Original subtitles

- So this is my mom's pillow and pillowcase.

It's been washed many, many times,

but you can still see the makeup on the pillow.

This was probably the murder weapon.

- When they put her on the gurney,

I was shocked to see her nose pointing

to the side of her face.

You could see the break.

- I'll never forget that.

This is the pillow that Billy Chemirmir smothered Mom on.

- It's crazy.

The scope of this, we may still be just scratching the surface.

- I don't think there's a number that would

surprise me in the hundreds.

- This man got away with what he did for so long.

- Because he was attacking population of citizens

that no one really cares about.

- Not only were our moms victims of Chemirmir,

but they were victims of the independent living

industry itself.

These places need to be accountable as well.

- I don't know how this doesn't haunt them.

♪ ♪

- We got started on the investigations

through a single case, through one death, Dr. Sinclair.

- And then we got some more clients.

All the details in these binders

help us tell our client's stories.

The amount of time that we've spent

investigating this is a lot,

thousands of hours of research...

- Probably hundreds of police reports would be accurate.

We looked at facilities all over the metroplex.

- Autopsy reports and medical evidence.

- Police photos, anything related to DPD,

Frisco PD,

Plano PD, all the information we could from the families,

including death certificates.

So the actual document gathering was pretty massive.

- We're investigators in every case.

That's how we approach litigation.

- This had a unique aspect just because we were investigating

contemporaneously with the police,

connecting Chemirmir to potential victims.

- The number exponentially went up fairly quick.

We know that serial killers exist,

but the ones that let them in the door

share some culpability.

- Chemirmir was a predator.

So he looked for places where he could find people

he thought he could easily murder.

These luxury senior living communities, unfortunately,

were the easiest of targets.

- We brought claims on behalf of those victims' families.

A lot of our clients felt this was totally

unnecessary and preventable.

Now, a lot of them placed the same, if not more,

blame on the communities in which their loved ones lived.

And rightfully so.

- It was December 12, 2018.

I don't know which was worse,

finding Mom dead, or getting that phone call.

Hi, my name is Trey Crawford,

and I'm calling regarding your mom.

- We're able to tell her who we are

and what we were investigating.

- He said there's reason to believe

that your mom was a victim of homicide...

At Tradition-Prestonwood.

- A light bulb went off for MJ.

- All of a sudden, all those images

from the day Mom died...

oh, my God, she was murdered.

100%.

It all made sense.

- She was livid.

We met with her probably the next day,

and she became one of our clients.

- MJ, she was very close with a lot of the employees

at Tradition-Prestonwood.

So she called them immediately.

- And the receptionist answered the phone, wouldn't talk to me.

I remember getting off that phone just furious.

So I left a message for Jeff Wells.

- Jeff Wells was the assistant executive director.

- So I was just waiting for him to call me back.

And then Saturday, December 15,

I get a phone call late morning.

- A whistleblower at the Tradition who MJ knew very well

called her.

- She was so distraught, so upset.

She said, we have a script on our desk in case anybody calls.

And she said, Perlman,

the owner of Tradition, is scared to death

and that we'll be fired if we talk to anybody about it.

Jeff Wells called me that following Monday.

I didn't get a word out.

And I hear, safety and security

is of the utmost importance to our family

here at Tradition-Prestonwood.

And I'm like, oh, my God, he's reading the damn script.

- Jeff Wells said to her, there has not

been a single death that was not natural causes

in the past four years.

- And I said, Jeff,

was Chemirmir ever at Tradition-Prestonwood?

- No, never was he at Tradition.

He was at those other establishments.

- This is coming from a man who personally escorted Chemirmir

off the premises back in 2016.

- He was sort of publicly congratulated for doing that.

- He just blatantly lied to me.

Then my rage turned from Chemirmir to management.

So these are just some pictures that I've gotten

through my attorney, Billy Chemirmir entering

and exiting the garage in the basement,

looking very comfortable,

probably pretending to be on the phone.

Who knows if he followed somebody in right there?

Because these doors, you need a fob to get in.

There was his car in the time in the garage, in a guest spot.

I was just blown away.

They all knew, and they covered it up.

- There is no question that he is there.

I mean, he was there, like, 50, 60, 70, 80 times.

Google location-tracking data put him

not just on the premises or near it,

literally in the location of the residences' rooms.

- Google data from Billy Chemirmir's phone

shows red dots of where he walked

throughout the building

with different timestamps.

- Each one of those dots represent

a phone call or an email,

just some type of activity on his phone.

- Law enforcement tracked that to see

if Chemirmir's Google location data

puts him where a murder occurred.

Without exception, it did.

- My mom's murder, on that day,

his Google coordinates shown him to enter

Tradition-Prestonwood around 11-something.

Mom had gotten her hair done that day at noon.

Then she went back to her apartment.

And then Chemirmir was in her room.

My sister called her about 1:17 PM.

And she got Mom's voicemail.

He exited the building at 1:36.

And by 3:12, he had posted the description

of my Mom's ring on Craigslist.

- October 29, 2016,

it shows him wandering around,

and then he stops in one place,

where the French doors are, with windows

looking into the dining room.

Mama had signed her lunch ticket

out of the dining room at 12:30,

and she left.

And then at 1:00 PM, it shows him at the location

of Mama's apartment.

No doubt in my mind that Billy Chemirmir smothered my mother.

- It was maddening to watch

what was happening at Tradition.

- Trey and Ali had a list of Tradition-Prestonwood victims.

And at that point, there were seven women.

But when the whistleblower called me,

she said there were a total of nine victims.

There was one in 2017.

Then also, she said a man, Sol Spring.

- We had no idea that there was a male victim.

- He lived down the hall,

a couple of apartments from my mom.

And the whistleblower told me, quote,

"He caught him in the act."

- Sunday morning,

when I go up to my dad's apartment...

I looked into his room, and his room was covered in blood.

He was just laid out flat

with his head up against the door,

which I thought was very strange.

I couldn't imagine how he had gotten there.

I had conversations with the police

and with the homicide detective.

Could he have been attacked?

And the police responded, no, who could have gotten in here?

- Somehow medical examiners looked at that and decided

that the cause of Sol's death was a fall.

- Trey and I have probably studied

these photos for 100 hours.

The ME's working theory was that he fell in the bathroom.

And then he walked out, and he fell and hit his head

on the lamp over there.

- Without hitting the shade.

- And then he crawled across his bedroom floor.

His body position is straight line.

- He had broken ribs.

He had the hit to his eye, an injury in the back of his head.

- His watch is taken off of his wrist,

and then his wrist is laid back on top of it.

- So he must have taken his watch off, apparently,

at some point during falling.

- This is obviously not a fall.

- And then there was a 2-by-4 clamp on his bathroom counter.

The Tradition confirmed that there

were no maintenance orders.

- The medical examiners, they are looking at this scene.

And they said, because he was on a blood thinner,

that would cause all that blood to be in his room.

- Think about if the homicide detective

who showed up at Sol Spring's apartment had been told

by Tradition-Prestonwood,

this is the fifth death that we've had

in basically two months and that all the prior deaths

at Tradition-Prestonwood had jewelry missing.

They said nothing.

What we had with Sol was the unique opportunity

to collect evidence, and that was lost.

- No fingerprints, no DNA, no interviews of key witnesses.

- The investigation just stopped at that point.

And after Sol Spring was killed,

at least 17 more people were murdered.

- My dad was an amazing guy.

He was drafted into the Korean War,

and he was an accountant and built

a great career for himself.

He was just so very, very precious to me.

But according to the medical examiner's office,

my dad is not a victim.

- Yet we learned from the ME's office

about the Google data connected to Sol Spring.

Chemirmir had been on the property

three days before Sol was murdered,

all around Sol's home.

And the day that Sol Spring was killed,

Chemirmir was there in the property,

at least three hours.

The data supports some type of confrontation

between the two of them.

But the ME's office did not agree

to the cause of death change.

In my view, it's just not right.

- I feel like my dad was dismissed.

Without a change in my dad's cause of death

by the medical examiner's office to either homicide

or even undetermined, nothing further can be done

exploring my dad's murder.

- You can't get an indictment

when there's a natural cause as the cause of death.

- It was extremely important for our clients

to get recognition through Chemirmir

being formally indicted for the death of their loved one.

- The family is saying, I know that my parent was murdered,

but all I have is a death certificate

that says either natural causes or undetermined.

And the indictment was to give them something

to point to and say, yeah, you are a victim,

and we do recognize that this happened to you.

- A lot of the victims, you don't have an autopsy.

You don't have forensic fingerprints, DNA analysis

at the time because they were originally

reported as natural deaths.

Collin County and Dallas County were different,

but the medical examiner's office

for both of these counties informed us

that to change the cause of death,

they wanted some evidence that Chemirmir

was there and then some evidence

that there was jewelry stolen.

And the district attorney said, if the medical examiner

decides to change to homicide,

we will bring indictments on those.

- The medical examiner flipped the cause of death

on several death certificates.

That led the DA's office to present

these cases in front of a grand jury multiple times.

- I was at church, and I'm looking at my watch.

OK, it's 9 o'clock.

Grand jury is probably getting started.

About 10:15, 10:30, this incredible peace

just washes over me.

OK, everything must be all right.

I came home and waited for the call.

The assistant district attorney, Mr. Fitzmartin,

called me and told me the grand jury has put

an indictment on your mother's case.

And I said, about what time did the grand jury come back?

Was it anywhere around 10:30 or so?

And he said, that was exactly the time

the grand jury returned their verdict.

- Billy Chemirmir, who posed as a caregiver,

indicted last year for the murder of an 81-year-old woman

found smothered to death, has now been indicted

by the Dallas County grand jury just this afternoon

on six more murder charges.

- In Dallas County, we had a total of 13 indictments

against Mr. Chemirmir.

- It was like a celebration.

There was an indictment for Mom.

- It was validation for all we had endured and suspected.

- But in my case, they didn't even indict.

That's when I said, hey, this is really wrong.

- There are multiple victims.

I know for a fact it's over 20.

Dr. Sinclair and Sol Spring,

those are the only two who don't have indictments.

- Come on.

In 2020,

we received a new finding of undetermined death.

The medical examiner won't say, yeah,

that was a murder unless a police department supply him

with all the evidence that he gives to the district attorney.

Everybody's pointing at somebody else for the cause.

And because of that, Catherine's death

is still undetermined.

- If the medical examiner can't say that it's homicide,

it would be unwise to try that case when you have other cases.

So we didn't try any cases where

they didn't know definitely.

- Can you say chicken shit?

That's the way I feel about it, about them not indicting.

- We had discussions between Dallas County

and Collin County about who would proceed first

and when we could possibly try the case.

My predecessor said that we would go first.

So that was fine.

- 3 and 1/2 years after

Chemirmir was arrested, Chemirmir was finally tried

for the murder of Lu Thi Harris.

- The trial of Billy Chemirmir

starts in just a couple of hours.

- Good morning, Karen.

Jurors are going to hear the details of only one case

despite Chemirmir's alleged involvement

in 18 other murders.

And that's because prosecutors believe

that the evidence against Chemirmir in the murder

of Lu Thi Harris is the strongest.

She's the last victim he's accused of killing,

about an hour before his arrest back in 2018.

- Ms. Harris, it's a strong case.

I said, my goal is to get two convictions.

I want to try two cases, get two convictions.

More likely, one or both will stick.

- We didn't want to fly down to Texas.

I was at the place where I was already pretty terrified,

triple checking the locks and making sure that no one was

following me wherever I went.

It was truly paranoia.

We'll never understand or know why he chose her of all people.

- This is in the middle of COVID.

So we weren't allowed in the courtroom.

- We were upstairs in the holding room,

watching on closed circuit TV.

The trial was the first time, I think, a lot of us

had ever seen anything besides a mug shot of Chemirmir.

- He walked in and just chills.

- Oh, to see him, this evil little man

with these beady little eyes.

There's nothing in there. There's no soul.

- Ladies and gentlemen, this is a case about stalking,

smothering, and stealing.

- The prosecution began its case focusing on the day

before Billy Chemirmir's arrest,

when he's accused of attacking 91-year-old Mary Bartel.

- It was some of the strongest evidence we had.

Ms. Bartel told us exactly what he did, how he went about it.

- You can very clearly picture

exactly what happened to your mom

from the time Chemirmir walked up to her door

till he smothered her until he felt the life

go out of her body.

- It's horrifying.

It's horrifying to think that that's what

our dear moms went through.

- Today was marked by powerful images.

The jury was able to see a picture

of Lu Thi Harris's body on the floor of her bedroom,

where it was found.

They saw images from her autopsy.

- You're just listening to every single word.

It's painful.

- Lead prosecutor Glen Fitzmartin

showed jurors the lipstick stains found on a pillow

in Harris's bedroom, where her body was discovered.

- Seeing the pillowcase, seeing a murder weapon

was very difficult.

- It's a circumstantial evidence case,

which is a little bit of a hurdle.

But we have our own video tape at Walmart,

and he's right with her.

In fact, looking at her.

- What the video does show us is that just hours before

Lu Thi Harris was found dead,

she and Chemirmir were at the same Walmart at the same time

and left at the same time, leaving in the same direction.

That is where police think, really, that he spotted her

and where he followed her home.

- They showed the interrogations.

- That's the first time we actually saw his demeanor.

- He was just smirking.

This was just another day.

He's going to get off.

There's no actual proof, smirking.

- And tomorrow the jury will be back here at 8:00 AM.

If convicted of capital murder, Chemirmir faces life in prison

without parole.

- If you've been following along all week,

you know this is day four of the Billy Chemirmir trial.

- This morning, testimony focused on cell phone records

placing him in the area of victims' homes

around the time of their death.

- It all matches up.

And then we had video of him going inside the facilities

where he sold jewelry.

Diamond & Gold did have evidence that

he had exchanged in there.

- They actually had the gold exchange person

testify that he had purchased this jewelry

from Billy Chemirmir.

- I work at Diamond & Gold Exchange.

- Were you one of the owners there

in the Diamond & Gold Exchange?

- Managing partners, yes.

- They flashed his records

of transactions on the screen,

and we all grabbed our cell phones so that we could

take pictures of the dates.

- So these list off all of the transactions

that Mr. Chemirmir was making with your establishment

starting in 2015 all the way down to March 19 of 2018?

- Yes.

- You can track specific pieces of jewelry.

And in some cases, circumstantial evidence

can be stronger than eyewitness testimony.

- So you look at these transactions

as they're flashed on the screen,

and you can correlate the date with

someone that had been murdered.

You see he's there September 3.

Helen Lee was killed on September 2.

- When I was having the absolute worst day

of my entire life,

he was selling her jewelry for a couple of grand.

- He was there September 17.

My mom was murdered on September 16.

It was an excruciating, horrible, terrible process

to have to go through.

- Looking at what they had documented,

those 55 sales...

- And the total of the amount that you

all bought from him, $91,350?

- Yes.

- Diamond & Gold, over $90,000 he had exchanged in there,

it leads to the conclusion that he was a cold-blooded killer.

And he's walking into these places,

getting pennies on the dollar.

That's a lot of activity.

That's his job.

- The evidence seemed so clear that he was the murderer.

You think it's a slam dunk.

- We thought they would come back in 30 minutes

and have a guilty verdict.

- Breaking news right now, at 5 o'clock,

jury is about an hour or so into deliberation

in the capital murder trial of Billy Chemirmir.

What's the latest?

- Well, you know, a prosecutor asked these jurors

to come back with a quick verdict,

and we're certainly curious to see if that happens.

- I knew we were in trouble when we went home

Thursday night without a verdict.

- The jury's been deliberating now for six hours,

far longer than many people expected.

- The jury sent the judge a note saying

they could not change one lady's mind.

And we all said, what?

- I was surprised, shocked, concerned, and wondering why.

- How in the world 12 people couldn't come

to a united conclusion this man was

guilty was just devastating.

- It was so unbelievable.

We were crying. We didn't understand.

- We are devastated at the outcome of this trial.

We are sickened that we have to come back and hear

the same evidence again.

- Billy Chemirmir will remain in jail, where he has been

/since his arrest in 2018,

now awaiting a retrial

for the capital murder of Lu Thi Harris.

- Chemirmir seemed to think he was vindicated.

- After the mistrial, he did a podcast

and was very arrogant about how he was innocent.

- But that was just more lies coming from him.

- Billy Chemirmir has made the statement

after the first trial,

"I'm never going to the penitentiary."

- I said, as many trials as it takes,

one way or the other, he's going to die in prison.

- Victims of an accused serial killer

are preparing for his retrial.

Billy Chemirmir will be back in front of a jury Monday

after a first attempt to convict him

ended in a mistrial.

- It will be the same suspect and the same victim,

Lu Thi Harris.

- After the mistrial, there was some trepidation as to,

OK, how long is this going to go for?

- We're just, like, emotionally,

physically exhausted.

And then you have to wait, then you have to wait again.

- Well, the first trial it looked like,

man, great evidence.

And then all of a sudden, it comes back as a hung jury.

And it's like, oh, my goodness.

Are you kidding me?

So the fear and trepidation was like, you know,

I hope that they can see that this evidence is really solid.

- The jury selection in any case,

it makes or breaks, in my mind.

And then this retrial, the most important thing

for the jury was understanding circumstantial evidence,

that circumstantial evidence does not equal weak evidence,

and to be able to apply that, that we only have to prove it

beyond a reasonable doubt.

We don't have to prove it a certain way.

- We are still all very worried

that it's going to be another mistrial.

- The last time around,

family members were not allowed inside this court

because of the COVID precautions that were in place

at the time, and they described

that experience as gut wrenching.

But several told me this time feels even more intense.

- The second trial, we actually were

able to go into the courtroom.

We were seated behind him, and he would never

turn around and look at us.

- I've been retired from pro football for a number of years.

But when I think about Billy Chemirmir,

if I was a younger guy back in the football days,

I might have hurdled over that bench and got him.

- The second trial was kind of a rerun of the first trial.

A lot of the same testimony was presented.

But interestingly, this time,

the DA decided not to play

Billy Chemirmir's interrogation video.

- Even though it's accepted technique

to tell someone something that's not true

in order to coax information...

-... apparently, there were some people on the jury

in the first trial who expressed reservations

about the interview by the police.

So we didn't put that back on in the retrial.

And we had enough evidence. We didn't need it.

- They tried to really hammer home the similarity

between what happened to a woman named Mary Brooks

and Lu Thi Harris, that they were both trailed

from Walmart to their homes by Billy Chemirmir.

- This idea that he was outside of Walmart,

talking on the phone, I don't think anybody,

before I asked, had thought, was he really

talking to somebody on the phone?

We got the FBI guy there with all the phone records.

He said, no, he wasn't talking on the phone.

To me, that's pretty important.

That means he stalks people.

- Dallas County DA John Creuzot delivered

the state's closing argument and held up

one of the pillows used as a murder weapon.

- Lu Thi Harris went from this kind and gentle and funny

and well-traveled person to a dead body

left in the place where she called home.

This is likely the instrument of death.

- In the second trial,

with virtually the same evidence presented...

-... the verdict came back in a half an hour.

- I was ecstatic.

It was like, oh, my God, finally!

Finally! Justice!

- Now he would get what his actions deserved.

- Billy Chemirmir himself seemed to have no reaction

at all to his guilty verdict.

With the death penalty off the table,

he was immediately given the only other possible sentence

for capital murder, life in prison

with no possibility of parole.

- He's going to get his comeuppance,

and there's going to be justice.

- We are incredibly relieved that justice

is finally here, especially after

the mistrial five months ago.

- We would hope that what we've gone through here,

that these communities wake up

and hold themselves accountable.

- Even though this verdict carries a life sentence

with no possibility of parole,

there will be a second capital murder trial

to ensure that if this conviction is, for some reason,

reversed on appeal, Chemirmir will never get out of prison.

- I want him to go directly to prison.

I want him to feel what every one of our mothers felt

their last seconds of their life.

But now, you know, we have to go through another one.

- Billy Chemirmir will stand trial

in yet another capital murder case.

- Monday he will be on trial for the death

of 87-year-old Mary Brooks.

- Mary Brooks was our third trial.

- Billy Chemirmir back in court today.

- They picked yet another case involving somebody

killed in a private home.

Mary Brooks, her case had been mentioned

in the Lu Thi Harris trial.

- Mary Brooks was initially thought

to have collapsed and died from natural causes

shortly after returning home from a trip to Walmart.

The chicken, eggs, and frozen waffles she'd bought

never got put away.

Walmart surveillance video shows Billy Chemirmir

pulling out of the store parking lot

behind Brooks the day she died.

- We had great video. He parked, and she came in.

And he never went in, as I recall,

and came out and followed her.

She left. He left.

And those phones are going to the same place, in her house.

- They also brought in DNA evidence.

The DNA was not Mary Brooks.

Police discovered DNA that linked Billy Chemirmir

to Preston Place resident Martha Williams.

- We put that on in Ms. Brooks' trial

to show identity and motive.

- March 4, 2018,

Chemirmir murders and robs Martha Williams.

And for some reason, Billy Chemirmir kept

silver serving dishes she had.

Police found those in a car associated with Chemirmir.

- And we found gloves in the glove box.

And ultimately, Martha Williams' DNA

was on the gloves.

- We discussed the power of DNA

and that it won't lie.

We found her DNA and likely his DNA on the gloves.

Obviously, he did that.

- It was like 30 or 40 minutes, and they had a verdict.

- The jury has reached a verdict.

And that verdict is,

"We the jury unanimously find the defendant

guilty of capital murder as charged in the indictment."

- One juror told me as she walked out of the courthouse,

"Justice was served."

- With today's conviction, Chemirmir received

his second life sentence with no chance of parole.

- I was very happy and pleased and relieved.

I promised two convictions, and I kept that promise.

- Mr. Chemirmir will die in the penitentiary,

and that was my goal.

I stated it.

And I said we're going to do this twice to accomplish it.

And here we are.

- The two convictions, that was just a relief.

Justice for the two families.

- The Dallas County DA says, with him now guaranteed

to die in prison, the rest of the cases here

will be dismissed.

- I didn't realize that they would dismiss

the rest of the cases, including my mom.

- We were just like, wow,

they're going to drop 11 indictments.

- Then you're like, I have no justice for Mom.

- I couldn't get out of bed for days.

It was devastating.

- We were blindsided by what Dallas County did to us.

Not that he didn't do a good job getting two convictions,

but only two convictions out of all these?

- I can understand the word "dismiss" is offensive

when it's your mother or grandmother,

but that is what we do.

The judges aren't going to let a case just sit around,

and so we file a dismissal.

- We understand, legally, financially, economically,

that's the correct thing to do,

but we have felt dismissed all through this process.

- At least we were given, thankfully,

the opportunity to make victim impact statements.

- Families of 22 victims linked to Chemirmir

have been invited back to court next week

to give victim impact statements.

That's where they will be allowed to address Chemirmir

directly for the first time.

- Instead of just having

one or two victim impact statements,

the judge allowed all of the victims

linked to Billy Chemirmir to testify.

- All right, everyone.

Good morning, good morning, good morning again.

We are here to do the victim impact statement.

- They did let us know that we could send in a video.

We're choosing to forgive you.

It doesn't mean that we don't think you deserve

to feel the consequences of your actions.

But we are choosing to not hold on to it

for our own well-being.

- We were given two or three minutes to speak.

MJ, long ago, had gotten these fabulous big pictures

of our moms for us to hold up.

- Giving a victim impact statement,

they didn't have to let the Collin County families

even do this.

- My mother was Miriam Nelson.

She was healthy and vibrant, kind, funny,

and she loved life.

She taught me to always look for the good in everyone,

but I can't find any good in you, Chemirmir.

- My mother did not get to see any of her grandkids graduate

or get married.

And for what?

Jewelry?

- You took her from us for three pieces of jewelry.

- All these moms were so precious.

The opposite of precious is worthless, and that is you!

- Billy, you're a coward.

- When you're in that cell and you need a Band-Aid

or you need brain surgery,

remember the name Dr. Catherine Sinclair.

- I know I will be reunited with my loved ones one day.

You, murderer, the only way you will leave prison

is when the coroner comes for your cold, dead body.

- Some of us will never feel like

you got the justice that you deserved.

An eternity in hell will be far worse.

- Don't be a coward.

Ask for forgiveness and confess to your sins.

Thank you.

- Rot in hell, you piece of shit.

- Collin County indications were,

now that Chemirmir has life in prison without parole,

does it make sense

for them to put the resources and the expense

into going to trial?

Technically, Billy Chemirmir is viewed as a serial killer,

but a serial killer who's only been convicted

of two of those crimes, both of them in Dallas.

The same time, Collin County had 11 indictments,

six known deaths at Preston Place

and the attack on Mary Bartel,

the attempted murder of Kay Lawson,

and the two women murdered at Parkview-Frisco,

and also Carolyn MacPhee's murder in her home.

- October 2023, the remaining victims' cases were dismissed.

And that was excruciating.

- My mother's case will never go to court.

By indicting him

and then turning around and dismissing it,

you're dismissing the life of that person.

You're saying that that person had no value.

- They weren't even listed by name.

They were listed by a number.

My mom was reduced to a number.

- For the murder trials, prosecutors stuck with

the murders that occurred in private homes,

not those we heard about at independent living facilities.

Obviously, the family members were really upset.

They wanted to see the owners held

responsible for some of these murders

and not just Billy Chemirmir.

- I'm not sure I can even express the anger,

the sadness that I've experienced

working on these cases.

The loss is so unnecessary.

It's so preventable.

- Our firm has represented 13 families

in connection with the murders.

A lot of our clients place blame

on the communities in which their loved ones lived.

Our clients wanted to effectuate change

in an industry that desperately needs it.

- So everything we've done

has been geared toward accountability.

- I do think accountability is possible,

and it's been achieved.

With Edgemere, Chemirmir had murdered three people.

We resolved two cases with Edgemere

without having to file suit.

- Edgemere were quick to settle,

and they proactively offered condolences and apologies

to some of the families.

- Edgemere told us they had all new management,

that they had added 400 security cameras,

changed the sign-in situation.

So they did take ownership with us.

♪ ♪

- At the Parkview-Frisco facility,

Chemirmir murdered two women.

There's also the attempted murder.

- We settled our claim against Parkview.

I promised I wouldn't say anything bad about them,

and I'm not even going to imply anything bad about them.

- Parkview-Frisco, we filed a claim

on behalf of Marilyn Bixler,

and we were able to get that resolved.

- There's no amount of money that would have made it right,

but you just hope that no one else has

to go through that experience.

- Parkview-Frisco implemented changes

that have made and hopefully continue

to make their residents safer.

There were seven victims

and an attempted murder at Preston Place.

We did file lawsuits on behalf of four victims

and actually took some depositions and discovery,

and they were resolved too.

- I still definitely find fault with Preston Place.

You have these elderly people there.

You are responsible for them.

I'll never feel good in this.

None of us will ever feel good.

- Although you are the actual murderer,

I also hold the Tradition-Prestonwood

and its owner, Jonathan Perlman,

as equally accountable...

nine murders in that complex alone,

as far as we know.

- Tradition-Prestonwood settled some cases,

but they're still in litigation with some families.

- We have six remaining cases with the Tradition-Prestonwood.

They interestingly had the most murders

and probably the most personal culpability.

- There was never a moment that the residents

were put ahead of profit.

♪ ♪

- Apologies need to be made.

Accountability needs to be noticed.

You're responsible for all these murders.

Perlman,

profit over safety and security of your residences.

- Tradition-Prestonwood have not admitted anything

they have denied that anyone in their ranks

ever withheld any information from police.

- My mom was murdered here in 2016

along with eight other women.

- Yeah.

- Good.

The security that's advertised doesn't exist.

There were no cameras. I don't know how it is now.

- There are no cameras?

- Tradition have said that they put their faith

in the authorities, sort of blaming the authorities

for missing all of this.

- I blame Jonathan Perlman, 100%.

- Billy Chemirmir is, without a doubt,

the most prolific serial killer in Texas, if not the U.S.

- Why does everyone not know about Billy Chemirmir?

As many people as he killed...

I mean, we all know about Ted Bundy.

We all know about Jeffrey Dahmer.

Why was this story not on everyone's lips?

- If these were children or if these were sorority girls,

it would have been headline news.

- Do people not care that these were older women?

- Everyone from the responding officers

to the medical examiner to the retirement communities,

they excused away so much of it because of their age.

- Absolutely, 100%, ageism.

- Welcome back. We want to get you caught up

on some breaking news that is just coming into

our newsroom from our Andrea Lucia.

She has learned that Billy Chemirmir,

a convicted murderer, is dead.

- The victims' families got a call early this morning

from TDCJ with the news.

Billy Chemirmir was found dead in his cell.

- Hell yeah. That was my first reaction.

- He can never hurt another person.

- His cell mate, a fellow convicted murderer,

is believed to be responsible.

- It was anger because of all that man has taken from me.

- I know we got our street justice,

but I felt let down by the system.

- Billy Chemirmir died never admitting

doing this to our moms.

- Sources tell CBS News Texas that Wyatt Ellis Busby

killed Chemirmir at some point during the night.

- Mr. Chemirmir made some inappropriate remark,

sexual in nature,

about the inmate's children and what he would do.

And that triggered the response,

which was that his roommate beat him to death.

- Well, I thought it was a fitting death for him.

I hope he was scared to death, like the women were.