Billy Chemirmir

Dec 18

24 min read

My opening debut! I have always been fascinated with true crime and especially by serial killers. Being a web-sleuth is a term I have wanted to bestow upon myself for several years now. So, why not begin my first case covering one of the most recent prolific serial killers in the state of Texas? Let’s get into it.

Introduction

On October 28, 2016, Doris Gleason and her daughter Shannon went about their regular Friday routine. Shannon picked Doris up around 10:00 a.m. for her weekly haircut, and while her mother was at the salon, she ran to grab Doris’ groceries. After they left the salon, Shannon would drive her mother to Frost Bank, where she would withdrawal enough cash to last her through the week. When they arrived back at Doris’ apartment at The Tradition-Prestonwood, Shannon helped her mother unpack the groceries, said “I love you” to each other, and she left. On October 30, 2016, Shannon found her mother dead in her room, lying near the dining room table. Two Dallas officers responded to the scene and told Shannon her mother had died of natural causes. Shannon approached the gurney to kiss her mother goodbye as a funeral worker was preparing to take Doris away.

She asked where the jewelry her mother was wearing was, and funeral workers pointed to a counter nearby. When Shannon looked, only Doris’ wedding rings were lying there. She asked where her mother’s gold necklace was, the one with guardian angel that Doris had kept on every day and every night. The responders said there was no necklace. Shannon looked through her mother’s purse. No necklace and no cash from the withdrawal she had made at the bank that Friday. As she searched through the apartment, she noticed rings and other jewelry were missing from an antique box in her bedroom. Her grief immediately turned to anxiety. When cops returned to a second 911 call, they asked more detailed questions: What was Doris’ routine? Did she have any plans? A homicide detective arrived and dusted for fingerprints. The officers filed a theft report and ordered an autopsy. The initial word from the medical examiner came quickly: no signs of trauma and that she had died of natural causes. Something still felt off to Shannon; if her mother had died of natural causes, then someone must have come into her mother’s apartment after she passed and robbed her instead of calling for help. Some people might let it go, but Shannon wasn’t from that kind of family.

In November 1988, Shannon’s sister Nancy Gleason was abducted and raped. A stranger showed up at her door dressed as a delivery man near her home in Highland Park. When Nancy opened the door, the man dropped a package inside and pulled out a .357 magnum handgun. Then he made her drive him to his apartment before taking her on an aimless hours-long journey around North Texas. Officers found Nancy and her attacker after 1:00 a.m. at a motel where the man, Glen Anthony, had forced her to pay for a room. That following summer, Nancy testified, she told jurors how she felt herself tearing when Anthony raped her on the floor and how he made her wear her bloody underwear after he was done. He had also threatened to kill her and bury her in a shallow grave. Jurors took less than 3 hours to find Anthony guilty, and he was sentenced to 99 years in state prison. But after just a few years, the family learned that keeping Nancy’s attacker behind bars would take the entire family’s persistence.

In 2003 when he first came up for release, Nancy was dying of pancreatic cancer. Her husband, Thomas Taylor, wrote to the parole board on her behalf, and Anthony was denied freedom. After Nancy died, the family kept fighting. First, in 2011, Doris and her husband Jerry wrote to the parole board. Then in 2016, when Shannon and Doris composed a letter to the parole board. Later that summer, they got word that while Anthony would not be released, he would be back in front of a parole board every year from then on. Doris and her daughters had always been close, but after that night in 1988, they took on new roles in each other’s lives. They thought of themselves as guardians. Always wearing the gold angel necklaces, Nancy had bought the three of them on a trip to Florence, Italy. Now in the fall of 2016, Shannon had only her necklace.

Unsatisfied with what the cops had told her, Shannon requested two years’ worth of police reports from the Tradition-Prestonwood. Shannon found reports of unaccompanied deaths, suspicious-person reports, break-ins, thefts. In July 2016, resident Joyce Abramowitz was found dead in her apartment of natural causes. Her son reported that her safe had been stolen a week later. Later that same month, a woman named Juanita Purdy died of natural causes. According to reports, her daughter called police a few days later and said her mother’s jewelry cabinet had been raided by an intruder. Leah Corken was found dead, natural causes, her daughter called the police when she couldn’t find her wedding ring. Norma French was found dead, natural causes, her daughter called after finding $6,000 worth of jewelry and cash missing. Margaret White was found dead, natural causes that August. Solomon Spring and Glenna Day were found dead just a few days before Doris. All listed as dying from natural causes.

Shannon had noticed a pattern. She was convinced that someone was sneaking into the room after they had died and taken precious belongings. Shannon wanted everyone to know. She emailed a reporter at the Dallas Morning News and sent the packet of police reports in a manila envelope. But nobody followed up with her for an interview. A few weeks after the attempt to tip off the news, Shannon left reviews on the Tradition-Prestonwood’s Yelp page. “The food and ambiance are delightful,” the review begins. “The security is unacceptable. I urge anyone considering living here to evaluate how easy it is for uninvited outsiders to have unmonitored access to residential floors.” The Yelp review can still be found.

After posting the review, Shannon tried to go on with her life. She mourned the first anniversary of Doris’ death, and Shannon continued to write and call the parole board to keep Nancy’s attacker locked away. Then, one evening in July 2018, Shannon returned from an evening walk to find a voicemail from a detective with the Plano Police Department. Shannon called him back right away; the detective had seen her Yelp review and wanted to know more about her mother’s death. He told her to write a name down and look it up later. He spelled it out just to make sure she had it right.

C-H-E-M-I-R-M-I-R.

*Credit: Dallas Morning News*
*(Dallas County Sheriff's Department)*

Childhood

Billy Chemirmir was the eighth child out of nine. Born on December 8, 1972, to Joel Chemirmir, a long-serving senior colonial chief who was very famous in his heyday. They resided in Kabonyony village, a suburb of Eldama Ravine in Kenya. A source close to the family said Billy was raised in Solai and schooled in Nakuru County, where he completed primary and secondary schooling. In his mid-20s, he moved in with his maternal grandmother and was said to be a very quiet, generous man who kept to himself. Chemirmir stayed with his grandmother only shortly. He got engaged to a woman, and they moved to Bondeni estate. According to sources, they had one child together, who is now a teenager. Billy and his two brothers began overindulged in alcohol while staying at the shanty Bondeni estate. This forced their two elder sisters in the U.S., who were operating a nursing home for the elderly, to secure a visa for the trio.

Once they relocated to the U.S. in the early 90s, they all went to work at their sisters’ nursing home. Chemirmir’s sisters own several nursing homes currently in McKinney and Allen. No suspicious deaths have been reported there in the past 5 years and relatives who operate did not respond to multiple requests for comment. It is said that Billy broke ties with his sisters some years later and opted to offer his services to the elderly at their homes. In 2004, Billy married an American woman in Denton County to find a loophole for citizenship. His wife filed for divorce 2 years later, saying she didn’t know where he was. She called his family members, previous employers, searched for him online but couldn’t find him. The divorce was finalized in October 2006.

Criminal Background

In December 2010, Chemirmir was arrested in Addison for a DWI; just months later, in June of 2011, he was arrested again on another DWI charge. According to court records, he was sentenced to 180 days in jail and fined $1,250. Chemirmir was in trouble again in 2012. Dallas police responded to a disturbance call shortly before 3 a.m. on July 29, 2012. Chemirmir’s girlfriend told police he had come home drunk from a strip club, and they got into an argument. She later went to bed and tried to sleep, but Chemirmir went into the room and began punching her, according to an arrest warrant obtained by the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. He grabbed a small pot and hit her in the back of the head with it and kicked her in the back. Chemirmir stopped the assault, but he then started cutting the couch with a knife, according to the warrant. He was arrested and posted bail but waited years for his trial on the assault. Before the trial for beating his girlfriend could happen, he was arrested and retaken into custody in June 2016.

He had entered and remained in the Edgemere Retirement Community in Dallas without permission, according to Dallas Police reports. He was first spotted in early spring 2016. When confronted, he gave his name as Benjamin Koitaba and was told to leave. Police instructed staff to call back if he trespassed again. Edgemere staff called and said the suspicious man was back. Chemirmir showed officers his wallet, which had I.D.s for Benjamin Koitaba and Billy Chemirmir. He was charged with criminal trespassing, and he was also charged with failing to identify himself. On June 28, 2016, Chemirmir pleaded no contest on his 2012 assault charge, the criminal trespass case, and failing to identify. He was sentenced to 70 days in jail and fined $2,000, according to police records. He was released on good behavior after serving just 12 days.

Capture

On March 19, 2018, a 91-year-old woman named Mary Bartel opened her apartment door at Preston Retirement Community in Plano to see a man standing in the hallway. He told her, “Go to bed, don’t fight me,” and forced his way into the bedroom. He grabbed a pillow and used all his weight to keep her from breathing. “My eyes were just fixated on these green rubber gloves that I saw. ... I knew instantly when I saw those two green rubber gloves, number one, I should not have opened the door, number two, my life was in grave danger,” Mary Bartel said about the attack. Luckily, her friend had found her and called 911. When she was revived, she noticed that her diamond ring, wedding band, and $270 were missing. Police arrived, and Bartel recounted the attack, telling officers what he had said and how she was missing items. Police started looking into similar incidents and found one from Parkview Elderly Assisted Living in Frisco that previous October.

A 93-year-old woman had opened the door to find a well-dressed man claiming to be a maintenance worker. When she said she didn’t need any work done, he forced his way inside and knocked her from her walker to the floor, trying to smother her with a pillow. The man then took jewelry from the apartment and left; the woman alerted police and caretakers by pressing her emergency alert button. The cops thought the two incidents were too similar to be a coincidence. Police found a report of a suspicious vehicle - a silver Nissan Altima – at the Plano senior living facility. That same car was connected to a trespassing charge two years earlier at a Dallas senior living complex, its driver – Chemirmir. The 93-year-old victim was later shown a photo lineup, and she identified Chemirmir as her attacker.

Police were convinced they had their suspect on March 19, 2018, and set up surveillance on Chemirmir’s apartment in far North Dallas the next day. Around 6 p.m. Chemirmir came home. Plano officer William Knight saw him throw something in a dumpster. Knight arrested Billy on outstanding warrants and read him his rights. He was gripping jewelry and cash when he was being handcuffed. With Chemirmir under arrest, Knight walked over to the dumpster and saw a jewelry box. Inside was a piece of paper with the name and address of Lu Thi Harris. Dallas police officers were ordered to do a welfare check on Harris at her home just a few miles away. Inside, 81-year-old Harris was found dead lying on her bed with a pillow smeared in lipstick next to her. Given that pattern, police kept digging. Any case of an unaccompanied death that lined up with a report of missing jewelry had to be re-examined. Deaths listed as natural causes may have been murders.

Victims

- Catherine Sinclair, 87, died on April 8, 2016, at Edgemere. The family found blood on her pillow and couldn’t find a large safe in the apartment after her death. They were one of a few families that filed a police report on their suspicions of homicide.

- Phyllis Payne, 91, died on May 14, 2016, at Edgemere. Until a month after her mother’s death, her daughter didn’t realize that a large cache of jewelry was missing. Payne had always kept it in a coffee can in the fridge with her jewelry. Her daughter says Chemirmir had to have asked her where it was before killing her.

- Phoebe Perry, 94, died on June 5, 2016, at Edgemere.

- Joyce Abramowitz, 82, died on July 18, 2016, at the Tradition-Prestonwood. She died just 8 days after Chemirmir’s release from jail on the trespassing charge. In April, Abramowitz had reported to police that several pieces of jewelry had been stolen from her jewelry box while she was on vacation. After she died, her son said that a safe was missing.

- Juanita Purdy, 83, died on July 31, 2016, at the Tradition-Prestonwood. Her daughter said $28,000 of jewelry was missing. Police have cell phone evidence pinging Chemirmir in her mom’s room at the time of death and later that day at a pawnshop.

- Leah Corken, 83, died on August 19, 2016, at the Tradition-Prestonwood. Found without her wedding ring on. On August 18, 2016, Mary Jo Jennings spent the day shopping with her mother. The next morning, Jennings says they spoke over the phone as they always did. But by that evening, Jennings arrived to find Corken lying face-down on the ground. When she asked about the odd position of her body, an employee told her, “That’s how old people fall when they die,” according to lawsuits.

- Margaret White, 86, died on August 28, 2016, at the Tradition-Prestonwood. The executor of her estate, Paul Wright, noticed her apartment was missing her fine jewelry — including a wedding ring.

- Solomon Spring, 89, died on October 1, 2016, at the Tradition-Prestonwood. He is the only male victim linked to Chemirmir. He was found in a pool of blood with a gash at the back of his head and a bloody lamp lying nearby. Police were told by the staff he was on blood thinners, which may have accounted for the blood discovered. They marked it as natural death and suggested he fell and hit his head. Maintenance tools were found in Spring’s bathroom at the time of death, but there was no call for a maintenance order, the court records show.

- Norma French, 85, died on October 8, 2016, at the Tradition-Prestonwood. She was missing $6,000 of items. Her daughter knew something was wrong when she saw her mother’s bruised finger like someone had ripped the wedding ring right off her hand.

- Glenna Day, 87, died on October 15, 2016, at the Tradition-Prestonwood. She told her daughter many times in late 2016 about several of her neighbors on the fourth floor who had died unexpectedly. When Day was killed, she was found working to restore a friend’s painting and had just been out dancing at a senior center. Her family was surprised to see her body, still in her artist’s smock with paint on her hands and brushes on the patio. “That didn’t fit with me,” said Sherril Kerr, Day’s daughter. “Yes, she would’ve died. I get that. But not horrifically and not before her time.”

- Doris Gleason, 92, died on October 29, 2016, at the Tradition-Prestonwood. Her daughter Shannon had spent Friday with her mother and found her dead in her apartment on Sunday morning. Shannon was alarmed when she noticed the guardian angel necklace her mother always wore was missing. Unfortunately, the necklace still has not been recovered.

- In November, a man matching Chemirmir’s description was spotted at the Tradition-Prestonwood. A black man, 5’10, 180 pounds, carrying a leather satchel. The man had been seen on several occasions visiting the fourth floor and stated he was there to check pipe leaks, according to the police report. Officers told staff, “To tighten security and possibly go door to door,” the report said.

- Marilyn Bixler, 90, died on September 17, 2017, at Parkview Frisco. Her daughter found her perfectly positioned between the couch and coffee table. Her eyeglasses were bent and missing a lens. No investigation was done, and it was marked as a natural death. In Collin County, Bixler’s death certificate was amended on August 31, 2018. In 2019 she was D.M.’d by a friend who explained that her own mother had been murdered by Chemirmir, and she’d recognized Marilyn’s name on a police list of suspected victims. “I literally felt sick,” she said. “The police department identified that she was a potential victim and didn’t reach out to us. The medical examiner changed the cause of death and didn’t reach out to us.” Her experience is now known as Marilyn’s Law, HB 723. Requiring written notice to next of kin of changes to a death certificate.

- Attempt on 93-year-old on October 29, 2017, in Parkview Frisco. The woman told police a well-dressed man knocked on her door at Parkview Elderly Assisted Living facility and claimed he was a maintenance worker and forced his way inside the apartment, knocking her from her walker to the floor. The man used a pillow from the couch to suffocate her. When she lost consciousness, the man took her jewelry. Cell phone evidence showed Chemirmir was in the area at the time of the attack.

- Minnie Campbell, 84, died on October 31, 2017, at Preston Retirement Community.

- Diana Delahunty, 79, died on December 3, 2017, at Preston Retirement Community. Lori Delahunty said she found her mother’s body lying on the floor wearing the same clothes she wore to lunch with her daughter two days earlier. Her mother had a large knot on her head. Delahunty was missing an engagement ring, a wedding ring, and a 50th-anniversary gold band.

- Mamie Miya, 93, died on December 8, 2017, at Preston Retirement Community.

- Unknown, 81, died on December 10, 2017, at Preston Retirement Community.

- Doris Wasserman, 90, died on December 23, 2017, at the Tradition-Prestonwood. She spent the afternoon playing with her great-grandson. Her family dropped her off at her apartment around 3:30 p.m., and when they came back around 8 p.m., they found her lying on the bed, fully clothed and unresponsive.

- Carolyn MacPhee, 81, died on December 31, 2017, in her private home in Plano. Robert MacPhee, Carolyn’s husband, hired Chemirmir as an at-home caregiver. However, 6 months after Robert died, Billy returned and killed Carolyn. When her son arrived and found his mother had died, he noticed blood at the garage door, bloody tissues in the bathroom, and blood on her glasses. Her wedding ring was also missing. Police were able to explain away the blood and missing ring by saying she probably went out to her car and had a nosebleed and that old people often hide things. When Chemirmir’s name broke to the media, Carolyn’s son gave the glasses he had kept to the police, who ran a DNA test. It came back positive for Chemirmir’s blood; phone records also show him in the area when his mother died.

- Rosemary Curtis, 75, died on January 19, 2018, in her private Dallas home.

- Mary Brooks, 88, died on January 31, 2018, in her condo in Richardson. Her daughter reported that a safe was missing from her home and most of Brooks’s jewelry. Surveillance video from a Walmart showed Brooks leaving the parking lot at the same time as Chemirmir’s Nissan Altima. The video was taken the day before the family found Brooks dead. Richardson police testified that their investigation determined he targeted her at the store and smothered her in her home.

- Martha Williams, 80, died on March 4, 2018, at Preston Retirement Community.

- Miriam Nelson, 81, died on March 9, 2018, at Preston Retirement Community. Nelson reported to staff two days before her death that an intruder had been in her apartment. She left a detailed voicemail about the incident with the front desk. Saying a man with rubber gloves came into her apt while she was in her living room recliner on March 7. He told her that he was there to check for leaks and walked into her bedroom; he left after several minutes. Two days later, she told her daughter a necklace was missing, and that evening she was found dead with more than $11,000 in jewelry missing.

- Ann Conklin, 82, died on March 18, 2018, at Preston Retirement Community. Conklin’s daughter, Jennie Bassett, said she found Conklin’s dog in the apartment with its leash on. Bassett said she suspects Chemirmir followed her mother into the apartment after walking the dog. Right away, police began asking questions about her mother’s jewelry and said they wanted to get an autopsy. However, it wasn’t until the next day, when a woman who lived across the hall survived an attack and provided police with a description matching Chemirmir, that they realized what had happened.

- Attempt, Mary Bartel on March 19, 2018, at Preston Retirement Community. “Go to the bed,” the man who knocked said, according to police reports. “Don’t fight me.” He shoved Bartel onto the bed and placed a pillow over her face. She reached for a medical alert button but lost consciousness before she could press it. Her friend came to the door a few minutes later and found it ajar. Bartel was revived and taken to a hospital. In November 2019, Plano police recognized Bartel with a Citizen Hero award. Police spokesman David Tilley said the award is given to citizens who help detectives in criminal investigations. In an informal ceremony, the department thanked Bartel for her help solving the case and presented her with a plaque. She died in 2020 but recorded a video deposition for prosecutors to play in court, recalling the attack before she passed. Her son said she found Chemirmir’s name in her prayer journal. She had forgiven the man who attacked her and prayed for him daily.

- Lu Thi Harris, 81, died on March 20, 2018, in her private Dallas home. She was found dead with a lipstick-stained pillowcase lying next to her after police were called to do a welfare check. Video surveillance footage from a Walmart showed Chemirmir and Harris were in the store at the same time. This was the exact Walmart location he was shown to have stalked Mary Brooks’ at. Her son-in-law, Richard Rinehart, testified about her life as a Vietnam War refugee and gracious personality. Rinehart testified that she often gave friends and family members $2 bills as gifts. Chemirmir was arrested while clutching an envelope with her handwriting on it full of $2 bills. Chemirmir was questioned about the cash and jewelry box found the day he was arrested in a taped interview. He told the detective that he bought and sold jewelry for a living. He said that a man delivered the jewelry box to him that same day, and he picked up the $2 bills from another man in Fort Worth days prior.

Trial

Chemirmir was being held in Dallas County Jail after the attack on Bartel and the possible murder of Harris in March 2018. His bail was set at $11.6 million. Immigration authorities had a jail hold on him, saying he could face deportation if released. While he is a permanent resident of the U.S., his citizenship is still in Kenya. Chemirmir was indicted for 18 counts of capital murder and two counts of attempted capital murder committed over two years. In May 2019, he was linked through medical examiner reports and civil case filings in six other deaths, bringing the total number of murders to 24 in North Texas. On February 2, 2020, the trial was set for April 5, 2021; however, it was delayed multiple times due to COVID-19. In June 2021, the DA told victims’ families that they would not be seeking the death penalty on Chemirmir, who pleaded not guilty on all charges. According to a recording of that meeting obtained by The Dallas Morning News, the DA told families that the time involved in preparing for a death penalty case would be too great to pursue. For example, he said, lawyers from the defense and the prosecution would likely have to travel to Kenya to track down potential witnesses and records to learn more about Chemirmir’s past. Instead, they would request for two jury trials with the goal of two life sentences without the possibility of parole.

Chemirmir’s attorney, Phillip Hayes, has called much evidence against his client circumstantial. “It seems like every unexplained death they come up with, they’re pinning on him,” he said. “If you look at all of it, it doesn’t stand up,” Hayes said that the DA office had offered Chemirmir a plea bargain but that he had turned it down. “He’s frustrated,” Hayes said. “He also seemed surprised with the indictments, but he is holding on to that he is innocent,” Hayes said that he was pleased with the decision made to not pursue the death penalty, but that his client still maintains that he is innocent.

The trial date was finally set for Thursday, November 12, 2021. Jurors weighed Chemirmir’s guilt or innocence only on the death of 81-year-old Lu Thi Harris. However, in addition to details about the Harris case, jurors also heard about attacks on Mary Brooks and Mary Bartel, who survived an attempted smothering the day before Harris died. Prosecutors also showed jurors surveillance camera footage from a Walmart at the corner of Coit and Arapaho roads that showed that Chemirmir and Harris were in the store simultaneously. Prosecutors sought to prove Chemirmir had a pattern of choosing victims at Walmart. Chemirmir had also targeted 88-year-old Mary Brooks, following her home from the store and fatally smothering her. Surveillance footage showed Chemirmir standing outside the same Walmart with a phone to his ear. He watched as Brooks left the Walmart with her shopping cart and slowly followed her. The following camera footage showed Chemirmir getting into his car and following Brooks out of the parking lot. Brooks was wearing the same blue jacket and red scarf that she wore in the footage at the Walmart, Richardson police Officer Shane Harris said. Groceries were still out on the stovetop, some in plastic Walmart bags. Diamond and Gold Exchange testified that Billy sold jewelry to them on 3/19/18, the very day Harris was killed. They also stated they paid Chemirmir at least $91,000 for jewelry from 2015-2018.

Chemirmir’s attorneys rested their case without calling any witnesses or presenting evidence, and Chemirmir didn’t testify in his own defense. Instead, they dismissed the evidence against their client as “quantity over quality” and asserted that prosecutors had not proved Chemirmir’s guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. In closing arguments Thursday, defense attorneys said prosecutors piled on accusations against Chemirmir related to other deaths because they couldn’t prove that he killed Harris. “You probably got confused on what case you were here for,” the attorney said. “It’s not Ms. Brooks. It’s not Ms. Bartel. But it’s Ms. Harris.”

The jury had been deliberating since Thursday afternoon after hearing closing arguments. They returned to the courthouse Friday morning, but at around 11 a.m., jurors wrote a note to Judge Raquel Jones, saying they were deadlocked 11-1. The jury informed Jones that one juror would not change their stance on trial. Chemirmir’s attorneys had motioned to declare the trial as a mistrial and the jury to be sequestered immediately, but Jones denied the motion. Instead, Jones instructed the jury to keep deliberating. The jurors wrote another note to Jones about an hour later, saying they were still deadlocked. They sent a third note to Jones at about 2 p.m., saying the situation had not changed, and Jones responded by delivering an Allen charge, which is a formal instruction to a jury encouraging them to decide. Defense attorneys kept pushing for the Judge to call it and said any further attempts to order the jury to deliberate would be considered coercive and violate Chemirmir’s due process. At 3:20 p.m., the Judge declared a mistrial. None of the family members were allowed in because of COVID-19; they felt if the jury had the chance to see all the sad faces of the victims’ children, the outcome might have been different.

Tradition-Prestonwood

Civil lawsuits were filed against the Tradition-Prestonwood on behalf of the victim’s children, were at least nine of the twenty-four murders committed by Chemirmir happened. The lawsuit alleges that “police were viewing each death through a skewed, incomplete lens due to The Tradition’s purposeful failure to disclose all relevant information.” Although the Tradition-Prestonwood marketed itself specifically for its top-of-the-line security and safety measures, according to the suit, the complex “put profits over the safety of its residents” by failing to disclose a series of thefts and deaths to both police and residents. While the complex claimed to have “surveillance cameras throughout the community” and “24/7 access control”, the suit suggests that Chemirmir was allowed access to the complex through an unsecured parking garage and that no cameras were placed in residents’ hallways. In addition, they were not forthcoming with the police and withheld information when responding to the deaths.

After denying multiple requests for interviews, Tradition-Prestonwood released the following statement to the media. “The Tradition consistently provided incomplete and incorrect information to the investigation authorities, thereby delaying Chemirmir’s eventual arrest. The deaths by an alleged serial killer in peoples’ homes and at multiple senior living communities in the DFW Metroplex is a true tragedy. The Tradition-Prestonwood regards all our residents as family. The Tradition-Prestonwood relied on the investigations of the Dallas police, its detectives, and other reputable, established governmental entities, including the Dallas County Medical Examiner, the Collin County Medical Examiner, and more. Any death was investigated by Dallas police and the Dallas County Medical Examiner and ruled as attributed to natural causes. Additionally, two autopsies also confirmed death by natural causes. Those rulings stood for more than 27 months. The Tradition-Prestonwood has cooperated with all the authorities and will continue to do so. The allegations against Mr. Perlman that he withheld information are absolutely false.” Reports of missing over $28,000 are considered a felony theft in Texas. Police should have been alerted to process the scene, yet they did not collect any DNA evidence or photograph the crime scene.

Where is he now?

Chemirmir will remain incarcerated in Dallas County, awaiting his other pending cases. A spokesman for the Collin County DA’s office said that the mistrial in Dallas changes nothing about the rest of Chemirmir’s pending cases. In the U.S., just over 10% of the victims killed by serial killers are over 60 years old. Unfortunately, very little research has been done to compare older victims vs. younger victims. What is known is that the MO for murdering the elderly is usually for financial gain, followed by revenge, power, and control. Which we can all see from Chemirmir’s pattern. He pretended to be someone the victims’ could trust to gain access to their homes – posing as a health care worker or maintenance worker, he stalked them before killing them, he preyed on the weak and alone, and he killed twenty-four elderly that we know of in two years. He should very much be considered as one of Texas’s most prolific serial killers.

Tips/Resources

Secure Our Seniors’ Safety (SOSS) started in July 2019 when four of the victim’s daughters found each other and met with State Senator Nathan Johnson and State Representative Julie Johnson. They shared their tragic stories and vowed to make changes. Most of the crimes occurred in four senior independent living establishments in Dallas, Plano, and Frisco, Texas. Over time, they learned that these establishments knew a stranger was wandering their properties and that unattended deaths were reported. Yet, the management said nothing to the residents of the crimes occurring. Families found this behavior of silence and cover-up unacceptable. Their mission with SOSS is as follows: “Our first goal is legislation passed to improve senior security at residential establishments. Our second goal is to educate consumers to know what to look for when choosing a residence, increase awareness of crimes against seniors, and how to be safe. We have grown to family members of over twenty victims. There are no regulations for security in Texas. There are regulations about having adequate staffing for safety but don’t specify what an adequate ratio is. We want our elected officials to legislate new regulations. We want the public to be more aware of the lack of security. We are working to protect your loved ones. We lock down schools to protect our kids. We need to provide security regulations to protect our seniors.”

Dallas Police Department officers are also looking into the deaths of at least 750 elderly women to see if they are connected to the suspect. “It will be a monumental task,” Pughes, Executive Assistant Chief of Police, said. “But we’re up for the challenge, and we’re going to make sure we check each and every case.” Since the case is still active, a tip line has been set up through the Frisco Police Department, and police are asking anyone with information to call their tip line. They’re also asking anyone who reached out to Chemirmir seeking health care or home health care to call them.

(972) 941-5785

Sources

https://interactives.dallasnews.com/2019/north-texas-senior-living-serial-killer-billy-chemirmir/index.html

https://allafrica.com/stories/202003050064.html

https://www.dallasnews.com/news/courts/2020/12/08/three-more-capital-murder-charges-filed-against-billy-chemirmir-bringing-total-indictments-to-17/

https://www.texasobserver.org/undetected/

https://www.star-telegram.com/news/local/crime/article230477979.html

https://www.dallasnews.com/news/courts/2021/11/17/watch-cell-phone-evidence-security-camera-footage-expected-as-billy-chemirmir-trial-continues/

https://www.nbcdfw.com/news/local/what-happens-next-in-the-case-of-accused-serial-killer-billy-chemirmir/2822583/

https://www.fox4news.com/news/billy-chemirmir-trial-jury-watches-surveillance-video-of-victim-and-suspect

https://www.wfaa.com/article/news/crime/how-to-watch-live-gavel-to-gavel-coverage-of-the-billy-chemirmir-trial/287-442a214e-e12b-432b-a776-da8b5da3ef8d