Dallas County prosecutors plan to seek the death penalty for a 46-year-old man charged with 12 murders of elderly women and linked to seven other deaths of elderly people.
Billy Chemirmir, 46, is charged with seven counts of capital murder in Dallas County and five counts of capital murder in Collin County, where he also faces two counts of attempted capital murder.
Chemirmir is also accused of killing seven other elderly people, according to lawsuits filed against an upscale senior living center.
The lawsuits allege Chemirmir posed as a maintenance worker at The Tradition-Prestonwood, where he killed and robbed eight elderly women and one elderly man.
The suits say the senior living center failed to provide adequate security and hid Chemirmir's connection to the string of deaths.
In each death, excluding the death of 89-year-old Solomon Spring, the elderly women were found smothered in their homes.
In most of the cases, the deaths were initially deemed natural.
Chemirmir was arrested March 21, 2018, on a murder charge in the smothering death of 81-year-old Lu Thi Harris.
After his arrest, Chemirmir was also charged in Collin County with two counts of attempted capital murder in an attack of a 92-year-old woman the day before Harris was killed and the attack of a 93-year-old woman in October 2017.
Chemirmir has been indicted in the deaths of:
- Phyllis Payne, 91, on May 14, 2016
- Phoebe Perry, 94, on June 5, 2016
- Norma French, 85, on Oct. 8, 2016
- Doris Gleason, 92, on Oct. 29, 2016
- Minnie Campbell, 83, on Oct. 31, 2017
- Carolyn MacPhee, 81, on Dec. 31, 2017
- Rosemary Curtis, 76, on Jan. 17, 2018
- Mary Brooks on Jan. 31, 2018
- Martha Williams, 80, on March 4, 2018
- Miriam Nelson, 81, on March 9, 2018
- Ann Conklin, 82, on March 18, 2018
- Lu Thi Harris, 81, on March 20, 2018
He is linked through lawsuits to the deaths of:
- Joyce Abramowitz, 82, on July 20, 2016
- Juanita Purdy, 83, on July 31, 2016
- Leah Corken, 83, on Aug. 19, 2016
- Margaret White, 87, on Aug. 28, 2016
- Solomon Spring, 89, on Oct. 2, 2016
- Glenna Day, 87, on Oct. 15, 2016
- Doris Wasserman, 90, on Dec. 23, 2017
