The Betrayed Daughter: Jade Janks & Tom Merriman

March 18, 2024

In this episode, Payton and Garrett delve into the case of Jade Janks. When she uncovers a family secret, a chain reaction of events culminates in tragedy. As the trial unfolds, secrets unravel, blurring the lines between victim and perpetrator, prompting the question: where does justice truly lie?

Listen on Apple Podcasts

Listen on spotify

No items found.

Case Sources

AUDIO TRANSCRIPT

You're listening to an Oh No Media podcast.

Hey, everybody, welcome back to the podcast. This is Murder with My Husband. I'm Payton Moreland. And I'm Garrett Morland. And he's thehusband. I'm the husband. And boy, oh boy, do we have an announcement for you. Murder with My Husband is officially going on a little spring live show tour!

Woo, this is true. We are doing just a couple of shows. It'skind of all we can do. Um, four to five shows, and we are doing Arizona,California, Utah, and Tennessee. Nashville, I am hoping. Trust me, the first thing that we want to do with Murder with My Husband is take this on a world tour, but for now, this is what we're doing. So stay patient if you can't make it, but if you can, we are so, so freaking excited. Information should be in the links if you follow us on our social media. We always keep it updated over there, so yeah, watch out for tickets. A reminder that patrons get special advantages when it comes to these things, so yeah, just check out everything to see what's going on. But yeah, we are so excited to announce our live tour again. If you want tickets, they'll be in the description. They'll be everywhere, whether you're listening on YouTube or the podcast. We're super excited. Um, yeah, this is all we could do. And just for some more information, it's Phoenix, Salt Lake City, um, Southern California, and then Nashville. And yeah, that's what we got. We're trying to see if maybe we can add another show, but it's just scheduling and everything is really tough, and that's all we can kind of do right now, and we hope to see you there.

Before we get into Garrett's 10 seconds, I'm going to quickly shamelessly plug our Twitch streams. Every single Thursday, 5:30 PT, we get on, we talk True Crime, we watch interrogation footage. It's live, it's fun, it's me and Garrett, so check it out. There's more information available on that over on our social media. Okay, G, what is your 10 seconds?

You know, lately I've been getting the bug to just go fullOld Farm country Homestead, except I don't want to, like, butcher cows or anything myself 'cause, I'll be honest, I couldn't handle that. I don't think I could do it. But I don't know, something about just living in the middle of nowhere, just chilling, if I say that, and I know that I could probably do it for a month or so, and then I'd get a little bit of like Island cabin fever, but just letting everyone know that that's what's kind of been running through my mind lately.

What do you think about that, babe? Is that on your horizon?That maybe it's on my horizon? Maybe couple horses, couple Fox trots, maybesome Quarter Horses just hanging out and me and the farm. Okay, well, I'm alongfor the ride, but me and Daisy still need a comfy bed. Okay, well, we can get acomfy bed, that's the easy part. All right, sounds like you're on board. We'llkeep an eye out. Payton and I might be moving to the middle of nowhere, justdoing our thing. I'll keep everyone updated. Other than that, for my 10seconds, I don't have anything crazy. We've been kind of just busy gettingprepared for getting ready to announce the tour, recording episodes, working onnew merch. Again, if you haven't seen Dune 2, go and see it. I can't decide.Seems like it's got a lot of people up in arms about what is the best liketrilogy or just series ever. Is it Star Wars? Is it Lord of the Rings? Is it...no, nope, can't say that during my 10 seconds. Yeah, so let me know what youguys think about doing Lord of the Rings, Star Wars.

Let's hop into today's case. Our sources for this episodeare 48 Hours on CBS, cbsnews.com, cbs8.com, NBC San Diego.com, thesun.com,longcrime.com, thecoastnews.com, timesofsandiego.com, sandiegotribune.com, andsandiego.org.

You want a guess? Yeah, this case is in Los Angeles, right?Yep. Okay, so there's a fine line between feeling violated by someone andfeeling like you may be in critical danger, whether that's a creepy look up anddown from a stranger, a date that puts their hands in the wrong place, an oldercolleague who makes inappropriate jokes at your expense, and sometimes it'shard to discern whether it was an honest mistake or if that was someone showingtheir true colors, maybe even testing the waters until they can make their nextmove. These are the thoughts that many women, even men, have to deal with on aday-to-day basis. But the question in today's case is how violated does oneperson have to feel to warrant self-defense?

So, it's December 2020. We are 10 months into the pandemic,and most of the world is still pretty masked up, only socializing with theirlittle pods, staying home, maybe praying that the new year will finally lead toa turning point to that long year. And while much of America is forced insideunder harsh winter conditions, it still feels like spring in the little coastaltown of Solana Beach, California, only 20 miles north of San Diego. SolanaBeach is that idyllic seaside town that many tourists manage to skip. It'slined with expensive beachfront real estate. It gives that resort town feelwith the intimacy of always spotting one of your neighbors on a night out.

And it's here that 37-year-old interior designer Jade Jankshas spent most of her life. According to friends of Jade, she was alwaysconsidered the popular girl in school. She had elements of a tomboy but couldalso be quite a girly girl, allowing her to fit in with several differentsocial circles throughout her youth. And as she got older, Jade actually founda way to sort of mesh these two sides of her personality together. She lovedbeing creative and found a passion for interior design, which often requiredsome heavy lifting on her part. Jade was never afraid to get her hands dirty,loading heavy furniture or decorative rocks into the bed of her truck.

After studying at San Diego Mesa College and Mira CostaCollege, Jade worked at a handful of different design studios before decidingto open her own in 2018. She called it Jade Janks Interiors and promised a"unique, custom-tailored experience to remodel, refurnish, andrestyle." I used to kind of not understand interior designers, but Iunderstand it now. Oh, you have to have an eye. It's a talent. And I know somepeople think, 'Oh, well, I have an eye and I'm good at this.' Sure. But thereare people that are professionals for a reason, and I get it. Other interiordesigners are better than others, and it is expensive. And there are people whoare just naturally gifted, but it's not their profession. Get anotherprofession. True. But I don't know, it seems like I'd like to build a house oneday with an interior designer, right?

So, Jade's target demographic was many of the wealthyhomeowners in the Solana Beach area as well as the rest of San Diego County.And Jade stood out amongst her competitors not just because she offered theunique experience as a design concierge, as she liked to call it, but because,according to her friends, she was charismatic, she was kind, and she genuinelydid care about her clients and everyone who entered her life, for that matter,especially her stepdad, Tom Merriman. Their relationship was certainlyunconventional, but everyone knew Jade loved Tom like he was her own father.

Jade was actually 14 when her mother first met Tom, andwhile her biological father was also still in the picture, it was Tom who hadthe most influence over her upbringing. Having practically raised Jade, shefound it hard to cut him off when her mother filed for divorce against himyears later. She said it was important for Tom to stick around because he wasone of the few people in her life that she could trust completely. She told himeverything that was going on with work, her friends, her love life. I mean,after all, Jade called Tom Dad, and he referred to her as his own daughter.

As Jade got older, she found herself taking care of Tom ashis health declined. He really didn't have anyone else in his life after hermother divorced him, and it was important for Jade to give back what he'd givenher over the years.

So, by December 2020, the now 64-year-old Tom had moved intoa little house right next door to Jade. At that point, he was working at anonprofit butterfly sanctuary, a job that he felt passionately about, with goodcolleagues who quickly became his friends. And meanwhile, Jade went to Tom'shouse almost every night to cook him dinner. And with the pandemic still ragingand social contact limited, Tom and Jade had formed their own little pod. Theyspent a ton of time together, getting even closer, which helped Jade see thatTom was in worse shape than ever before. For years, Tom had battled withalcohol addiction and substance abuse, but 2020 took a toll on Tom like it hadon a lot of people.

It seemed the situation had spiraled out of control becauseon December 15, 2020, Jade got a call that really scared her. Her stepfather,Tom, had fallen in his home and needed to go to the emergency room. So, thatafternoon, she rushed him to a hospital in California. So, while Tom's accidentwasn't necessarily life-threatening, it was clear that his drug and alcohol usewere. While recovering from the fall, Tom was admitted to a rehab facilitywhere he stayed for the next two weeks. Now, Jade continued to visit him, eventaking the time to go over to his house to cook, clean, and prepare for hisreturn. But on the afternoon of December 23rd, Jade discovered something atTom's house that would turn her entire world upside down. A body?

So, that day, Jade let herself into Tom's house just to tidyup around the place, but as she was cleaning around Tom's desk, sheaccidentally bumped the mouse which woke up his computer screen. Okay, here wego. And that's when Jade noticed Tom's screensaver was a snapshot of a pair ofwomen's boobs. All right, I mean, not the craziest thing out there, you know,but it is a screensaver. That's kind of crazy, I guess. I mean, yeah, no, it'skind of... that's kind of wild.

So, Jade's obviously a little grossed out by it, but shedoesn't think too much of it right away. I mean, well, boys will be boys, he'ssingle, it's, you know, this kind of thing in her head. Yeah, he's like, ah,whatever, that is until she has a second look at the boobs. No way, they're herboobs. And she realizes don't those just aren't anyone's boobs? Those are acloseup of hers. No freaking way. How did he get that?

So, her heart begins racing, and Jade takes a seat at Tom'scomputer and begins searching through other files on his desktop like as sheshould, this is weird, and the more she digs, the worse the nightmare becomes.There are hundreds of images of her naked on her stepdad Tom's computer. Whywould he have it as the screensaver on his computer if he knew that? Well, he'sin rehab. Oh, true. So, he has pictures of her in the shower, folderscategorized with specific titles. Some have even been organized intoslideshows. And a lot of the images Jade recognizes because she shared themwith an ex-boyfriend of hers years ago. He is 100% selling them.

So she's like, how do my pictures that I took of myself thatI shared with an ex-boyfriend end up on my stepdad's computer? Yeah, well, thatpart is an absolute mystery to Jade. She has no idea. She's like, I literallydon't know how this happened. An emotionally disturbing mystery that must haveleft a deafening ringing in her ears. I mean, she calls this man dad. He hastaken care of her. Oh, that's so gross. She looks up to him. He practicallyraised her. Disgusting. And suddenly she's learning that this father figure didnot see her in the same way that she saw him. Violated probably wasn't a strongenough word to describe how Jade felt in that moment. In fact, she claimed therevelation left her sick to her stomach. She couldn't even touch her own skin.And it only got worse over the next week while Jade dreaded Tom's homecoming.You have to remember they have been quarantining together, like they have spenta lot of this pandemic together. She's been taking care of him. He moved nextdoor to her so she could cook dinner for him every night. And he's about to getout of rehab and come home. She had to have told someone else though, right?Did she call anyone else? We'll get there, okay?

So she's like, just dreading Tom coming home, and it's inthis weird time period that her mind begins to kind of take a toll, like itbecomes hard for her to be alone, to take a shower, change her clothes withoutremembering what she found on his computer, but this experience also unlockedsome hidden memories for Jade. Suddenly, while this happening she begins torecall times in her youth when maybe Tom had treated her inappropriately, maybetouched her, coerced her, psychologically manipulated her. Okay. Um, Jadedidn't go into details, nor should she have to, but as she was counting downthe seconds until Tom's return, she began to fear for her life. And we knowthat this happens with trauma, right? Sometimes trauma can be locked in, andthen it takes just one thing for that memory to flood open. Yes.

And so she's like, "Oh my gosh, like I think this manis dangerous." She claimed she slept with a knife under her pillow,terrified of what might happen if Tom came home early and realized she hadfound his explicit stash. How would he react? And that's when Jade decided toreach out to someone for protection. So, Jade had come across a profile onFacebook for a man named Alan Roach. Now, Allan advertised himself as a sort ofsecurity guard, something Jade now felt she needed for when Tom came home. So,she claimed her initial idea was to have Alan over to help her confront Tomabout the images. So, just like a third person there, see if he might confess,maybe turn himself in. So, she sends Allan a message, to which Allan replied,"If you have a problem, I can fix it for you."

So, on December 31st, 2020, the day Jade had been dreadingfinally arrived, and that afternoon, she picked Tom up from rehab. Remember, hehas no one else. Tom was none the wiser to what had happened in his absence,but Tom was also in bad shape when he arrived home, according to theirneighbors, Ramona and George Hamilton. That day, they saw Tom arrive in thepassenger seat of Jade's SUV, but when the Hamiltons said hi to Tom, they couldtell he just wasn't himself. He was hardly able to even get out of the car. Helooked like he'd been sent home heavily sedated, okay. But not wanting to pryinto their business, the Hamiltons didn't ask many questions. They just said hito Jade, figured Tom was in good hands, and that she'd take care of him likeshe always had.

But on the following day, January 1st, 2021, the San DiegoCounty Sheriff's Department gets a really bizarre phone call. Okay. So, thecaller said he needed to tell the police about a situation that had happenedthe night before at his ex-girlfriend's house. She'd called him over earlier inthe night, saying she needed his help. She believed her stepfather hadoverdosed on pills. The tipster was a man named Adam Ciplak, and the woman hewas referring to, of course, was Jade, and he was the one that had thesepictures as well, I assume, correct? It didn't clarify whether this is theex-boyfriend she sent pictures to, but we just know that it is an ex-boyfriendof hers, yeah.

So, she calls her ex-boyfriend, is like, "I think mystepdad Tom has overdosed on pills." So, Adam shows up at the house, andhe says once he gets there, Jade changed her tune. She told Adam that she hadsuffocated her stepfather with a bag after dosing him with a bunch of drugs.What the... Now she needed help getting him out of her car and into his ownhouse so she could make it look like he had overdosed.

Now, Adam told the police he refused to help Jade and left.He was like, "I'm getting out of here." He claimed he never saw thebody that night, but was confident that Tom was now dead and it was only amatter of time before Jade did something with his remains.Top of FormBottom of FormTop of FormBottom ofForm So, he calls police immediately and is like, "Hey, I didn'tsee the body, but I'm pretty sure you should check this.” I'm surprised shekilled him, like, what is going on right now?

So, less than an hour later, police responded to the calland arrived at Tom's home. They knocked on his door, they went inside. Only,there's no Tom. But as they're leaving, they see Jade pulling out of herdriveway. Remember, they live next door. They pull her over and ask if she'd bewilling to come down to the station for some questioning, and Jade fullycooperates. Now, police have zero evidence that a crime has even been committedat this point. They only have the tip.

So, they start by asking Jade if she's seen her stepfatherover the last 24 hours, and she admits, "Yeah, I picked him up from therehab center yesterday and dropped him off at home, but I have no idea where heis today." In fact, Jade turns the tables on the police, asking them,"What can you tell me other than he's missing?" And she actuallyseems genuinely concerned to the point where police let her go and offer tokeep her updated on any new developments. Oh, that's tough because police get acall from somebody else saying she killed him, and now she's like, "Wait,what do you mean he's missing?" So, now she's like, and I'm also surprisedin that moment she didn't bring up the pictures as well, right? Because I'msure that would have thrown them for even more of a loop, right?

So, that evening, police returned to Tom's house, searchingevery square inch for any evidence of foul play or any sign of where Tom mighthave disappeared to, and they stayed there until the sun started to come up onthe morning of January 2nd. But just as one of the officers was leaving, shespotted a pile of trash outside of Tom's home. Amongst it was a wheelbarrow, abunch of boxes, some plastic bags, and when she starts moving some of thesepieces around, she sees the silhouette of a man wrapped in blankets, and insidewas the deceased body of Tom Merriman. On his own property? Yes, he was buriedbeneath a mound of trash.

So, it doesn't sound like they were trying to hide him. So,Tom was still wearing his hospital bracelet and the same set of clothes he'dbeen sent home in two days before. Now, like obviously, if you're a detective,you're thinking timeline, he probably died that day because he didn't have achance to change his clothes. So, between the recovered body and theincriminating phone call, there's only one person on the police's suspect list.

That afternoon, Jade was arrested and charged for the murderof Tom. I mean, it kind of makes sense because they get this call, he's like,"I didn't see a body, but you should go check," and then they go findhis body, you know what I mean? Yeah. So, Jade's trial began in December of2022, almost two years to the date of her stepfather's death, and she went intothat trial maintaining her innocence. She was not responsible for the death ofher stepfather.

Now, the prosecution knew they were going to have a hardtime convincing the jury otherwise. A lot of people who knew Tom were wellaware that he had struggled with alcohol and substance abuse. The 64-year-old'shealth was already on the decline. In fact, it's what led to that fall to beginwith and was the catalyst for all the events that followed. Top of Form

The prosecution also knew they had a pretty sympatheticdefendant on their hands. Jade was attractive, she was a career-minded womanwho everyone said took care of this man, right? Like she spent her life takingcare of this guy. And also, I'm curious to see what happens with these picturesbecause I'm sure that's going to be a huge play in all of this. I will say thiscase, we're going to dive into the trial a lot more than we normally wouldbecause it's important. There's so much to it, yeah. So, they're going to go totrial, right? Jade's this career-driven woman, she's attractive, and then thejury's going to sympathize with the fact that she finds out that Tom has got acomputer full of her naked photos which he'd seemingly stolen from Jade or herex-boyfriend. And while the timing of his death certainly doesn't look greatfor Jade, her defense paints a really convincing argument that Tom maybe simplydid overdose, yeah. Also, he was in rehab, it would be so sad as it is easy tosay, "Hey, he overdosed." Well, and the defense can be like,"Well, he overdosed, Jade went over there, found him, has no idea how tohandle this, she's also angry at him." Oh, I don't know how I feel aboutthis because you don't kill someone, but also he's literally the pictures, thenaked pictures, what is going on?

So here's her side of the story at trial, okay? So, on themorning of December 31st, this is all according to her and her defense team,okay? Tom began calling Jade around 6:45 a.m. to confirm that she is, in fact,picking him up from the rehab center. We know all that's happened before this.She decided by that point that she was going to put her feelings about Tomaside, bring him home, let him recover, and then she would eventually confronthim about the photos that she found. Only during that conversation, Tom seemedpreoccupied with one thing: he needed Jade to get him coding, claiming he wasstill in severe pain.

So, he calls her and he's like, "Are you picking meup?" She says, "Yeah," she's decided to put her feelings aside.But on the phone, Tom is like, "Okay, I need you to show up with coding,like I'm in severe pain, I really, really need it." And I imagine theopioids weren't something the rehab facility was just willingly giving Tomconsidering his history of substance abuse. And I don't know if Jade actuallyended up getting him the painkillers, but when she went to pick him up ataround 11:00 a.m. that day, she said Tom did leave with a prescription, only itwas for Ambien, a sedative to help him sleep.

So, on their way home, Jade told Tom she had to stopsomewhere to pick up supplies for a design project. She went into a hardwarestore in town and grabbed a few things like gloves, towels, and some spraypaint. So, not like the typical thing we see from the Home Depot run in thesecases we cover, but still, there's a Home Depot run, which is always a redflag, which could also be used for her design stuff. No, I'm not saying shedidn't do it, no, no, no, but you know. So, when she got back in the car, she foundthat Tom was completely out of it, he'd taken a bunch of the Ambien, and shebegan to worry that she'd not be able to get him out of her car and into thehouse.

So, Jade said she took Tom back to the rehab center. Onlythey wouldn't readmit him, so she goes back. Interesting. In fact, Jade saidthey wouldn't even let her inside to explain the situation, and this is becauseof COVID protocols. So that's when Jade felt like she had no other option butto try and take Tom back home. But when she got there, Tom was still completelyout of it, remember a statement that was corroborated by their neighbors, theHamiltons, if you recall from earlier.

Now, Jade said this is when she really starts to panic. Shedidn't want to leave Tom sitting in her car in this state, so she made a call.And it's not to 911, like it absolutely probably should have been. Instead,it's a call to that security guard that she'd been speaking to about maybecoming with her to speak to Tom. So she calls Alan Roach, but she's not callinghim to come speak to Tom. She says, "Hey, can you come over and likephysically help me move Tom from the car to the house?" Okay, only Allan tellsher he's unavailable, so he'll send one of his friends instead. Oh my gosh,whatever that means.

So Allan sends a complete stranger over to Jade's house.It's a man named Brian Solomon, and Brian, well, he takes one look at Tom'sstate and is like, "There's no way I'm getting involved in this. Like,this guy is so out of it, I'm not going to help you," and he takes off. Ithought something crazy was going to happen. So this is then when, according toJade, she calls Adam, her ex, the one who made that 911 call. A day later, Jadesays once Adam arrived at her house, she asked if he could help her move Tominside rather than leave him in the car overnight.

But here's where their stories differ. Obviously, she saysthat Adam did see Tom, he took one look at the guy and had the same reaction asSolomon. He refused to help her. He says at the time that it looked like Tomwas already dead, and so Adam took off scared. Okay, but if you recall, Adamtold the police a different story. He said that Jade had told him she'dstrangled Tom and now needed Adam's help bringing him into a house so she couldstage an overdose.

So it's kind of the same movements, but the details in thestory are importantly different. Well, it's a very big difference if he wasalready dead in the car, I mean, she did nothing wrong if, well, maybe she'salready killed him, yes. True. But if he's just passed out in the car and lookslike a dead body, but if someone is saying that she physically suffocated him,I mean, that changes everything 100%. Well, and also the fact that in one storyhe sees the body, yes, in the other story he doesn't, yes, yeah. And remember,according to her, he's not dead yet. Either way, as we know, once Adam left,Jade claimed she was out of options. Apparently, calling 911 just still wasn'tan option in her mind, particularly because Jade said she didn't want to beblamed for drugging her stepfather. She knew he had taken a bunch of Ambien, soshe was scared. She says she was scared to call the cops because she was scaredthey were going to say that she did it.

So instead, she brought Tom some blankets and a pillow anddecided the only thing left to do was just let him sleep it off in the car. Soshe's like, "I'm just going to let him sleep in here overnight." Shefigured he would be better by the following morning, but when she went out tocheck on him the next day, that wasn't the case.Top of Form Tom was dead. He was cold to the touch; he haddied in the middle of the night.

It was at that point Jade realized he's dead. But again,instead of calling the police, Jade did the strangest thing: she drove to ahospital with the deceased Tom in the car, but she didn't get out and ask forhelp. She goes, picks up a wheelchair, throws it in her trunk, and drives backhome. Then she finds the strength to get Tom into the wheelchair, where shethen wheeled him over to his driveway and left him under that pile of trashuntil she could figure out her next move. But time was clearly not on her sidebecause, as we know, police had already arrested Jade the next afternoon.

Now, having heard it, it's obvious that there are a lot ofloose ends in Jade's story at trial, but there's one thing that gets the jurythinking Jade's story might be more accurate than Adam's, 'cause right now it'sbasically her word against his. Interesting, okay, and here's why: the officialcause of death from Tom's autopsy says acute zolpidem intoxication. So notstrangulation, no, it's zolpidem is the generic form of Ambien. So literally,he overdosed on Ambien, and he had a prescription for Ambien, which is true. Imean, if he just popped a bunch of those all of a sudden, it would also makesense why the neighbors saw him and he couldn't move and yada yada yada.

There's zero evidence actually of strangulation; they findzero evidence that anyone put their hands or anything over him. So right away,now Adam becomes, well, this is just what, this is the hard part of the trial,yeah. So what's up with him, like, how does that happen? Well, and the jury'sthinking, okay, maybe Tom did overdose on the way home, and Jade had just foundout this awful news about her stepfather and handled the situation horribly,like, just did not do the right thing, was scared of being blamed, but maybeshe actually didn't do this. So here's the argument at trial, right?

But the prosecution is hanging onto this part of the caselike a dog with a bone. They aren't letting go of the possibility that Jade didthe drugging and the strangling. So even though nothing is found, theprosecution still comes to trial and is like, "No, no, no, she strangledhim," and they point to a good reason for how this might have been missedduring the autopsy. Okay, now, if someone is strangled to death, there'stypically markings or bruises around the victim's neck to indicate such trauma,unless that person is already unconscious.

According to the prosecution on Jade's case, when someone isalready sedated, it requires very little force on the attacker's part to keepsomeone from breathing, only about 4 pounds of pressure, which is about as muchas a handshake, hardly enough to leave a bruise or break any cartilage in theneck 'cause no one's fighting you, right? But there's another thing that couldexplain the lack of bruising: Jade might have just used a plastic bag tosuffocate Tom to death. In fact, detectives found a bag in Jade's car that hadher DNA on the outside and Tom's DNA on the inside. Okay, so they have apossible murder weapon.

They also discovered that Jade's DNA was all over that packof Ambien, while they found very little DNA belonging to Tom on it. Sosuddenly, when the prosecution comes forward at trial, it's all of a suddenturned around, it's not looking so good for Jade.

But it gets even worse when the prosecution presents onegiant piece of evidence, this is like their bombshell at trial, yeah, and it'ssome very damning text messages. So I've brought up this Allan Roach charactera few times. Remember, he's the security guard who Jade reached out asking forprotection against Tom. Well, turns out Allan is a little bit more than asecurity guard. He advertised himself as a sort of fixer, or at least that'show Jade interpreted it. Shortly after finding those images on Tom's computer,Jade and Allan took their conversation from Facebook to text messages. And I'mnot sure what their exchanges were like over the next week or so, but I do knowfor a fact that shortly after Jade picked Tom up from the rehab center, shesent Allan a text saying, "I just dosed the hell out of him." Whatthe heck?

So this was a message that came through no more than 20minutes after Tom was discharged. And saying that, you think you can win incourt after sending text messages like this? But here's the thing, Allandoesn't text her back. The plan was supposed to be for him to meet up and helpher with whatever scheme she's trying to pull off, like this is what theprosecution's saying, and here she was initiating the plan, but her right-handman is just like not showing up.

So Jade goes to the hardware store to stall for a bit, shebuys some supplies for a design project, or what the prosecution is saying wasactually a murder kit, items they confirmed to also be gloves, maybe towels,and she's hoping by the time she returns to the car, Allan will be on his wayto her. Only, that's not happening. By 12:00 p.m. that day, with still no wordfrom Allan, Jade begins to panic. The prosecution shows that she was sendingAllan a series of texts around this time, including, "I can't carry himeither back to my car or to his house, I'm not strong enough, can you come,like, right now?" And eventually, Alan does message back, but it's notwhat Jade wants to hear.

Remember, he says he's sending his friend Brian over, andBrian tells police that when he got there, Jade demanded that he bring Tominside, strangle him to death, and that Jade said she'd take care of the rest.That's what Brian said. Brian then comes forward and says, "Okay, when Ishowed up, he was knocked out, but she also was demanding that I killhim." So we have Brian and Adam both saying kind of the same thing, kindof the same thing. So now we're getting somewhere. According to Brian at trial,he shows up, he's like, "What have I gotten myself into?" He refusesand leaves. So what does Jade do? She texts Alan again at 3:00 p.m. She says,"He's waking up and I'm not sure how much longer I can control mytemper." Then she continues with things like, "I can't keep a kickingbody in my truck, what the heck, man? Also, by the way, he's waking up andgetting more aggressive, he's very aware and I am on my own."

Meanwhile, Alan continued to ghost Jade, but it was clear atthis point she was scrambling, unsure of how to deal with her stepfather whowas seemingly catching on to her. Then the text between Jade and Alan wentquiet the rest of the evening. But around 5:30 p.m. on January 1st, Jade sentone final text to Alan just as police were stopping her as she left herdriveway. She typed, "Lose my number, I'm getting pulled over.”Top of Form

So, there you have it in writing. Jade confessed to druggingher stepfather and needing the help of a fixer to complete the job for her, orbasically a hitman. It's so hard, all the evidence is right there, it's openand shut, right? And when that didn't pan out, it appeared Jade just tookmatters into her own hands, eventually taking the life of 64-year-old Tom,according to the prosecution, with that garbage bag.

Okay, so in wrapping up the hearing, the prosecutionreminded the jury that Tom was not the one on trial here, that Jade had becomehis judge, jury, and executioner, and for that, she should have to pay her ownprice. But the defense is like, "Hey, this guy has raised her and thenmight have actually been abusing her and has all of these explicit photos ofher." Okay, so kind of like a Ruby, um, sorry, kind of like a what's hername that got out of prison, Gypsy. Kind of like a Gypsy Rose situation. Um, alittle, not exactly, but similarities. I mean, they're just pointing flaws inthe victim, yes, like they're saying, you know, he wasn't a perfect guy, hecould have been grooming her. I mean, there's so many things they're trying tosay why. The state then gets up and says, "Hey, he's not on trial, like,we don't care about that, like, we're worried about what actually happened thisday, okay?"

But I mean, there's always more to it when you have humansjudging it than just did she kill him or not, right? And while the entirescenario was definitely out of character for Jade, this is a 39-year-old womanwho'd never been arrested and had no history of violence, it was clear she'd bereceiving no remorse for the trauma she suffered prior to Tom's death. The jurydeliberated at 9:00 a.m. and were back in the courtroom 15 minutes later.

Wow, they announced they had found Jade Janks guilty offirst-degree murder, and she looked absolutely stunned by the verdict. Hersentencing hearing took place in March of 2023, and one of the bigger topics ofconversation was why didn't Jade's defense team bring up the possible years ofabuse that she suffered at the hands of Tom, like why didn't they focus on thismore? Because, if you remember, Jade mentioned that after she saw thosepictures, a lot of the inappropriate behavior Tom showed her in her childhoodcame flooding back to her.

So it was a valid question, one that might have gained hermore sympathy from a jury had the defense argued that case harder. But herlawyers maintained they didn't accentuate it because Jade did nothing to causeTom's death. She didn't need to explain a motive to a crime she didn't commit.She was still maintaining her innocence. So Jade's biological father, StevenJanks, was also at her sentencing hearing to testify on her behalf. Standingbefore the judge, he said, "I can only imagine what she went through whenshe found out that Tom, her stepfather, a person she trusted, that she calledDad, was a sick, perverted individual." So you're saying maybe they shouldhave taken the, not saying self-defense route, yes, but if they wentself-defense, maybe the situation would have turned out differently.Top of Form I think that's what peopleare questioning about this case. Got it.

He continues on saying, "All I can say is this fight isnot over. I truly believe that an injustice has taken place." So, her dadcomes forward and says, "It doesn't really matter what happened; she'salso a victim in this." Yeah, in the end, the 39-year-old Jade wassentenced to 25 years to life for killing Tom.

She... I was going to say we both... I, we both talked aboutbefore that victims can be guilty but still be victims, right? You know whatI'm saying? So, she will be eligible for parole in 2048 and is currentlyworking to appeal her conviction. But there's one thing I didn't mention inthis case: a frustrating detail that says a lot about why some women maybechoose to defend themselves in scenarios like this rather than turn to lawenforcement. So, supposedly, there was a lot of doubt around how those nakedphotos came to be on Tom's computer in the first place. Like, when all thiscomes out, people even questioned whether they ever existed at all.

It's because of doubts like this that people have a hardtime reaching out for help. Like, this all happens and people are like,"Well, maybe she's lying." Now, obviously, Jade was wrong to havetaken matters into her own hands. Like, that is black and white. But when welive in a world that questions this truth, it can force people to do thingsthey wouldn't ordinarily do. Should Jade have gone to the police to report herstepfather? 100% absolutely. But would anyone have listened? Probably not. It'shard to say more. It would have been like, "Oh well, you sent these toyour boyfriend and you sent these out there, and you're a 39-year-old woman,and sorry, too bad for you." She expressed before he got out that she wasscared, right? So, is this revenge or is this a woman who's traumatized andtook matters into her own hands? I don't know if I can answer that. And I'mnot, in no way am I, taking away the responsibility of this crime. It's justlayers, layers of the onion when it comes to True Crime. There's layers of someof these cases when it's not just a completely insane psychopath that killssomeone out of being a serial killer.

In cases like this, this is where murder first... murdermanslaughter is when everything starts intertwining and getting very tricky.Also, think about every single episode we've recorded of this podcast. Andthen, let me say this more importantly, would it have put her in more dangerhad Tom learned the truth about what she discovered? Had she gone to thepolice? That's a question we may never have the answer to. Good questionbecause how many times do we see a woman try to get help and then end up dead?I don't, oh gosh, I think I have a lot of opinions on these but some of them Iwon't share. I don't know.

Um, I feel like we should do, like, another segment orpodcast or channel where I just share my actual opinions on things. Well, youcan share your opinions; it's just there's no right getting into it more thanjust kind of surface level. Sometimes, I tend to, I get into it a little bit,but sometimes I don't go full in because I mean people are going to havedifferent opinions. Some people are going to think, "Who cares? Prison forlife." And some people are going to think, "Who cares? She should beable to kill her dad and should have go to prison," right? We're going tohave opposite spectrums on each end, yeah. And crazy, that's... that's hard. Ifeel like I've been kind of covering these controversi— not controversial,that's not the right word— but just like cases that are, you think a little bitharder because this is kind of more the reality of True Crime. Like, it's notalways black and white. It's not always Ted Bundy Jeffrey Dahmer. Like, a lotof times, there are these complicated relationships behind these murders,especially domestic murders, you know? And I... I just am like, "This isTrue Crime; this is what we're trying to figure out." And there's so manylayers to it. Yeah, alright, you guys. So, that is our case for this week, andwe will see you next time with another episode.

I love it. And I hate it. Goodbye.

‍

Sorry, no sources available yet.