Here’s a look at D-FW’s most-watched trials in 2022

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After the pandemic slowed down or even halted jury trials throughout the state, Dallas-Fort Worth citizens were regularly called for jury duty in 2022.

The region’s biggest trials exposed oversights in senior security and police investigations, spurred discussion of race, policing and accountability and closed a chapter on some of the most-watched cases.

Here’s a look at the area’s most-watched trials.

Billy Chemirmir

After the first trial for accused serial killer Billy Chemirmir ended with a hung jury in 2021, Chemirmir faced two capital murder trials in 2022, one in April and the other in October. Dallas County juries convicted Chemirmir of capital murder for the 2018 killings of Lu Thi Harris in North Dallas and Mary Sue Brooks in Richardson. Each conviction carries a life sentence without the possibility of parole.

Prosecutors said Chemirmir targeted elderly women who lived alone, smothered them to death and sold their jewelry. Chemirmir is accused of killing about two dozen women and one man across North Texas. Some of the alleged victims were killed in high-end senior living facilities, prompting families to investigate oversights in the security.

Dallas County District Attorney John Creuzot said his office would prosecute Chemirmir for two cases that had the strongest evidence and dismiss 11 others.

Collin County District Attorney Greg Willis is expected to make decisions in 2023 about the cases there. He has not said how many of their nine cases prosecutors will take to trial or whether he will pursue the death penalty.

Some victims’ families were disappointed Creuzot did not seek the death penalty in Dallas County and have called on Willis to seek capital punishment in Collin County.

Aaron Dean

The murder trial for former Fort Worth police officer Aaron Dean was the first time a law enforcement officer in Tarrant County faced a murder charge. Though his jury convicted him of the lesser charge of manslaughter, the felony conviction is believed to be the county’s first in recent memory for a law enforcement officer for an on-duty fatal shooting.

Jurors sentenced Dean, who is white, in December to 11 years, 10 months and 12 days for shooting 28-year-old Atatiana Jefferson, a Black woman who lived in a predominantly Black neighborhood, through her bedroom window in 2019.

Jeffferson’s family found symbolism in the prison sentence: Jefferson’s nephew, who witnessed the slaying, was 11 years old when he testified before the jury. The months and days seem to represent the date Jefferson was killed: Oct. 12, 2019.

Dean filed a notice with the court of his plan to appeal the conviction. The sentence marked an end to a long-awaited trial in a killing that spurred a conversation about race and policing in a precursor to the nationwide social justice protests the following summer.

Yaser Said

Yaser Said, who evaded law enforcement for 12 years and was on the FBI’s 10 Most Wanted Fugitives list, finally stood trial for the New Year’s Day 2008 slayings of his two teen daughters. The Dallas County jury’s capital murder conviction carries an automatic life sentence in prison.

Prosecutors said Said shot 18-year-old Amina Said and 17-year-old Sarah Said multiple times in a taxi cab that he left outside an Irving hotel where they were discovered. Friends and relatives said the girls feared their father because he was controlling and abusive. They tried to escape days before their slayings.

Said was on the lam for 12 years until his arrest in August 2020 at a family home in Denton County.

Reginald Kimbro

On the eve of trial in Tarrant County, Reginald Kimbro pleaded guilty in March to two counts of capital murder for the April 2017 slayings of Molly Jane Matheson and Megan Getrum.

The cases exposed oversights by Texas police departments that could have stopped Kimbro’s crime spree.

Kimbro also pleaded guilty to the aggravated sexual assault of Katie Coates, who was vacationing during Spring Break in South Padre Island, and three sexual assaults in Collin County. The Dallas Morning News does not generally name victims of sexual assault, but Coates shed her anonymity for news reports.

Coates reported the rape in 2014 to South Texas’ Cameron County and he was arrested and released on bail. But prosecutors dropped the case the same year because, the office said, they were waiting on DNA results. Kimbro was only indicted there after Matheson’s and Getrum’s killings.

Other women had reported Kimbro raped them before the murders – one reported in 2012 in Plano in 2012 and another in 2014 in Allen.

Survivors have said they believe law enforcement’s failures to jail him allowed his violence to escalate.

Tarrant County prosecutors planned to pursue the death penalty at trial. Instead, he will spend life in prison without the possibility of parole.

Davonte Benton

In November, A Dallas County jury convicted Davonte Benton of murder and sentenced him to 45 years in prison for his role in the shooting death of 9-year-old Brandoniya Bennett in August 2019.

Brandoniya’s murder sparked citywide outcries for peace. Mayor Eric Johnson attended the child’s funeral and vowed to make Dallas as safe as “humanly possible.”

Witnesses at trial said Benton accompanied another man, Tyrese Simmons, as he sought revenge on someone who lived in the same Old East Dallas apartment complex as Brandoniya and her family. Simmons shot into the home after mistaking it for his rivals, police said.

Brandoniya was killed as she walked from the kitchen after getting a snack to eat while she watched TV. Simmons’ case is still pending.

Timothy Huff

In June, a Tarrant County jury convicted Timothy Huff of capital murder for the 2018 shooting death of Fort Worth police officer Garrett Hull, who was surveilling Huff and two other suspects for a string of robberies at Latino bars in Fort Worth.

Police said Huff, Dacion Steptoe and Samiel Mayfield targeted Latino businesses because they believed the victims would not report the robberies.

Officers chased the men after a violent robbery at Los Vaqueros bar and Steptoe shot Hull. Another officer fatally shot Steptoe, according to testimony. Hull and Mayfield were convicted under Texas’ law of parties.

Prosecutors sought the death penalty for Huff, but jurors chose a life sentence without the possibility of parole.

Jaime Jaramillo

A Dallas County jury convicted Jaime Jaramillo of capital murder in September for the 2021 slaying of Mesquite police officer Richard Houston II.

The conviction carried an automatic life sentence because prosecutors did not pursue the death penalty.

Houston was called to a disturbance in an Alberton’s parking lot Dec. 3, 2021, where he found Jaramillo’s wife and daughter. The women said they found Jaramillo with a woman he was rumored to have an affair with.

Jaramillo shot Houston as the officer approached Jaramillo’s pickup truck. Jaramillo then turned the gun on himself but survived.