Mary Bartel realized she’d made a decision that might cost her her life the moment she saw a man wearing green rubber gloves at her door.
She should have asked who knocked before opening the door March 19, 2018, she told lawyers in a taped deposition. But the 91-year-old woman lived in Preston Place Retirement Community in Plano and figured her neighbors were hard-of-hearing just as she was, she said.
“I knew instantly when I saw those two green rubber gloves that, number one, I shouldn’t have opened the door, and number two, that my life was in grave danger,” Bartel testified.
The recording was played for jurors Monday at the start of a capital murder trial for Billy Chemirmir, a man police say could be among Texas’ most prolific serial killers.
Chemirmir quietly smothered elderly women, making their deaths look unsuspicious, while taking off with their jewelry, according to police and prosecutors in Dallas and Collin counties.
Investigators blame Chemirmir for at least 18 deaths between 2016 and 2018. He faces another trial in Dallas County and was indicted in five deaths and two attacks in Collin County.
Chemirmir has been indicted on 18 counts of capital murder. In all, he has been linked in police records, civil lawsuits, and medical examiner reports in at least two dozen deaths.
The victim at the center of Chemirmir’s first capital murder trial is not Bartel, who survived the attack and died of natural causes two years later. He is standing trial this week for the death of Lu Thi Harris, an 81-year-old immigrant from Vietnam, who investigators say was fatally smothered one day after the attack on Bartel.
Testimony is expected to continue throughout this week.
“To tell you about Ms. Harris and what she went through, I’m going to back up,” lead prosecutor Glen Fitzmartin said.
Prosecutors are expected to weave together three women’s stories to prove Chemirmir killed Harris.
In his opening statement, Fitzmartin told jurors he also would talk about Mary Brooks, who was killed in January 2018 in Richardson.
Prosecutors are generally barred from talking about other crimes a defendant is accused of while the jury is still tasked with determining the person’s guilt or innocence. But the law allows prosecutors to enter evidence of other crimes if it is needed to prove a person uses the same method each time.
Fitzmartin said Chemirmir’s cellphone records place him near Harris, Bartel and Brooks when they were attacked.
“This case is about stalking, smothering and stealing,” Fitzmartin told jurors before presenting his case.
Chemirmir and his defense team have maintained he is innocent but chose not to make an opening argument Monday. His lead defense lawyer, Phillip Hayes, was absent on the first day of testimony.
Hayes was arrested Nov. 5 on a charge of soliciting prostitution in October during one of his trials in East Texas, and he did not respond to requests for comment Monday.
Kobby Warren, one of Chemirmir’s other lawyers, would not comment on whether Hayes would participate in the trial. Hayes previously told The News he wouldn’t comment, so as to not jeopardize Chemirmir’s case.
If convicted, Chemirmir faces an automatic sentence of life in prison without parole because prosecutors are not seeking the death penalty. He appeared in court Monday wearing a black suit, a zebra-print tie, glasses and a mask in compliance with courthouse protocols for preventing the spread of COVID-19.
Detectives detail arrest
Chemirmir and Harris are seen in Walmart security camera footage checking out about the same time the afternoon of her death, Fitzmartin said.
He told jurors Chemirmir followed Harris to her Far North Dallas home. Later that day, police went to Chemirmir’s apartment and found him throwing out possessions that belonged to Harris, Fitzmartin said.
A red jewelry box with a broken drawer. Paperwork with Harris’ name scrawled on it.
Inside his car, detectives found sets of keys, cash, bags of jewelry and a Kenyan passport.
Chemirmir is a Kenyan immigrant with permanent resident status in the U.S. He could face deportation if released.
Fitzmartin displayed the items in front of the witness stand as Plano police Detective Fred Garcia testified that all of them were found the day Chemirmir was arrested in March 2018.
Plano police Detective Joe Claggett testified that after investigators determined Chemirmir was a suspect in the attack on Bartel, detectives converged on the Far North Dallas apartment complex where he lived.
One saw Chemirmir pull up to a large trash bin and toss something in. Plano officers later found the red jewelry box that led them to Harris in the trash bin.
Claggett testified that he approached Chemirmir with his gun drawn. He saw Chemirmir gripping an envelope full of cash and a clear plastic bag full of jewelry.
Claggett told Chemirmir repeatedly to get out of the car, he testified. When he didn’t move, Claggett pulled Chemirmir from the vehicle and arrested him in the prone position as the jewelry and cash spilled out onto the ground.
During the detectives’ testimony, Chemirmir peered over to look at the photographs of the evidence that prosecutors presented. Every so often, he scribbled on a yellow notepad in front of him before looking back up.
‘I just couldn’t breathe’
Although jurors will determine whether Chemirmir is guilty of killing Harris, much of the testimony Monday centered on Bartel.
Jurors first heard the 911 call during which neighbors tried to revive Bartel before paramedics arrived. They said that she was breathing, but not well, and that they could not wake her.
Steven Tuck, a Plano firefighter and paramedic, said that Bartel was not alert when they arrived but that as paramedics began running tests to revive her, she began talking.
“She started to wake up and told a story,” he said. “She said she had a bad dream of a man who tried to smother her with a pillow, and we didn’t know what to make of it.”
In her pre-recorded video testimony, Bartel remained calm and composed as she detailed the attack. She occasionally smiled softly at lawyers in between their questions.
Bartel said she tried to shut her apartment door but was outmatched by the younger, taller man. She didn’t get a good look at the intruder’s face or take note of an accent, she said. She was fixated on his green gloves.
The perpetrator told her to lie on the bed, and she said she complied. He slammed a pillow over her face and chest, Bartel testified. She tried to reach a medical alert button she wore but couldn’t squeeze her hand under the pillow to get to it as he used his weight to hold her down. She lost consciousness and woke up on a paramedic’s gurney with emergency medical personnel around her.
At the hospital, police at first didn’t believe Bartel when she said she’d been attacked, she testifed. But she described in precise detail the bills that should be in her purse and the rings missing from her hands.
After that, Bartel said, an officer called for homicide detectives.
Throughout the testimony, Chemirmir watched the video with his head turned slightly, blinking slowly.
Families watch from outside
Although their mothers’ deaths probably will not be mentioned in court, nearly a dozen families gathered at the courthouse Monday to watch the trial through a live feed. They wore homemade buttons with their mothers’ faces, names and the dates they died.
Because of COVID-19 precautions, Judge Raquel “Rocky” Jones has closed the courtroom to the public — including family members.
“We regret that we’re not able to see the jury and the jury isn’t able to see us,” said Shannon Dion, whose mother, Doris Gleason, was killed in October 2016.
In a room operated by the district attorney’s office, the families listened quietly, occasionally whispering or reacting to the testimony on a TV screen.
Harris’ family was not present, those in the room told The News. Harris’ surviving children live in Canada and Vietnam, according to public records.
The families who were present said that hearing from Bartel was particularly moving.
For many, they saw reflections of their own mothers in her testimony. Not just how she was attacked, but how she spoke, how her personality was evident through the recorded testimony.
Some noted her wit — cracking jokes about her own age and questions from the defense lawyer. Others said they recognized the way she counted the cash that was supposed to be in her purse down to the last bill, just as their mothers would.
“She was a vibrant 91-year-old, just like our mothers were,” said Loren Adair, whose mother Phyllis Payne was among the first known victims in May 2016.
But the details of the attack — the green gloves Bartel fixated on, the way she described losing consciousness after the pillow slammed down onto her face — were difficult to hear, said Cheryl Pangburn, whose mother died at Parkview Frisco in September 2017.
“To know that that is what your mom went through is very…” Pangburn began.
“It’s horrifying,” Adair finished. “It’s haunted us.”
