Dallas County prosecutors will seek the death penalty against Billy Chemirmir, a capital murder suspect accused of smothering more than a dozen elderly women in North Texas senior living complexes.
District Attorney John Creuzot’s office filed paperwork Tuesday seeking capital punishment in the suspected serial killer’s case, according to Dallas County court records.
Capital murder in Texas carries either an automatic sentence of life in prison without parole or the death penalty. Prosecutors reserve the death penalty for crimes deemed especially heinous.
Chemirmir, 46, is accused of posing as a maintenance worker to gain access to the apartments of women in Dallas and Collin counties. Police say he then smothered the women with a pillow before stealing their jewelry to sell online or pawn.
Many of those deaths were initially listed as natural causes. It is difficult to tell if someone was smothered unless there is other suspicion of foul play. After Chemirmir was arrested in March 2018, however, police began looking at older deaths to identify potential victims.
Chemirmir has denied requests for interviews, but his lawyer has said he maintains his innocence.
His attorney was not immediately available for comment Wednesday.
Chemirmir is being held in the Dallas County Jail with bail set at $11.6 million. Immigration authorities have a jail hold on him. He is a citizen of Kenya and a permanent resident of the U.S.
A trial date has not been set.
The district attorney’s office has specifically filed paperwork to seek the death penalty in the case of Lu Thi Harris, a Dallas woman who was found dead in her home after Chemirmir was arrested on an outstanding warrant.
Chemirmir was identified as a potential suspect in March 2018 after two women survived attacks in their apartments in Plano and Frisco. Police were following him when they saw him toss a jewelry box in a dumpster.
The jewelry box led police to the home of Harris, 81, where lipstick was found on a pillow near her body.
Chemirmir was charged with capital murder in Harris’ death and the attempted murder of the two other women.
At that time, police announced they were investigating hundreds of other deaths to see if there were links to Chemirmir.
“We're going to make every attempt to identify all the victims in the communities across the metroplex and fully investigate this case,” Plano police Chief Gregory Rushin said at a 2018 news conference. “This is terribly disturbing."
In the months since, families around the country have gotten calls from law enforcement, saying their loved ones might not have died peacefully in their sleep as they previously believed. Instead, police told them, they may have been victims of a serial killer.
With more evidence — including Google tracking data from Chemirmir’s cellphone — officials worked to change the causes of death in each case from natural to possible homicide in order to indict him in the case.
The 12 slayings he’s been indicted for would make Chemirmir one of the most prolific serial killers in Texas history.
The indicted victims are:
- Phyllis Payne, 91, who died May 14, 2016, in Dallas
- Phoebe Perry, 94, who died June 5, 2016, in Dallas
- Norma French, 85, who died Oct. 8, 2016, in Dallas
- Doris Gleason, 92, who died Oct. 29, 2016, in Dallas
- Minnie Campbell, 84, who died Oct. 31, 2017, in Plano
- Carolyn MacPhee, 81, who died Dec. 31, 2017, in Plano
- Rosemary Curtis, 75, who died Jan. 19, 2018, in Dallas
- Mary Brooks, who died Jan. 31, 2018, in Richardson
- Martha Williams, 80, who died March 4, 2018, in Plano
- Miriam Nelson, 81, who died March 9, 2018, in Plano
- Ann Conklin, 82, who died March 18, 2018, in Plano
- Lu Thi Harris, 81, who died on March 20, 2018, in Dallas
In addition to the indicted victims, seven additional deaths have been linked to Chemirmir in lawsuits against The Tradition-Prestonwood, one of the complexes where the victims lived. The family members of those people say police have told them indictments are coming soon in their cases.
Those additional victims are:
- Joyce Abramowitz, 82, who died July 18, 2016
- Leah Corken, 83, who died Aug. 19, 2016
- Glenna Day, 87, who died Oct. 15, 2016
- Juanita Purdy, 83, who died July 31, 2016
- Solomon Sprin, 89, who died Oct. 1, 2016
- Margaret White, 86, who died Aug. 28, 2016
- Doris Wasserman, 90, who died Dec. 23, 201
CORRECTION, 8:28 p.m., Oct. 10, 2019: An earlier version of this story said Billy Chemirmir was in the country illegally. He is a lawful permanent resident of the U.S.
