In a rather devastating incident, Kenyan man in Dallas, Texas already facing capital murder charges has been charged with 11 more murders.
46-year-old Billy Kipkorir Chemirmir, who is already in jail being held for the March, 2018 murder of a woman in her apartment in Plano, Texas, was this week indicted in six new murder charges in Dallas County and five murder charges in Collin County.
After Chemirmir, a health care worker, was arrested and charged in the March murder of 81-year-old Lu Thi Harris, authorities in Dallas County and surrounding jurisdictions started investigating him for hundreds of unresolved murders in the Dallas area.
“It will be a monumental task, but we’re up for the challenge and we’re gonna make sure we check each and every case,” Dallas Police Department Executive Assistant Chief of Police David Pughes said at a March, 2018 press conference.
Authorities at the time said they were investigate him for murders that all seemed to have been committed in similar manner.
Court records show Chemirmir is a citizen of Kenya.
Chemirmir was indicted this week in Dallas and Collin county in the deaths of:
- Phyllis Payne, 91, on May 14, 2016
- Phoebe Perry, 94, on June 5, 2016
- Norma French, 85, on Oct. 8, 2016
- Doris Gleason, 92, on Oct. 29, 2016
- Minnie Campbell, 83, on Oct. 31, 2017
- Carolyn MacPhee, 81, on Dec. 31, 2017
- Rosemary Curtis, 76, on Jan. 17, 2018
- Mary Brooks on Jan. 31, 2018
- Martha Williams, 80, on March 4, 2018
- Miriam Nelson, 81, on March 9, 2018
- Ann Conklin, 82, on March 18, 2018
Chemirmir was indicted last year in the death of:
- Lu Thi Harris, 81, on March 20, 2018
All the 12 people Chemirmir has been charged with killing were all elderly women, and were killed by being smothered with a pillow.
The women ranged in age from 76 to 94.
In the Lu Thi Harris’s killing, police say Chemirmir knocked on her door and ordered her to go to bed. She compiled, but police say Chemirmir put a pillow over her face which caused her to close consciousness, then stole her jewelry. He was later seen on surveillance camera throwing a jewelry box belonging to Lu Thi Harris in an apartment complex dumpster.
Chemirmir is being held in Dallas County jail on $9.1 million bond. He also has an immigration hold on him.
On May 11, authorities exhumed the body of one of Chemirmir’s suspected victims from a mausoleum at Restland cemetery.
The Dallas County and Collin County medical examiners have been re-examining hundreds of cases.
The Dallas County medical examiner has reversed its initial findings in six cases. The deaths of those elderly women have now been ruled homicides instead of natural.
The Collin County medical examiner now has five cases believed to be homicides.
After Chemirmir was arrested in Harris’ death last year, investigators found a trove of women’s jewelry, cell phones and medical scrubs in his apartment, search records show.
Authorities started checking hundreds of case files to see if the deaths of elderly women previously believed to be natural could be connected to Chemirmir after he was arrested in March 2018.
Chemirmir is also charged with two counts of attempted capital murder out of Collin County in connection with the attacks on two elderly women.