What you need to know about alleged senior living serial killer Billy Chemirmir

Billy Chemirmir, 48, has been charged with killing 18 elderly women in North Texas, and he has been accused of killing 24 people from April 2016 through March 2018.

Police say he used his experience as a health-care worker to target older people in their homes and at senior living complexes in Dallas and Collin counties.

Lawsuits filed against some of those senior living complexes claim poor security allowed him to gain access to apartments, where he allegedly smothered his victims and stole valuables including jewelry and cash.

Here’s what you need to know about the case.

Most of the murder charges he faces are from Dallas County, but he also faces five counts in Collin County. He has said he is innocent and is in jail, with bail set at $17.6 million.

Chemirmir’s attorney, Phillip Hayes, has said most of the evidence against Chemirmir is circumstantial.

“It seems like every unexplained death they come up with, they’re pinning on him,” Hayes said in December. “If you look at all of it, it doesn’t stand up.”

Chemirmir was arrested shortly after the death of Lu Thi Harris in Dallas in March 2018. Her death was always listed as a homicide.

For many of the others he’s suspected of killing, however, medical examiners initially identified their causes of death as natural causes or “old age.” Each death had to be reinvestigated and the death certificates amended.

Despite multiple news reports, Chemirmir has permanent resident status in the U.S. He has an immigration hold on his file from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and could face deportation if he’s convicted or released from custody in Dallas County.

Capital murder in Texas carries an automatic sentence of life in prison without parole or the death penalty. Prosecutors reserve the death penalty for crimes that are deemed especially heinous.

Dallas County District Attorney John Creuzot’s office filed paperwork in July 2019 seeking capital punishment in the suspected serial killer’s case, according to Dallas County court records.

Dallas County Medical Examiner Jeffery Barnard said last year that the coronavirus pandemic has slowed the process of amending death certificates and identifying more potential victims.

The death certificate revisions aren’t the only part of the investigation that has been slowed by the pandemic.

Chemirmir is scheduled to stand trial in April, but the pandemic has delayed trials, especially long criminal proceedings. It’s unclear how a death penalty trial could be carried out during these times of social distancing.

State Rep. Jared Patterson, R-Frisco, filed HB 723 in December, which would require officials to notify next of kin when a death certificate is amended.

Such a circumstance is rare. Earlier this year, Collin County Medical Examiner William Rohr said that until the Chemirmir case, he’d never before had to change a cause of death from heart attack to homicide.

Yet many families who say their loved ones were killed by Chemirmir were left in the dark. Some, such as Frisco’s Cheryl Bixler Pangburn, learned through social media rather than a call from an official.