Billy Chemirmir is charged with killing 22 elderly women in the Dallas area in Texas, and is now set to be tried in the death of one of them.
The capital murder trial of the 49-year-old in the death of Mary Brooks, 87, began on Monday in Dallas, reported CBS News. He was handed a sentence of life in jail without parole after he was found guilty in April in the smothering death of Lu Thi Harris, 81. If he is convicted in Brooks' death, he will get a second sentence of life in jail without parole, but he maintains his innocence.
Last November, his first trial in Harris' death ended in a mistrial when the jury deadlocked. ABC News reported that he has been charged with 22 counts of capital murder in deaths that happened between May 2016 and March 2018, with four of those indictments being added this summer.
Prosecutors of Dallas County decided to seek two life sentences rather than the death penalty when Chemirmir was tried on two of the 13 capital murder cases against him in the county. As for the prosecutors in neighboring Collin County, they haven't said if they will try any of their nine capital murder cases against him.
His arrest was set in motion in March 2018. It happened when a woman who was 91 years old at the time told cops that a man had barged into her apartment, tried to smother her with a pillow and took her jewelry. Police said that when they found Chemirmir the next day in the parking lot of his apartment complex, he was holding jewelry and cash. He had just thrown away a big red jewelry box.
Documents in the box led them to the Harris' home. She was found dead in her bedroom with lipstick smeared on her pillow. In an interview with police, Chemirmir said that he made money by buying and selling jewelry. He had also worked as a caregiver and a security guard.
Most of the people that he is accused of killing, lived in apartments at independent living communities for elderly people.
Loren Adair Smith, whose mother, 91, is among those Chemirmir is charged with killing, was scheduled to attend the trial. She said that the trial brings a “huge bag of mixed feelings," according to the AP News. Smith said that at the same time of having that dread feeling, they "are really glad to go back and bring this chapter to a close."
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