Billy Chemirmir, accused of murdering 22 women, killed by cellmate in jail

globalnews.ca:

killing two women and accused of murdering many more, has been killed by his cellmate this week while serving a life sentence, prison officials confirmed.Chemirmir, 50, was found guilty last year of killing two women. He was caught after a 91-year-old woman, Mary Bartel, survived an attack in 2018 and told police that a man forced his way into her apartment at an independent living community for seniors, tried to smother her with a pillow and took her jewelry.He was found dead in his jail cell at a Texas state prison Tuesday morning, a spokesperson with the Texas Department of Criminal Justice confirmed.Authorities confirmed he was killed by his cellmate, who was also serving a murder sentence, but officials did not name the cellmate, nor the cause of Chemirmir’s death.

Chemirmir was arrested in March 2018 following the attack on Bartel. The following day, police tracked him to a nearby apartment where they found him holding jewelry and cash.Documents in a large red jewelry box that he had just thrown away, police say, led them to a Dallas home, where they found 81-year-old Lu Thi Harris dead with lipstick smeared on her pillow.At his April 2022 trial, he was found guilty of capital murder of Harris.

A separate trial, in October of last year, found him guilty of murdering 87-year-old Mary Brooks in 2018.After securing two convictions, prosecutors in Dallas dropped the additional charges and opted not to seek the death penalty. In all, he was accused of killing an additional 20 women over the years.Chemirmir, who was a citizen of Kenya, worked as a home health-care aide in several cities in north Texas before being accused of murdering his vulnerable patients and stealing their valuables.Authorities believe his killing