‘Serial Killer’ Healthcare Worker Formally Charged with 17 Murders

A suspected Texas serial killer has been indicted on three additional counts of capital murder after previously being charged with smothering 14 elderly women to death and stealing their valuables.

A Dallas County Grand Jury on Tuesday indicted healthcare worker Billy Chemirmir, 48, on murder charges in the deaths of Joyce Abramowitz, 82; Doris Wasserman, 90, and Margaret White, 86, who were all killed at The Tradition-Prestonwood senior living community in Dallas between July 2016 and December 2017.

Billy Chemirmir

Chemirmir, a Kenyan national living in the US illegally, now faces a total of 17 capital murder charges and two counts of attempted capital murder stemming from similar attacks.

Medical examiner reports and civil lawsuits have also linked Chemirmir to seven other deaths in North Texas, but so far he has not been formally charged in those.

Many of the deaths now attributed to Chemirmir were first listed as deaths by natural causes as no foul play was suspected.

However, once he was identified as a suspect in March 2018, detectives began reviewing hundreds of natural death cases to attempt to identify other potential victims.

He is still being investigated for nearly 1,000 unsolved deaths or attacks mostly targeting elderly women in nursing homes.

Chemirmir remains in jail on $11.6million bail. He has maintained his innocence.

If convicted of capital murder, Chemirmir could face the death penalty.

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The trio of deaths that sparked the latest round of indictments against Chemirmir first came to light in civil complaints that had been filed against the retirement community where the victims lived.

Joyce Abramowitz died in July 2016, three months after she went to the police to report that someone had stolen jewelry from her while she was on vacation.

After her death, the woman’s son reported that a safe was missing from her room.

Just a month later, Margaret White was found dead at The Tradition Prestonwood complex, where her apartment was found to have been stripped of her jewelry.

A day before Christmas in 2017, Doris Wasserman was found dead on her bed, just hours after spending time with her family.

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Officials in Dallas County are also investigating Chemirmir’s possible involvement in the death of Catherine Probst Sinclair at the Edgemere senor living facility in North Dallas in April 2016.

Her niece told the paper the family always believed her aunt had been killed, but she said police did not take their suspicions seriously.

The niece said there was blood on Sinclair’s pillow and a safe was missing from her apartment.

Chemirmir has been in custody since March 2018 for the killing of 81-year-old Lu Thi Harris. Police in Plano were investigating Chemirmir in connection with suspicious death and suspicious person calls at a senior apartment complex in that Dallas suburb and found evidence linking him to Harris’ death in Dallas, authorities said.

The break in the case came when Chemirmir forced his way into the Plano apartment of a 91-year-old woman that March, telling her to ‘go to bed. Don’t fight me,’ according to an arrest affidavit filed in Collin County.

The woman was smothered with a pillow into unconsciousness and robbed. However, paramedics revived her and she told investigators that her attacker had stolen a box containing her jewelry. Police identified Chemirmir from a license plate number and were able to find and tail him days later, when they watched him throw a jewelry box into a trash bin. They traced the box to Harris, according to the affidavit.

Plano police Chief Gregory Rushin said at the time that Chemirmir used his experience as a home healthcare aide ‘to his advantage in targeting and exploiting seniors, some of the most vulnerable people in our community.’

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