All language subtitles for Pillowcase Murders - S01E02 - The Scope of Evil-NH

- This is the first time
I've ever watched this.

- They wanted to make sure

that they could
take her deposition

while she was still alive.

I can hear Mom's stress.

- It's got to be
unbelievably scary

for someone like her to
come so close to death.

- She had to survive
and tell the tale,

but why was she
the one who lived

with all the other
women who didn't?

♪ ♪

- This is the man,
Billy Chemirmir.

The suspect forced his way
into the victim's apartment,

told her to, "Go to
bed, don't fight me."

Chemirmir put a
pillow over her face,

causing her to
lose consciousness.

She survived.

- Mary Bartel's account,
that's the moment

that I found out exactly
what happened to my mom.

- Mary had come home.

She grabbed my hands.

She told me, "I think
he did it to your mom."

My precious mother.
I just didn't believe it.

- Billy Chemirmir
killed my mom.

I just sat down and cried.

- This is everything that
you don't want for your mom.

She was alone,

she was threatened,

and she was not peaceful.

And that's the
nightmare I live with.

- Plano police confirm
they are looking

at several suspicious
deaths in this complex.

- Someone at this
complex noticed

a suspicious silver Nissan

and took down
the license plate.

That plate tip led them
to Billy Chemirmir...

- And a jewelry
box with 81-year-old

Lu Harris's name on it.

Harris was found dead.

- My grandmother
was Lu Thi Harris.

And, actually, my
grandmother named me.

That's something that will
always connect me to her.

There are literally thousands
of photos of my grandmother.

She is gorgeous and
she loved dressing up.

She had a little kid
smile.

She's smiling very genuinely.

I didn't know how
much she traveled.

Tanzania, Hong
Kong, Costa Rica.

- So did you work
in the kitchen?

- She had met William Harris
towards the end of the war.

William Harris really did
love her and cared for her.

- He did bring her
to the embassy

where they were evacuating.

Two days before the
Vietnam War ended, she left.

- She left behind
everything that she knew

because of this trust that
she would build a better future

and come back.

That says a lot
about the sacrifice

in our family legacy.

In the late '80s, the U.S.
finally opened its borders

and she was able to
visit her family again.

We visited my grandmother
in Texas in 2005.

I was probably
about nine or ten.

Hello. Welcome to the tour.

There she is.

- That's her smile
and that's her laugh.

That's the garage.
That's the same car.

- This was the last time
that I saw my grandmother.

My dad picked me
up from university.

He immediately
burst out sobbing.

Like, "Karen, I have
to tell you something.

"Your grandmother is dead.

We think that she fell."

- I remember him
calling and saying,

"It wasn't an accident.

It was murder."

- When all of
this is happening,

we have detectives
working different angles.

- We already knew
there was someone

killing multiple people
at elderly living facilities.

With that information,
there was a call

at one of the facilities
about a suspicious person.

Turns out that it
was Billy Chemirmir.

- Detectives ended
up arresting him.

He was, you know, caught
with Ms. Harris's jewelry.

At that point,
officers were sent

to Ms. Harris's house.

They believed that she
had just been murdered.

- I was in the alley.

One of the neighbors asked
me, "Is everything OK?"

I said, "Yes, sir, we just
need to check the welfare

of the lady who lives here."

And he said, "Well,
she should be fine.

I saw her at the post
office at 4:30 this afternoon."

We arrested Chemirmir
at approximately 6:00 PM.

- When Dallas Police
kicked the door in,

she basically was freshly dead.

- Investigators say Billy
Chemirmir is responsible

for killing the
81-year-old woman.

- A medical examiner
determined that final victim

died only about an
hour before his arrest.

- We have all
these different pieces

of evidence coming in that
are all pointing at Chemirmir.

- He was very much
caught red-handed.

There were several items
of jewelry in his left hand.

Also a very large
stack of $2 bills.

Ms. Harris's family
said that she gave out

$2 bills for
birthdays, holidays.

She always bought a
large number of them

in sequential order.

We searched his car.

There was a hammer.

I suspect that's what he
used to break the jewelry box.

Keys in the cupholder.

Those belonged to
Ms. Harris's house.

Groceries, they were
from the same store

that Ms. Harris
was last seen there.

- At Ms. Harris's
house, the police found

a Walmart shopping
bag with receipts.

They tracked back
to that Walmart

on Coit and Arapaho
in Richardson

and were able to pull
the surveillance footage.

- Walmart has cameras all
over the place, all over the store,

so we were able
to watch his conduct

for hours at a time
and different days.

You know, older women
with their husbands,

he would try to help them
get a basket or whatever.

- We believe that he
would sit at the Walmart

and wait for somebody that
he thought that he could murder

and take the jewelry from.

- If you watch nature videos,

you see predators
stalk their prey.

He did the same
thing in his own way.

- And so on March 20,
Ms. Harris is at the Walmart.

- We see him
looking at Ms. Harris,

kind of following her.

He left first.

Shortly thereafter, she left.

- And Billy Chemirmir
was waiting for her.

- It is terrifying to think
that you could just be going

your merry own way in
Walmart, be followed home,

and before you got the
chance to close the garage door,

someone comes
through it and...

that's the last person that
you'll ever see before you die.

- After Chemirmir is arrested,

he's taken to the Dallas
Police Department

where he is interviewed
by detectives.

At that point,
he gave the story

that he was a caregiver.

- He says he's looking for work.

He doesn't know anything
about Ms. Harris's house.

- He bought a box of jewelry

from some random
person down the street.

- Obviously, we
didn't believe him.

- He was being looked at for
a murder and possibly others.

Confronted with
irrefutable proof...

- He just doubled
down on his lies.

- His ability just to
continue adamantly

to lie in the face of truth...

- You just don't
see that very often.

At Chemirmir's
apartment, Dallas found

several cell phones, gloves,

a printed out
passport for an alias.

Also jewelry, of course.

- My mom's watch was
found at Billy's apartment.

The Tag watch that was stopped,
it was hers, without question.

- Our sources say suspect
Billy Chemirmir is being

held here at the
Dallas County Jail

on a capital murder charge.

- He is being held
on $1 million bond.

- And his girlfriend Margaret,
I would think she would have

to question where all
this money's coming from,

but she adamantly denied
knowing anything about it.

That could be the case.

He was definitely an
alpha in that relationship.

- Billy Chemirmir
is from Kenya,

a smaller town
in the Rift Valley.

He was from a large,
respected family,

son of a village leader.

His father lived to
be over 100 years old

and had three different
wives, 28 children.

- His sister helped him
emigrate because she was here

and she runs a home
health care business.

- He came to the United
States in 2003 initially.

- He was a legal
permanent resident,

a green card holder.

- We did a full criminal
history on Chemirmir.

He had a prior DWI in 2010.

He got 18 months probation.

- He was a heavy drinker
by everyone's report.

- Another DWI in 2011.

Failed to appear,
and at that point,

there was actually a
warrant out for his arrest.

And then you have domestic
abuse and family assault.

- He was arrested
for an assault

family violence charge.

From what I've learned, he
was just very physically abusive,

verbally abusive, but they
just kind of cohabitated

having a child together.

- If Mary Bartel
had not survived

the attack of Billy Chemirmir,

the police may never
have caught him,

because he would have
been gone back to Kenya.

We may never have
known the nature and extent

of these heinous acts.

- Police worry there
are more elderly victims.

About two years ago,
he was arrested twice

at the Edgemere Senior
Living Apartments in Dallas

for falsely claiming to
be an employee there.

- I remember I
flipped on the TV

and just listened
sentence by sentence

to see exactly what
they were saying.

Dr. Catherine
Sinclair, my aunt,

died April 2016.

What the Plano police said

made every sense
to me in the world.

This is what had
happened to Cathy.

- I immediately
called the hotline.

Detective Tabor was
very, very interested.

From the information they had,

Chemirmir was at
her apartment complex

the afternoon
Catherine was killed.

- Dr. Catherine Sinclair
lived at Edgemere.

- Prior to the first murders

at Tradition
Prestonwood in July 2016,

before these murders happened

at the Parkview
Frisco Facility

and the nightmare
at Preston Place,

Chemirmir had already
committed multiple murders

at Edgemere.

- Experience Edgemere
inside and out.

Its distinctive design blends
the charm of a Tuscan estate

with authentic Dallas energy.

Safe and secure in a
16-acre gated community.

- The security guards at
Edgemere called the police

about Chemirmir
at least twice,

but the police were
told about this jewel thief

and not a killer.

That was a really
big missed opportunity

that might have
prevented nearly all the rest

of the known murderers.

- God only knows
when Chemirmir started,

but Dr. Sinclair was
the first victim identified

by law enforcement
that we're aware of

and was the first
victim at Edgemere.

- It was early in the morning.

One of the housekeepers
goes Into Dr. Sinclair's room.

She finds her unresponsive.

So I go to the apartment
and I touch her arm,

and she was cold.

I called 911.

The paramedics and
the police came up there.

- The next day, my
sister and brother

went to Cathy's apartment.

They had already moved
her to the funeral home,

but they noticed that there
were blood spots on the bed,

on the sheets.

- The family of
Dr. Sinclair brought

a police officer with them.

They said that there
was a missing safe.

- A lot of really nice
gems and jewels

and collectible coins
were in that safe.

- 99 cameras,
all of them at exits.

I looked at the footage,
couldn't find anybody.

- I said, "Well, I'm gonna
file a homicide complaint."

- This all smelled of foul
play to them immediately.

- Something really
smells rotten here.

- They basically
force an autopsy,

stopping the body
from being cremated,

getting it to the ME's office.

- We were informed

that Catherine died
of natural causes.

We did not get a
copy of the autopsy.

Cathy was a dedicated doctor.

You know, you knew
she was a friend.

And then Cathy was
murdered, no doubt in my mind.

But I was going up against
this system that is saying no.

And this goes on for two years

prior to Chemirmir being caught.

- Dan Probst calls
me April 4, 2018.

"I want to meet with you
because I think my aunt

was one of Chemirmir's victims."

- We got started
on the investigations

through one family
saying, you know,

"We think this
happened to our aunt."

- This is a portion of
research for Dr. Sinclair.

We were trying to figure
out, all right, are we crazy

or does this autopsy look
as off to you as it does to me?

- Her autopsy is
extremely consistent

with a violent smothering.

There was petechiae,
which is blood vessels

bursting under pressure,

slight hemorrhaging
from the mouth,

possibly a defensive bruise,
green marks on her abdomen,

probably from somebody's knee

while they were smothering her.

That's rather odd for
a natural death to me.

That was a murder, a no-brainer.

But I'm just a regular Joe.

- As we started learning
more about Edgemere,

we realized this
is a little bit bigger

than just one person.

Chemirmir was able to
scout out his victims there

because he was working
at Edgemere as a third party

independent aid
for another resident

using an alias,
Benjamin Koitaba.

- Benjamin Koitaba is

Chemirmir sister's
ex-husband and cousin.

- Billy Chemirmir used
Benjamin Koitaba's passport

his driver's license, his
name, his bank accounts,

basically his everything.

- He worked for
one of our residents

from February to April 2016.

That Monday, I get
a call from a resident

saying a man had
come to her apartment

claiming to be
with maintenance.

She said he was a Black
man wearing a maroon shirt

and maroon pants.

I look at the security footage

and I see Benjamin.

So I called the police.

- He's given a written
warning as Koitaba.

And half the
trespassing charges were,

if you have a written warning
and you come back again,

then you can get taken to jail.

That's when it becomes a crime.

We walked him to his vehicle,

told him not to come back.

We banned him
from the property.

- This was ten days
after Catherine's death,

and none of this
information was told to me

or to the family
of Phyllis Payne.

- It has haunted me a lot

because Mom was the
second known victim.

My mom was an
interior designer,

really creative.

We said she probably
should have been an architect

because she could
draw floor plans

and do the structural work.

She loved being at Edgemere.

She was 4'11" and 99 pounds.

This defenseless, sweet woman,

to learn that her last
moments on Earth were horror

is just more than you can bear.

- I had gotten a report

of Ms. Payne not showing
up to her breakfast.

I went and knocked
on her door.

Nothing, so I finally entered.

And I saw that she was laying
in her bed peaceful as can be

and looked like she
was just sleeping.

- But Ms. Payne had
silverware that was missing.

- And she kept her good
jewelry in a coffee can

in the refrigerator.

We looked, and it was gone.

The really hard
thing to think about

is that he had to ask her,

"Show me where
your good jewelry is."

I'm sorry.

I'm sorry.

- June 5, 2016,

Ms. Perry was found passed away.

- She was slumped
out of her chair,

and there was a
little pillow next to her.

That was the weird part for me.

Why would the pillow
have blood on it?

- Ms. Perry also had some
missing items, jewelry.

- So what led up to your
suspicions of foul play?

- Well, after Dr. Sinclair
passed away,

I asked one of the supervisors,

"How often does
something like that happen

where you find
them passed away?"

He said, "For someone
that's not on hospice,

it's been seven years."

- Did that make you
suspicious, or not yet?

- They said it was
natural causes, you know.

I just... you trust that, right?

- Right. We did too.

- Yeah, but after the
second one, Ms. Payne,

and then Ms. Perry
a few weeks later,

I started looking back.

There was nothing saying
that any of them were murdered.

It was just me
and my suspicion

of it being such a coincidence

that they all had missing items.

So I looked at the
electronic door logs

for Ms. Payne and Ms. Perry.

On the mornings
of their deaths,

the door opened
from the inside,

door closed, then
ten minutes later,

it said door opened
from the inside,

and then door closed.

It was like a sequence.

It said that same
sequence for both ladies.

- Yeah.

- Josh Aleman puts
this pattern together

when this is happening in 2016.

He starts reviewing
video and finds this guy,

Benjamin Koitaba, who's
really Billy Chemirmir.

- I found, after the door
closed for the last time,

Billy Chemirmir leaving
out of the facility exit

within ten minutes
for both ladies.

After we found
Ms. Perry's body,

that very next week, I
got a call from a resident

saying that a man had come
to her apartment claiming

to be with maintenance.

- And you knew that
was Billy that was back,

although he was called
Benjamin at that time.

- I had a gut feeling that it
was him again, you know?

He stole a key fob and
he stole jewelry from her.

There's a camera close to
that apartment in the stairwell,

and I saw him.

He was carrying
a manila envelope.

- So he was roaming the
halls, picking out his victims.

- I'm thinking since he
had been a caregiver,

Mom had probably seen
him and recognized him,

and so she just opened the door.

- I could see that too.

- OK. So what happened?

- It turns out it was
four weekends in a row.

At this point, I'm thinking
he's stealing from residents.

He had been
following employees in

at shift change, 7:00 AM,

carrying a manila
envelope each time.

I called the precinct close by

to see if they'd send
somebody to help us.

- What was their reaction

to everything you
were feeding them?

Because they
totally blew me off.

I reported robbery and homicide.

It went exactly nowhere.

- They wouldn't send
anybody to help us.

- They should have.
- Yeah.

So me and the maintenance
guys decide, you know what,

we're going to
get him ourselves.

We met up there at 6:30.

He walks in.

He was carrying
that manila envelope.

Me and the maintenance
guys surrounded him.

My boss puts him
in a headlock...

♪ ♪

And we take him to
this conference room.

I call the police.

- Yeah, you've been
telling the resident

that your name is Peter and
you work for maintenance.

- What happened to your arms?

Well, they're all beat up.

- We didn't think
much of it at that time,

of these scratches.

Now looking back, it's
painful to think about them.

- Billy Chemirmir
is wearing a shirt

from a health care company
that he no longer works with.

- Just the fact that
you're the same person

that we caught the
first time, that's enough.

- Look at him smiling
like he did something.

Thief.

- The police opened
the manila envelope.

- Inside there's a gun
and a telescopic magnet

and there's a...
and I don't know

if it was real or not,

but it looked like a
diamond-like object.

- The gun wasn't loaded.

- Nobody would know
if that gun was unloaded

if it was pointed at them.

- The magnet was used

to tell if jewelry
was real or not.

If all the jewelry is gone,

that would be suspicious, right?

And so I can go through here,

and, you know, that
may have looked like

it was something
really valuable.

Obviously, it's not.

Silver and gold and platinum

will never attract to a magnet.

- And then he gave
them his fake ID,

but in his wallet as well was
another ID, Billy Chemirmir.

So with that, he was charged
with criminal trespassing

and failure to identify.

- I'm going to tell you what,
Josh singlehandedly stopped

the murders at Edgemere.

They stopped
completely that day.

- We were pretty
happy with what we did.

We all went to IHOP
afterwards and celebrated.

We just caught a thief.

On June 18, 2016, we
captured Billy Chemirmir,

and I got married the
very next weekend.

And I went on my honeymoon.

Management took it from there.

- We've had three
unattended deaths

with missing jewelry.

None of that was told
to law enforcement

by the management of Edgemere.

And so instead of being
investigated for murder

back in June of 2016,

Chemirmir was simply
arrested for trespassing.

- Chemirmir is
sentenced to 70 days,

but he's released
early after only 12 days.

- This was prior
to the murders

at Preston Place
and Parkview Frisco

and just weeks before
the Tradition Prestonwood.

18 days after
Chemirmir is released,

he goes to the Tradition

and starts murdering
people there.

♪ ♪

- After my honeymoon,
I come back.

I just couldn't stop
thinking about him.

The door locks and the camera
footage said a story to me.

I knew he was a thief,

but for him to have
stolen from them,

would that have meant
that he killed them?

So I show the
footage and door logs

to one of the
supervisors up there,

and they told me
to write it down

and put it in the file.

And I said, "So you don't want
me to go to police just yet?"

They said, "No, not yet."

- So then they never
gave you the go-ahead

to go to the police with it?

No.
- I should have.

- That wasn't your call.

You had a job.

You tried.

You presented the evidence,

and you can't control
what they did with it.

It's not on you.

And I just want to make sure
you know that's not on you.

- Thank you.

- I really needed to meet you.

You filled in so many blanks,
and it's part of our healing.

Thank you.
- Thank you.

I needed this as well.

I've wanted to
tell you for so long.

♪ ♪

- We were totally
failed by the system.

- When I think of the lives
that could have been saved,

I don't even have a
word strong enough

for how horrendous that is.

- If they would have got
on the stick from day one

when I said "homicide,"

there could be 20, 25 more
people walking this Earth.

And that's something
I think about.

About six months
after we captured him...

We saw Chemirmir across
the street from Edgemere.

I couldn't believe
the guts of this guy.

We already called
the police on him twice,

and he had the
nerve to come back.

I called the police
on him a third time.

The police talked to him.

He said that he was
working across the street

as a caregiver and
that he has no intentions

of going inside Edgemere.

And the police let him go.

Just me and my suspicions
of him felt like I was alone.

The only one
that could see this.

- Josh did everything he
was supposed to do and more.

Law enforcement didn't put
it together for two years more.

♪ ♪

- This is everything
that I worked through

for a year and a half, all
during the investigation.

I've been with the Plano
Police Department for 22 years.

I've never seen a
case of this magnitude,

let alone been a part of one.

- We were looking at
somewhere probably

around 700 or more
unattended deaths

that could be considered.

That's a huge undertaking.

- We pulled information
from Chemirmir's cell phones.

- We were looking at locations
where the phone data put

Billy Chemirmir at the same
place as unattended deaths

where there was
also missing jewelry.

We figured out most of the
time when he was selling jewelry,

he would sell it same
day or the next day

right after he
killed that person.

- He was going to
different jewelers.

He would also
sell things online

using these money
market platforms.

- Chemirmir would
routinely go to pawn shops,

get the stolen
jewelry appraised,

decline their offer, then
take it to another business

like a gold and silver place

knowing the value
of what he has

and present it as though
he's an informed customer

and sell it.

- Within an hour or two

leaving Edgemere
after my mom's death,

he was selling sterling silver

and 14- and 18-carat gold

to the Diamond
and Gold Exchange.

- There were other
locations that he went to.

But that particular location,
Diamond and Gold Exchange,

Detective Hoffmann
was able to get

surveillance and records

indicating that he'd
been there over 50 times.

- He shortly has smothered
somebody to death,

and he's walking in there
with a big smile on his face

with their jewelry
like he just left the fair.

- He's laughing, shaking hands.

- No sense that he
just snuffed out a life.

It's all about the money.

- He portrayed himself

as a buyer and
a seller of jewelry,

obtaining it legally.

This was his job.

He wanted to
live a fancy life.

- The money he was making
doing these homicides,

selling this jewelry
was to support an image

of a high roller.

He frequented four
or five African clubs,

and one in particular,
Afrika Fusion.

According to the
owner of the place,

Billy had been in there
almost every single day

for, like, three years.

- He was buying people
drinks, giving $20 tips.

- He would spend between
$200 and $300 a day.

So he's spending all
this money at these clubs,

but he doesn't have a
job that will support that.

Chemirmir was in
the health care industry

as a caregiver.

- He was able to pick up
jobs with different agencies.

So he had several different
home health care clients.

- People who knew
him as a caregiver

knew him as Benjamin Koitaba.

- 2012 is when he
became Benjamin Koitaba.

He took his cousin's identity.

Koitaba had a clean record,
and most of these places

were not, you know,
taking his fingerprints.

- This lack of
safety and security

that was prevalent in
the industry as a whole,

the MacPhee family
is a victim of that.

- Carolyn MacPhee, her
husband Jack had a rare disease

and she had had to hire
a home health care aide...

more than one, actually.

And the agency she
hired sent Ben Koitaba,

AKA Chemirmir.

- We emptied Mom's house
out, and the only paperwork

that we still had was from
the home health care provider.

All these records
with his name on it.

- Wells Fargo.

Benjamin Koitaba
wrote a check for $264.

He was always
kind of standoffish.

Took care of Dad
great, did his job,

but he'd always take his food
and go into the different room

and be on a laptop.

So I don't know if he was

counting his cash,
counting the gold.

- He was on there listing
other women's jewelry to sell it.

- Yeah. Evil.

- Yeah.

My mom was supposed
to be at church.

She never showed up.

She wasn't answering her phone.

- Scott called me and said,

"Mom's not
answering her phone.

It's hanged at the house."

I was the first one there.

I saw her feet sticking out
on the other side of the bed.

And she was on the floor
with her arm over her face.

I took her arm off,
and it was just shock.

Just stunned.

It's terrible.

- The CSI unit actually came,

and detectives
showed up as well.

They inspected her fully,

found no evidence
of any struggle.

- The police thought that she
was all ready to go to church.

She went and got in her car.
She had a little nosebleed.

- Which would explain
the blood on the door.

It almost looked
like a palm print.

- Or maybe she, you know,
put her hand on the door

and went in the bathroom.

There was bloody
Kleenex all over the place.

- Probably the nosebleed was
the beginning of an aneurysm

and as she was
walking back out,

something popped,

and she just
fell to the ground

and was dead almost
instantaneously.

That was the story.

- Looking back, there
were a lot of questions

we should have asked.

There was a cup of
hot tea on the counter.

Mom didn't drink hot tea.

And then there was a
broken jar underneath the sink.

- She had a wedding
ring that she never took off

and a fashion ring that had
been a gift from our father.

We couldn't find her rings.

- The bed was
crooked a little bit.

- Her comforter had
some blood on it.

- I saw a bloody fingerprint
on the inside of her glasses.

Where'd the blood come from?

♪ ♪

- We spent months
grieving over a woman

who died suddenly
of natural causes.

And you can build a story
in your head that it was fast,

it was peaceful.

And then we get
the paper delivered,

"The Dallas Morning News."

Front page is this story about
this man that had basically

stalked Lu Thi
Harris, smothered her,

and was caught with her jewelry.

- We saw his picture
and recognized him

as Benjamin Koitaba,
the caregiver for my father.

- So that's the
list of all the dates

he was in there, right?

12, 14, 16, 18,

- 26 times. When
was the first one?

- October 18, 2016.

And this is the last one,
said Tuesday, January 3.

- 2017.

And he was waiting, right?

He was waiting
for Dad to die...

he knew it was
going to happen...

and then he just
killed her for $5,000.

- Yeah, "Nobody
will think it was me."

- April 2018, we
got a phone call

from the Plano
Police Department.

- We had gone back to the house

to reinvestigate
Carol MacPhee.

- Oddly enough, we still had
the glasses with the blood on.

Hadn't even cleaned them.

We handed those over to
the Plano Police Department.

- Mrs. MacPhee's glasses
had Chemirmir's DNA.

- To find Billy's DNA on
her glasses a year later,

that was just incredible

and really pushed
everything towards the fact

that he was this serial killer.

Around the Christmas
season, 2017,

Chemirmir murdered
three people,

separate from independent
living communities.

Killed in their own home.

The first was Carolyn McPhee.

The second was Rosemary Curtis.

- Rosemary Curtis
also met Chemirmir

through home health care.

Margaret, Billy's girlfriend,

had been a caregiver
of their family.

Detailed records show
that Billy was in the area

at the time of her death.

- And then there's Mary Brooks.

Mary Brooks was another
victim that he stalked

and hunted at the same
Walmart on Coit and Arapaho

in Dallas.

You can actually see from
the surveillance footage

Chemirmir following her
car out of the parking lot

of the Walmart to her house.

- He ended up murdering her.

- The magnitude of
victims was overwhelming.

- The scope of the
investigation was massive.

- It's like a scene right
out of a crime drama.

Homicide detectives
now exhuming a body

from a Dallas cemetery.

- They exhumed
my mother's body.

They found
bruising on her wrists

that looked like could have
been from being held down.

- It reveals the lengths
a task force is going to

to determine if Billy
Chemirmir is a serial killer.

- We went where the
evidence was taking us.

We had several different
detectives calling families

to tell them we were
investigating their case

as a possible homicide.

- I was walking
to class one day,

and I receive a
call from a detective

asking about my
grammy's death.

- Knowing about the crimes
Billy had been arrested for,

I started thinking,
but what if this

wasn't a natural death?

My mom went back and
looked at all the pillowcases,

and on one, she
found a lipstick smudge.

It just all began to make sense.

- I'm looking at a Yelp
review, of all things,

from a lady named
Shannon Dion.

Turns out her mother,
Doris Gleason,

was a resident of Traditions.

This Yelp review
detailed exactly the pattern

for Billy Chemirmir's murders.

- Detective Hoffman
called me and he said,

"I want you to Google
Billy Chemirmir."

"Your mother's death is being
investigated as a homicide."

- From the beginning,
she wanted justice on this.

She knew something was wrong,

and finally, she's
being listened to.

- Just in talking with
Detective Hoffman,

he recognized my anger
and frustration and sorrow

and that something
had to change.

Tradition
Prestonwood, Edgemere,

Preston Place,

every single one
of these places,

they're all the same.

They all could have
prevented so many deaths.

Furthermore, there
are a lot more murders

than you know about.

- Sit pretty.

There you go.

You know, I'm 85 and
I've lost a lot of friends.

Good.

But when we found out

that someone had
killed these ladies,

we were just shocked.

- Preston Place was
the second largest

hunting ground for Chemirmir.

He murdered seven people there

in a very short
period of time.

- Around the time that these
murders were happening

at Preston Place,

the rumor mill
was starting to turn,

and some of these
people were friends.

- Chemirmir killed Diane.

Diane and I were really close.

- My mother was
such a social butterfly.

The ladies got together
and started doing

monthly birthdays
and happy hour.

- We had T-shirts that
said, "Who let the girls out?"

By no means was
Diane ready to die.

- I found her body on
the floor in the bedroom.

She had a knot on her
forehead the size of a tennis ball.

Dottie, her dog,
was just going postal.

And my mother's engagement
ring, wedding band,

and her 50th
anniversary gold band,

they're missing.

- Diane lived just
across the breezeway

and one apartment down.

This was Diane's apartment.

My theory is that he was waiting

in this stairwell down here.

- We had gone
for a late lunch.

And what I was told was
that after I dropped her off,

Billy Chemirmir
was at the complex.

- She would have
brought her dog this way

and gone down these stairs
to let it go to the bathroom,

and then back up
to her apartment.

- I figured he
followed her up.

And when she turned
around to close the door,

he slammed the door in her face

and then proceeded to kill her.

- I think he made a
mistake with Diane.

She was tough.

I think she really fought him.

- So we have a cluster of
deaths at Preston Place,

starting with Diane Delahunty.

- Chemirmir was murdering
women at Preston Place

at a rate that is shocking.

- I found my mom on Tuesday.

Friday, there's another
crime scene truck

there at Preston Place,
another one of his victims.

- In that one week in
December, Diane Delahunty,

Mamie Dell Miya,
and a third woman

never identified publicly
all were murdered.

- You keep track of the
people, the dates of their death,

pretty soon you get to
suspect that it might be murder.

We connected the
dots first with Diane.

- That's when we
started really adding it up.

- It's heartbreaking, and
it was totally preventable.

Before any victims
were murdered there,

the resident council
of Preston Place

started raising major
concerns about known defects

in the security, gates
that aren't working,

and suspicious activity
on the premises.

- I was on residents' council.

I represented building 10.

In May of 2017, I
passed out a survey

asking how you
feel about cameras.

"Cars have been broken into,

"persons observed
climbing over the fence,

"and jewelry stolen
from apartments.

"Do you think security
cameras would help?

Yes or no."

All ten said yes.

- They're literally
begging Preston Place

to take action to
make them safe,

and it is completely ignored.

- After the survey, I wrote
a letter to management.

"Preston Place is a home
to people of advanced age,

"which makes us more vulnerable.

"Cameras would be a
deterrent to those intent

on doing wrongful actions."

I never received any
response to this letter.

- They just blew it off

when they were
talking about security.

It was like, "We
don't have a problem."

- This was my mother.

You only get one.

I'm upset with their
dismissive behavior.

Their residents
were telling them,

"Hey, there's somebody
lurking around.

We have trespassers.
We have robberies."

Why didn't they raise a red flag

to notify all the
residents to be aware?

It angers me.

- There's absolutely moments
in time that could have put

an end to all of this
very, very easily.

And it starts with
disclosure by all

of these different
independent living communities

at the time this is occurring.

This is my black binder,

information as it
pertains to my mom.

These are pictures
I took of Parkview.

This is the security gate
which on several occasions

was broken or not
closed all the way.

Chemirmir was
entering the building

through the side door,
closest to my mom.

This door led right to her unit.

You know, he could sit
in the car and just stalk

whoever was coming in and out.

There were a couple occasions

where the door wouldn't
engage all the way.

This is a roll of
electrical tape.

Oftentimes people would
just prop the door open.

Wasn't hard for
Chemirmir to gain access.

Rocks in the door.

My mom's front
door, about ten steps.

This was the perspective
from her front door

to the stairwell.

♪ ♪

And it's believed that that's
the stairwell that he used

to get up to the third floor

where my mom's best
friend, Helen Lee, lived.

This is how my mom was murdered.

I went to Parkview and I said,

"What do you
know about some list

"that has my mom

and Helen as victims
of Billy Chemirmir?"

I was told that what
happened to my mom

and Helen had nothing
to do with Billy Chemirmir,

that he was only in
the building one time.

And that's when I found
out about Kay Lawson.

- This attack, am I correct
that that was a Sunday?

- Yes, it was a Sunday.

- Kill me, rape me, I
didn't have any idea

what he was going to do.

- Sunday, October 29, 2017,

my mother was waiting
for a visit from her grandson.

- My apartment was
right by the elevator,

and I was going to go
out and meet Danny.

- Out in the hallway,
she saw a man.

He was nicely dressed.

- Talked to him, told him I
was waiting for my grandson.

- They had about a
ten-minute conversation.

- Then Danny came and we
went in and locked the door.

- Chemirmir just loitered
until her grandson left.

- Danny was gone
maybe ten minutes or so

when the knock came on the door.

The little peephole
was too high,

and so I unwittingly
opened the door a little bit.

- There stood the man
she had seen in the hall.

- He proceeded to knock
me down from my walker.

He dragged me
into the living room.

I was thinking to myself,
"This can't be happening."

He proceeded to suffocate me.

- She was on her belly but
she was able to get some air.

- All of a sudden out
of my mouth came,

"Dear Heavenly Father."

I don't know how
long I was down,

but pretty soon, he left me.

I didn't move from then on.

He left, but she
kept playing dead.

And it was a good thing she
did because he came back.

It turns out he had dropped
a little cowbell charm

that her mother
had given my father.

Eventually, he did
leave and not come back.

- Kay Lawson was the
first person that we know of

to survive Billy Chemirmir.

This was four and a half months

prior to the attack
on Mary Bartel.

- She had bruises and abrasions

down the right
side of her face

and a little bit on
one of her arms.

But she was a tough
old Iowa farm girl.

She had survived.

- It was so awful.

I can't tell you how bad it was.

- Kay's experience was
six weeks after my mom,

eight weeks after Helen.

- My mother's case
was very important

because she was
a conscious witness.

- The police did take a
pillow from her apartment,

sent it out for DNA testing.

They get the DNA
back within three weeks,

and they knew it belonged
to an African American male,

but they were not able
to match it to somebody.

So it sat on the desk.

- That was in 2017,

and that investigation
kind of just dies on the vine

and he continues
murdering people.

At least 11 more
people were murdered.

- March 2018, as
they were getting ready

to make an arrest, they
showed my mom a panel

of several photographs.

- And she said yes.

- "Number four."

- "That looks like him."

- When Chemirmir was arrested,

Frisco was able to confirm

that Chemirmir's
DNA was on the pillow.

- It was shocking, during
those four and a half months

between her attack
and his arrest,

he was leaving corpses
all over North Texas.

- Justice needs to be served.

- A whistleblower
within the Tradition

took it upon herself
to call him in jail.

- You just are blown
away with all the cover-up.

- When they gave
me the Google data,

I was sick for a week.

- The trial of Billy Chemirmir

starts in just a
couple of hours.

- There was just one person
who wouldn't move on it.

- He was just smirking.

- Rot in hell,
you piece of shit.

- Rot in hell,
you piece of shit.