Senior-living
Communities were Dallas Serial Killer’s hunting grounds lawsuits say, by Dana
Branham and Charles Scudder, 5/17/19.
Norma French, 85, never took off her
wedding ring, even after her husband died in 2006. Doris Gleason,
92, always wore her gold necklace, even when she went to sleep each night.
But those precious keepsakes were nowhere to be found in October 2016 when both
women were found dead in separate apartments at a North Dallas
senior-living complex.
Billy Chemirmir, 46, has been in the
Dallas County Jail since March 2018. Prosecutors
now say a serial killer who targeted more than a dozen elderly women in Dallas
and Collin counties suffocated each of them with a pillow before
robbing them.
"This guy should've been
detected but wasn't," said Richard Arnold, an attorney representing
Gleason's family. "In our case, they had him just wandering around
the apartment for three hours."
Billy Chemirmir, 46, has been in the
Dallas County Jail since March 2018, when he was accused of smothering an
81-year-old woman in her Dallas home and attempting to kill two women in Collin
County.
And this week, grand juries in
Dallas and Collin counties handed up 11 additional capital murder indictments
for Chemirmir. The indictments paint a picture of a killing spree that
would rank him among Texas' most prolific serial killers.
The indictments identify the
following victims, alongside dates of death listed in their obituaries:
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
Phillip Hayes, Chemirmir's attorney,
told the Fort Worth Star-Telegram that
he was still wrapping his head around the number of indictments. Chemirmir is
frustrated, Hayes told the Star-Telegram.
"He also seemed surprised with the indictments, but he is holding on to
that he is innocent," Hayes said.
Families of at least three of the
victims -- French, Gleason and Payne -- didn't wait for police to charge Chemirmir
to take action. French's children and two other families are suing the
senior-living communities where their loved ones died, alleging that the
facilities didn't do enough to protect them.
It was unclear where Perry
lived, but the other Dallas victims did not appear to live in senior-living
facilities. Plano police have not said where the victims in the five latest
indictments lived.
French's three children said in
their lawsuit that The Tradition - Prestonwood failed to protect their 85-year-old
mother, "which gave Chemirmir the opportunity to kill Mrs. French."
In a statement, Prestonwood said the
community considers each of its residents "family."
"We are committed to
cooperating with the authorities," the company said in a statement. "It's
not appropriate to speculate on what legal proceedings may be underway. We can
only stress that the safety of our residents is a top priority every day."
But Michael French, Ellen French
House, and Laurie French Carter, who filed the lawsuit in Dallas County in
July, said the facility should have known that Chemirmir had been lurking
around The Tradition and other senior apartment communities around Dallas.
The lawsuit says French talked to
her children before she decided to move to The Tradition - Prestonwood in July
2014, and they agreed that it was a safe place for her.
The family later learned that
security at The Tradition - Prestonwood was "wholly inadequate," they
said in the lawsuit. Chemirmir, their mother's alleged attacker, had been known
to pose as a maintenance worker to gain access to the apartments, they said in
the lawsuit.
Gene Egdorf, a Houston attorney
representing the French family, said French's children were devastated by their
mother's death.
"To not only lose your mother,
lose her in a tragic way, and then to find out it was completely
avoidable?" Egdorf said. "I can't imagine anything more
painful."
The family brought the lawsuit to
ensure other families don't suffer the way they have, Egdorf said. They wrote
in the lawsuit that the apartment facility should've known about
"suspicious deaths" at the complex.
A few weeks after French's death,
Gleason was found dead in her apartment at The Tradition - Prestonwood.
Her daughter, Shannon Gleason Dion,
has sued the apartment company, saying a lack of adequate security led to her
mother's death.
Arnold, said the tragedy of
Gleason's death could have been prevented. The apartment complex used a key fob
for secure entry, he said, but that system was easy to get around.
A third suit filed by the family of
Phyllis Payne against The Edgemere — another complex on West Northwest Highway
between Hillcrest Road and Preston Road — was settled out of court in September
2018.
The suit alleged that although The
Edgemere promised round-the-clock security, Chemirmir was able to access the
property with the intent of killing and robbing residents.
According to the suit, Chemirmir
took Payne's jewelry and sterling silver after killing the 91-year-old. The
suit alleges that Chemirmir later sold the valuables at a pawnshop.
Chemirmir also faces two attempted
murder charges in Collin County, where prosecutors say he attacked a
91-year-old woman in Plano and a 93-year-old woman in Frisco.
Plano police allege that Chemirmir
forced his way into the Plano woman's apartment in March 2018.
"Go to the bed," he told her. "Don't fight me." She lay down in the bed and Chemirmir placed a pillow over
her face, police say. She lost consciousness and was later revived after a
friend found her and called 911.
Her jewelry was missing, and police
began looking at other deaths of elderly women at the complex. The next day,
Plano police were monitoring Chemirmir when they saw him toss a jewelry box
into a dumpster.
A name on the jewelry box led Dallas
police to a Far North Dallas home where they found 81-year-old Lu Thi
Harris dead of apparent suffocation. Chemirmir was arrested in connection
with Harris' death that week.
While the Plano attack was being
investigated, police in Frisco say they were able to connect Chemirmir to the
attack there.
On Oct. 29, 2017, the Frisco woman
told police, a well-dressed man knocked on her door at Parkview Elderly
Assisted Living facility and claimed he was a maintenance worker. She said she
didn't need any work done, but he forced his way inside the apartment and
knocked her from her walker to the floor.
The man used a pillow from the couch
to suffocate her, and she said she "began to pray, believing she was about
to die," according to police. When she lost consciousness, the man took
her jewelry. Cell phone evidence showed Chemirmir was in the area at the time
of the attack.
Chemirmir, a citizen of Kenya, is
being held in the Dallas County Jail on $9.1 million bail. Immigration
authorities have a jail hold on him, online records show.
Police have said Chemirmir, who
sometimes used the alias Benjamin Koitaba, used his health care experience to
take advantage of elderly people.
After Chemirmir's arrest, police
reexamined hundreds of cases in which elderly women died alone in their homes.
Dallas police said last year that they would pore over 750 such cases to look
for similarities, according to KXAS-TV (NBC5).
Richardson police spokesman Mike
Wieczorek said the department had a team of investigators review between 50 and
100 unattended death cases, eventually linking just one to Chemirmir: Mary
Brooks.
The effort, prompted by a suggestion
from Plano police, took several months to complete. "We had a lot to look through,"
Wieczorek said.
Arnold, the attorney representing
Gleason's family, said Dion found her mother's body. The missing necklace made
her suspicious 2 1/2 years before the indictments were filed.
He said the women were put at risk
because Chemirmir was able to pose as someone who had a reason to be in the
complex, like a health-care or maintenance worker.
"You're dealing with elderly
people who are unsuspecting," Arnold said. He also said Gleason's
treasured gold necklace -- the one she always wore -- was never recovered.
Norb Leahy, Dunwoody
GA Tea Party Leader
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