Senior-living communities were Dallas serial killer’s hunting grounds, families’ lawsuits say

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.