After a 93-year-old woman survived an attack, a suspect was identified. Police say Billy Chemirmir posed as a maintenance worker to sneak into several senior living facilities in the Dallas area. He was charged with 18 murders going back to 2016.
The daughters of three elderly victims of an alleged serial murderer are suing the Dallas senior living facility where their horrific killings took place. Diana Tannery, MJ Jennings and Sherill Kerr became suspicious when they noticed valuables were missing after their elderly mothers, who lived on the same floor, died within months of each other.
The death certificates of their mothers, Juanita, Leah and Glenna, initially said that they had died of “natural causes” at their home, Tradition-Prestonwood living facility.
But then, a 93-year-old woman was nearly suffocated to death at another facility in Dallas by an intruder who forced his way into her room and stole her jewelry. The suspect in the attack was identified as 48-year-old Billy Chemirmir. Police say he posed as a maintenance worker to sneak into several senior living facilities in the Dallas area.
Chemirmir has since been charged with killing 18 seniors since 2016, including the mothers of Tannery, Jennings and Kerr. They are all believed to have been killed by being smothered with a pillow.
The women’s lawyer, Trey Crawford, says Tradition-Prestonwood living facility had “massive security defects” and failed to install enough security cameras, which allowed a “trespasser...regular and unfettered access.”
"Just losing your mom naturally, just to go through that grieving process, then to find out that they're murdered. And then you start thinking about her last moment on this world and the last thing she looked at, that's really tough," Tannery told Inside Edition.
The senior living facility calls what happened a true tragedy. They deny any wrongdoing and say they cooperated with police and relied on investigative agencies who initially determined the deaths were the result of natural causes.
The victims’ families have founded a non-profit called “Secure Our Seniors' Safety” to ensure that residents of senior living facilities are safe from criminal activity.
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