DALLAS — Accused serial killer Billy Chemirmir hunted and killed elderly women, stole their jewelry and sold it to make his living, Dallas County prosecutors told jurors Friday, the last day of Chemirmir’s capital murder trial.
The jury agreed, taking less than 30 minutes to find Chemirmir guilty.
Hushed cries rippled through the courtroom as State District Judge Raquel “Rocky” Jones read the jury’s verdict finding him guilty of killing 87-year-old Mary Brooks in 2018. Ann Brooks, Brooks’ oldest daughter who testified in the trial, reached for a relative’s hand.
Chemirmir was automatically sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole because prosecutors did not seek the death penalty.
“We are so thrilled that this defendant will never be able to hurt any other family again,” Ann Brooks said outside the courtroom. “Our beloved mother, Mary Sue, her life is over and her jewelry is gone. But her love and her memories will live in us forever.”
Chemirmir has been convicted of killing two women and has been indicted on 22 capital murder charges in Dallas and Collin counties.
The weeklong trial this week was his third. The first ended in a mistrial last year when the jury couldn’t reach a verdict. He was then convicted of capital murder in April for the smothering death of 81-year-old Lu Thi Harris in Dallas.
Dallas County District Attorney John Creuzot promised families of the indicted cases that prosecutors would try Chemirmir for the deaths of Harris and Brooks. Creuzot said their cases had the strongest evidence against Chemirmir. Prosecutors will dismiss the other 11 cases in Dallas County, Creuzot said.
“Thanks for being patient with us,” Creuzot said to families as they hugged and celebrated the verdict. “It’s been a long period but we got it done.”
Collin County prosecutors did not respond to a request for comment. They have said they were waiting on the Dallas County cases before proceeding with their nine cases. Family members have said they hope Collin County District Attorney Greg Willis seeks a death sentence.
Chemirmir has denied killing anyone. He maintained his innocence after Friday’s verdict, defense lawyer Kobby Warren said. Chemirmir’s lawyers filed a notice to appeal the conviction.
To understand how police came to suspect Brooks was murdered, prosecutors told jurors about attacks on three other women: Mary Bartel, who survived an attack on March 19, 2018, at Preston Place Retirement Community in Plano; Harris, who Chemirmir killed on March 20, 2018, in her Dallas home while the police were homing in on him for the attack on Bartel; and Martha Williams, who was killed on March 4, 2018, in Preston Place Retirement Community.
Prosecutors sought to prove that Chemirmir followed Brooks and Harris from a Far North Dallas Walmart to their homes, where he smothered them. Their deaths initially looked natural and, prosecutors say, he made off with their precious heirlooms.
Prosecutors leaned on surveillance camera footage from the Walmart where Brooks was last seen alive and a cell phone analysis of Chemirmir’s phone to link him to Brooks.
On the day of Brooks’ death, video from a Walmart at Coit and Arapaho roads shows Chemirmir coming and going before Brooks arrived. She wore the same clothes she had on when she died.
Video showed a silver Nissan Altima park next to Brooks’ car and leave moments after her. Prosecutors argued Chemirmir drove the Altima and followed her home, although no one is seen getting in and out of the car during that time frame. Defense lawyers argued the make and model of the car is too popular to say Chemirmir was in it.
Prosecutor Dimitri Anagnostis said cell phone data put Chemirmir’s device in the vicinity of the Walmart at the same time and Brooks’ home for 45 minutes. Defense lawyers challenged the cell phone analysis, arguing it could not pinpoint precisely where Chemirmir’s phone was and didn’t mean he was with it.
“There’s nothing that links him to the case of Ms. Brooks,” defense lawyer Philip Hayes told jurors.
But prosecutors showed a photo of a ring Chemirmir posted on a resale website that resembled a ring Brooks owned and cherished. Ann Brooks told jurors she and her family began to realize jewelry was missing shortly after her mother’s death.
Lead prosecutor Glen Fitzmartin said Chemirmir made killing and stealing his work. In a previous trial, one store owner said he paid Chemirmir more than $91,000 for jewelry over a period of about two years.
“Billy Chemirmir turned these women’s lives into his objects of desire and greed and cast them away,” Fitzmartin said. “Billy Chemirmir is a capital murderer just as he set out to be.”
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