A 39-year-old woman has been accused of killing her stepfather after she allegedly discovered photos of her on his computer.

The lifeless body of Thomas Merriman, 64, was found under a pile of garbage at the California home he shared with his stepdaughter, Jade Banks.

According to the New York Post, the murder trial started last week in Vista Superior Court.

Prosecutors argued that Janks drugged and strangled her stepfather after finding photos of her without any clothes on as a screensaver on his computer.

The photos were taken by Janks and her ex many years ago and it is not clear how Merriman got them.

The interior designer has pleaded not guilty to the murder of Merriman, who prosecutors said passed away after overdosing on sleeping pills his stepdaughter had given him.

San Diego County Deputy District Attorney Jorge Del Portillo said, as per The San Diego Union-Tribune: “This was no accident. This was murder by design.”

Friends of Janks told the jury that they were sent to the apartment after Merriman suffered a fall in December 2020.

They helped him into a car and took him to a hospital.

The stepfather was still in the hospital when Janks found the photos while cleaning her stepfather’s home.

Prosecutors said text messages saw Janks communicating with a friend about giving her stepfather sleeping pills.

“I just dosed the hell out of him. Stopping for whiskey then at Dixieland to stall. LMK,” she allegedly texted the day she picked up her stepfather from the hospital.

Another alleged text message read: “He’s waking up. I really don’t want to be the one to do this.”

A third read: “I am about to club him on the head as he is waking up.”

Police found Merriman’s body under a pile of blankets, trash and boxes.

But Janks’ lawyers argue that she is innocent and claimed Merriman had died from poor health and ‘his own cocktail’ of drugs.

Her attorney, Marc Carlos, told the court: “You will not find any evidence that he was strangled to death.”

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