- Billy Chemirmir was convicted in April of killing Lu Thi Harris, 81, who was 81 years old.
- It was his second murder conviction. The jury deliberated less than 30 minutes before rendering the verdict.
- Chemirmir worked as a caregiver for a man whose widow lived in a private home.
A man who was accused of killing 22 women in the Dallas area over the course of two years was found guilty of one of those deaths on Friday. It was his second murder conviction.
With the verdict, Billy Chemirmir, age 49, was given a second life sentence without the chance of parole. This time, it was for suffocating Mary Brooks, age 87, to death. The jury decided against Chemirmir in less than 30 minutes. He was already in prison for life without parole after being found guilty in April of killing Lu Thi Harris, who was 81 years old.
Authorities say that he targeted older women and killed them or stole their valuables. Each time, their deaths were at first thought to have been caused by natural causes, even though family members were worried about missing jewellery.
“This is a conscious, dedicated effort to stalk, surveil, kill, steal, strip and sell,” Dallas County District Attorney John Creuzot said in closing arguments.
Creuzot chose not to ask for the death penalty. After the verdict on Friday, he said that Chemirmir “is going to die in prison” because of the two sentences.
Creuzot said that the 11 more capital murder cases against Chemirmir in Dallas County will now be dropped. Prosecutors in neighbouring Collin County haven’t said yet if they will try any of the nine capital murder cases against Chemirmir, who has said he is innocent.
The evidence showed that Chemirmir followed Brooks home from Walmart, choked her, and stole her jewellery, the prosecutors told the jury.
Chemirmir was caught because one woman lived through an attack in March 2018. Mary Annis Bartel, who was 91 at the time, told police that a man broke into her apartment at a place for seniors to live on their own, tried to suffocate her with a pillow, and stole her jewellery.
After Chemirmir was caught, police all over the Dallas area looked into deaths again, and the number of charges against him grew. Many of the victims’ children have said that they didn’t understand why their mothers died at the time because they were still healthy and active, even though they were older. This summer, four more charges were added.
Most of them lived in apartments in places where older people could live on their own. Chemirmir worked as a caregiver for a man whose widow lived in a private home. This woman was the man’s widow.
The lawyers for the defence told the jury that the prosecutors hadn’t shown enough proof to convict.
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