A Dallas County grand jury has added an 18th count of capital murder against Billy Chemirmir, who is accused of smothering and robbing elderly people for years in Dallas and Collin counties.

The latest charge is in the death of Glenna Day, who was killed Oct. 15, 2016, at The Tradition-Prestonwood, a luxury senior living community in Far North Dallas.

Chemirmir has been indicted in connection with eight other deaths at that complex, and he has been linked in lawsuits to one other. Including several other deaths that have not been included in his 18 indictments, he has been accused of killing 24 people from April 2016 through March 2018.

If convicted, Chemirmir could face the death penalty. He has said he is innocent and is in jail, with bail set at $17.6 million.

Chemirmir’s attorney, Phillip Hayes, said Tuesday that he hadn’t seen much about the new case but that he was “sure it’s more of the same: accusations based on having the medical examiner change his/her mind.”

He said a lot of the evidence against his client is circumstantial.

“It seems like every unexplained death they come up with, they’re pinning on him,” Hayes said in December. “If you look at all of it, it doesn’t stand up.”

Chemirmir’s case is scheduled to go to trial April 5, but proceedings are likely to be delayed in part because of the coronavirus pandemic.

Woman had concerns before her death

Before she died, a string of strange deaths down the hall had worried Day, her family says.

She told her daughter over and over in late 2016 about a number of her neighbors on the fourth floor who had died unexpectedly, but she didn’t have any more details about the strange deaths.

“Maybe I should move,” her mother told a friend.

Just a few weeks later, Day was found dead. Although she appeared to have died of natural causes, the scene in Day’s apartment troubled her family.

An artist, Day sometimes painted on the patio of her apartment. Her family was surprised to find her body still in her artist’s smock with paint on her hands and brushes on the patio — uncommon for the normally tidy grandmother.

“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.”

Kerr is one of many family members who have sued the senior living facilities where their mothers were killed.

At The Tradition-Prestonwood, according to the lawsuits that relatives have filed, Chemirmir was able to enter the complex through a parking garage and have “uninhibited access … to the entire facility.”

After residents started dying and reports of missing jewelry were spreading, employees failed to tell police, “who were viewing each death through a skewed, incomplete lens,” the lawsuits say. The family say that’s partly why the deaths weren’t treated as suspicious at first.

“She wasn’t a treasured asset, she was a bottom line,” Kerr said. “Had they shared that information, well, how many of them would have been saved?”

The Tradition-Prestonwood said in a written statement that it “regards all our residents as family” and that it relied on investigators who initially ruled the deaths were from natural causes.

“Those rulings stood for more than 27 months,” the statement says. “The Tradition-Prestonwood has cooperated with all the authorities and will continue to do so.”