Suspected Texas Serial Killer Who Targeted Elderly Patients Indicted In Four New Murders

A suspected serial killer, who was convicted of one capital murder earlier this year, has now been indicted for the murders of four more elderly women.

Billy Chemirmir, 50, was indicted in four more murder on Tuesday by a Collin County, Texas grand jury. He was charged with capital murder for the 2017 killings of Marilyn Bixler, 90, Diane Delahunty, 79, Helen Lee, 82, and Mamie Miya, 93, ABC News reports.

The latest indictments mean that Chemirmir has been officially charged with the murders of 22 elderly women in the Collin County and nearby Dallas County.

Chemirmir was convicted in Dallas County in April of capital murder, during his retrial for the 2018 death of 81-year-old Lu Thi Harris. He was automatically sentenced to life in prison without parole after prosecutors didn’t seek the death penalty in that case.

The killer, who moved to the U.S. from Kenya in 2003, was first eyed as a possible serial attacker of elderly women in March 2018, when he became a suspect in the attempted smothering of 91-year-old Mary Annis Bartel, according to Dallas NBC affiliate KXAS. As police attempted to arrest him in connection with that incident, they caught him throwing a jewelry box into a dumpster, according to a 2018 press release from the Dallas Police Department.

The jewelry box led them to the body of Harris; she was killed just two days after the attack on Bartel, according to the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. 

After the discovery of Harris' body, investigators searched Chemirmir's apartment and allegedly found jewelry, cell phones and other belongings of other victims. Prosecutors say he targeted many North Texas senior living facility residents while either working as health care staff or impersonating maintenance personnel at the facilities. Many of the deaths were initially listed as due to natural causes.

Chemirmir is currently in the Dallas County jail as he awaits an October trial there in the January 2018 death of Mary Brooks, according to KXAS. Dallas County District Attorney John Creuzot reportedly told families that he expects to dismiss the other 11 indictments against Chemirmir, the Dallas Morning News reported, and allow Collin County to try him after the Brooks trial.

“These indictments should serve as a reminder that every victim of a violent crime deserves to have their case investigated and prosecuted, and Collin County law enforcement and prosecutors will work every day to hold violent offenders accountable," Collin County District Attorney Greg Willis in a statement obtained by ABC News.

He has not said whether he will seek the death penalty, according to the Morning News.

A month before his April conviction, Chemirmir told the Dallas Morning News that he was not a murderer.

“100% sure I will not go to prison,” he said.