How Many Victims Did Accused Serial Killer Billy Chemirmir Actually Have?
Billy Kipkorir Chemirmir is a 48-year-old Kenyan man with permanent resident status in the US (per Dallas Morning News) who is suspected of killing at least 20 women and one man in their North Dallas senior living communities and homes, according to Dallas' WFAA, but there could be even more victims. Dallas Police accuse Chemirmir of suffocating elderly women to death and stealing their jewelry and other valuables to sell at pawn shops, per another report by the Dallas Morning News. While investigators believe Chemirmir is responsible for at least 21 deaths, he is so far only formally indicted on 12 of those charges, WFAA reports.
According to the Dallas Police Department, alleged serial killer Chemirmir was arrested for capital murder while under surveillance for an unrelated crime. DPD wrote on their police blog that on March 20, 2018, while they were surveilling Chemirmir they saw him throw something in a dumpster. A little while later he was arrested on a warrant. When they searched him they found money and jewelry, and they went to see what he threw in the dumpster. It was a jewelry box, police said, and there was a name inside. They matched the name to an address and went there to do a welfare check.
That's when officers found the body of 81-year-old Lu Thi Harris, who they say was dead "from homicidal violence." Police say they found more of Harris' belongings in Chemirmir's home, and they charged him with her murder.
Billy Chemirmir says he is innocent
Accused serial killer Billy Chemirmir's alleged murders go back to May 2016, as a long list of senior deaths that families thought were suspicious or that were unsolved homicides are now being attributed to him. The Texas Observer reports that police found valuables belonging to multiple dead women in his home. They also discovered that Chemirmir used a fake ID to pass a background check and that he'd trespassed at a senior center.
Chemirmir denies the accusations. His attorney, Phillip Hayes, says most of the evidence is circumstantial. He told the Dallas Morning News, "It seems like every unexplained death they come up with, they're pinning on him. If you look at all of it, it doesn't stand up."
But with several residents in senior living communities dying under suspicious circumstances within weeks and months of each other, family members who believe Chemirmir killed their mothers, aunts, and grandmothers say police should've done more instead of letting cases go cold. Cheryl Kerr, daughter of alleged victim Glenna Day, told NBC Dallas/Fort Worth, "You would think after the third death, there would be some flags. ... The fourth death? How about the fifth death? The sixth one?"
The 21 people Chemirmir is suspected of killing range in age from 76 to 94 years old, with the majority in their 80s, per WFAA. He is being held in the Dallas County jail on $17.6 million bond, according to Dallas Morning News.