vivarium in Encinitas.

Prosecutors charged her with drugging and strangling Merriman, 64, who died on New Year’s Eve 2020, hours after Yanks picked him up from a medical facility where he was recovering from a fall. Jenks found the nude photos about a week before she took him, and according to the prosecutor, the discovery left her “insanely scared.”

Deputy District Attorney Jorge Del Portillo alleged during the trial that Yanks planned to kill Merriman by giving him painkillers, sleeping pills, and alcohol.

Her attorney, Mark Carlos, told jurors that Merriman had abused alcohol and prescription drugs and died of ill health and “his own cocktail” of pills. The County Medical Examiner’s Office determined that the cause of his death was an overdose of prescription sleeping pills.

Jenks testified that Merriman overdosed himself. Her lawyer said she claims to be innocent.

Before handing down the verdict on Monday morning, Judge Robert Kearney said he thought the evidence supported the jury’s conclusion.

During the court session, two brothers of the victim spoke and asked to give her a long time.

“May Jade Jenks find no peace in captivity, no rest in his own hours, no false promise of forgiveness,” said Patrick Merriman, the victim’s younger brother. “It is because of her soulless actions that we must endure Tom’s absence forever.”

Terence Merriman said that his brother “did not deserve to die from the torture the killer put him through.”

“Denying the killer in the face of overwhelming evidence against her hurts me,” he said. “She’s a liar and we all know it.”

In court on Monday, Jenks said that Merriman entered her life when she was young and that his influence “manifested in inappropriate touching, coercion, reckless behavior and total disruption – what I now understand are years of psychological manipulation.” .

She said she was “broken” when she found nude photos of herself on his computer, including one she said her stepfather used as a screensaver. Jenks said the photographs are over ten years old. Merriman was not a photographer. Jenks suggested that he apparently stole the photos from her computer or her missing digital camera.

“I’m sorry I didn’t act like I should have that day,” Jenks said. “Since then, I think about it every day. As for Tom’s family, I understand that you hate me for what you think I did to Tom, but it’s so much more than you’ll ever understand.”

At trial, Jenks told jurors that she was cleaning Merriman’s apartment in late December 2020 when she found photos on his computer. The two were neighbors and shared a driveway on South Nardo Avenue in Solana Beach.

Merriman divorced Yanks’ mother long ago, but Yanks still helped him.

Jenks said that she hit his computer, waking him up and then seeing her naked picture as a screensaver. She searched the computer and found more images.

“It was the most offensive, terrible, piercing feeling,” she testified last year. “I was ill.”

On December 31, 2020, just over a week after she was discovered, she picked up Merriman from the facility. She revealed that the plan was to confront him and get him moving.

Del Portillo said her plan was to kill Merriman.

The prosecutor showed the jury dozens of messages sent by Jenks hours after she chose Merriman. Del Portillo said some of the texts were sent to an “assistant” who she thought was going to help her. When he didn’t show up, she wrote to friends in a panic asking for help.

Among the texts the jury saw:
“I just got the hell out of him.
“He is waking up. I really don’t want to be the one to do it.”
“It’s going to be ‘Weekend at Bernie’s.’
“I can’t carry it alone, and I can’t keep the body in the trunk.”
“I’m going to hit him over the head when he wakes up.”

Jencks said the lyrics were not what the prosecution implied. Rather, she said, Merriman was unable to walk, and she needed help to get him out of the car and get home.

Jenks said she couldn’t find help, so she decided to leave him in her SUV. She said that he used to sleep there after his drunken episodes.

She said she found Merriman dead the next morning, January 1, 2021. She said she tried to transport him to his house on her own, but he fell into the driveway. She covered him with blankets and empty boxes.

One person Yanks pleaded for help on December 31, 2020 actually came, but got worried and left. The next day, he called the sheriff’s department to file a report. He told them that Jenks said she drugged him and tried to choke him and suffocate him and she needed help to move Merriman to his bed.

The deputies apprehended Yanks and began searching for Merriman. A few hours later, early in the morning of January 2, they found his body under the boxes.

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