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| Photo Credit: AP. |
DALLAS (AP) — A man accused of killing 22 elderly women in the Dallas area and stealing jewelry and valuables has been linked by DNA evidence to one of the deaths, a prosecutor said Monday. The development could counter earlier defense claims that all the evidence against Billy Chemirmir is circumstantial.
Chemirmir,
49, is on trial for capital murder in the death of 87-year-old Mary Brooks.
It’s
Chemirmir’s third trial. His first trial, in the smothering death of
81-year-old Lu Thi Harris, ended in a mistrial last November when the jury
deadlocked. He was retried and found guilty in April and sentenced to life
without parole. If convicted in Brooks’ death, he’ll receive a second sentence
of life without parole.
Prosecutor
Glen Fitzmartin said in opening statements that while presenting evidence in
the deaths of Brooks and Harris, he would also show that DNA links Chemirmir to
the death of 80-year-old Martha Williams.
Chemirmir
has maintained his innocence. His attorney entered a not guilty plea on his
behalf Monday, but declined to make an opening statement.
His arrest
was set in motion in March 2018 when Mary Annis Bartel — 91 at the time — told
police that a man had forced his way into her apartment at an independent
living community for seniors, tried to smother her with a pillow and took her
jewelry.
Before
Bartel died in 2020, she described the attack in a taped interview that was
played to jurors Monday, as it was in the earlier trials. She said the minute
she opened her door and saw a man wearing green rubber gloves, she knew she was
in “grave danger.”
“He said:
‘Don’t fight me, lie on the bed,’” Bartel said.
Police said
when they found Chemirmir the next day in the parking lot of his apartment
complex, he was holding jewelry and cash, and had just thrown away a large red
jewelry box. Documents in the box led them to the home of Harris, who was found
dead in her bedroom, lipstick smeared on her pillow.
Following
Chemirmir’s arrest, police across the Dallas area reexamined the deaths of
other older people that had been considered natural, even as their families
discovered missing jewelry.
He has been
charged with 22 counts of capital murder in deaths spanning May 2016 to March
2018. Four of those indictments were added this summer.
Evidence
presented at previous trials showed Harris and Chemirmir were checking out at
the same time at a Walmart just hours before she was found dead.
According to
evidence, Brooks had gone shopping at the same Walmart just weeks earlier. When
Brooks was at the Walmart, Chemirmir was sitting in his car in the parking lot,
watching people, Fitzmartin said.
“She leaves, he leaves. His phone, you will
hear, follows from the Walmart to her house,” Fitzmartin said. “She arrives at
her house and she’s not heard from again, ever.”
The day
after that trip to Walmart, Brooks’ grandson found her dead in her condo,
groceries still in bags on the counter.
Most of the
people Chemirmir is accused of killing lived in apartments at independent
living communities for older people. He’s also accused of killing women in
private homes, including the widow of a man he had cared for in his job as an
at-home caregiver.
In a video
interview with police, Chemirmir told a detective that he made money buying and
selling jewelry and had also worked as a caregiver and a security guard.
Fitzmartin
said Monday that Williams and Bartel lived in the same community, and that Williams
had been found dead in her apartment about two weeks before the attack on
Bartel.
As Williams’
family cleaned out her home, they discovered “there was something not right,”
including missing items and a pillow with an odd stain, he said.
DNA found on
that pillow can’t exclude Chemirmir, Fitzmartin said, and a search of
Chemirmir’s vehicle turned up gloves with DNA that was a match for Williams.
Dallas
County District Attorney John Creuzot, a Democrat, sought life sentences rather
than the death penalty when he tried Chemirmir on two of his 13 capital murder
cases.
In an
interview with The Dallas Morning News, Creuzot said he’s not against the death
penalty, but among things he considers when deciding whether to pursue it are
the time it takes before someone is executed, the costs of appeals and whether
the person would still be a danger to society behind bars. Chemirmir, he added,
is “going to die in the penitentiary.”
Chemirmir’s
attorneys said in his previous trials that prosecutors didn’t prove their case
beyond a reasonable doubt.
Prosecutors
in neighboring Collin County haven’t said if they will try any of their nine
capital murder cases against Chemirmir.