A woman is standing trial for the murder of her ex-stepdad after discovering he was using a nude photo of her as his computer wallpaper.

Jade Janks has been accused of drugging, strangling and suffocating her stepdad Thomas Merriman, 64, with a plastic bag on December 31, 2020.

Janks, who runs an interior design company in San Diago, California, claims she found multiple "stolen" nude photos of herself in Merriman’s home.

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She says she was "beyond freaked out" by the discovery that left her "distraught and disturbed to the core".

According to the Daily Mail, Janks' mother divorced Merriman in 2008 following several domestic abuse reports.

While the 39-year-old denies the crimes, Deputy District Attorney Jorge Del Portillo said: “This was no accident. This was murder by design.”

However, Janks' attorney Marc Carlos says that Merriman, the co-founder of a popular butterfly farm in Encinitas, died due to ill health and his own cocktail of sleeping pills.

The official cause of death was acute intoxication, reports the San Diego Union-Tribune.

Merriman’s body was found by police under a pile of rubbish outside of his home on January 2 during a welfare check.

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Carlos continued: “The medical examiner will not tell you it was strangulation. The science does not support strangulation.

“Jade Janks loved her stepfather. Tom Merriman loved Jade Janks. Unfortunately, Tom Merriman was a troubled individual, and he loved her in different ways.”

According to reports, Janks allegedly texted several friends about the crime.

These texts included: “'I just dosed the hell out of him. Stopping for whiskey at Dixieland to stall. LMK.

“He’s waking up. I really don’t want to be the one to do this.

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“I can’t carry him alone and I can’t keep a kicking body in my trunk.

“I am about to club him on the head as he is waking up.

“I’m not strong enough. He is very aware now and I am on my own.”

A friend who did answer her, Adam Siplyak, went to the home on New Year's Eve but said he would not help her to get rid of the body.

The following day, he went to the police to report what happened, claiming Janks originally told him that she needed help getting Merriman home because he was high on pills.

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However, when Siplyak showed up, she confessed what happened.

The lead detective in the case, Lisa Brannan said in court this week: "Ms. Janks told Mr Siplyak that she killed her stepfather and she said 'I suffocated him with a bag and I choked him’. She also said that she gave him a bunch of drugs.

“She wanted his help with getting the body out of her car. She wanted to take her stepfather to his home and put him in his bed. She wanted to look like he had overdosed in his bed as he had died in his bed.”

Since her arrest, Janks has been free on a $1million bail albeit with a GPS anklet. At the time her bail was set, prosecutors argued that the suspect has the financial resources to flee and connections in South Africa.

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