June 24, 2024 • 42 mins
How did Billy Chemirmir manage to infiltrate the lives of numerous elderly women and execute his sinister plots undetected? Join us as Glenn Fitzmartin, Deputy Administrator at the Dallas County District Attorney's Office, reveals chilling details about Chemirmir's methods and the harrowing story of survivor Mary Bartell, whose brave testimony was key to cracking the case. Discover the investigative hurdles and breakthroughs that led to Chemirmir's indictment for over 20 capital murders.
Explore the relentless pursuit of justice in the face of challenges, including a mistrial and the complexities of prosecuting a serial murderer. Learn about the critical coordination between law enforcement agencies and the strategic decisions that culminated in successful convictions. Through phone records, pawn shop transactions, and meticulous evidence gathering, the prosecution demonstrated unwavering determination, ultimately securing justice for the victims and their grieving families.
Finally, we address the pressing need for heightened security in retirement communities. Delve into specific incidents that exposed the vulnerabilities in these environments and the efforts to advocate for stronger protective measures. By drawing parallels to security protocols in schools, we underscore the importance of vigilance and legislative action to prevent future tragedies. Listen and gain insights into the profound impact of community, security, and the undying quest for justice in safeguarding our elderly population.
Explore the relentless pursuit of justice in the face of challenges, including a mistrial and the complexities of prosecuting a serial murderer. Learn about the critical coordination between law enforcement agencies and the strategic decisions that culminated in successful convictions. Through phone records, pawn shop transactions, and meticulous evidence gathering, the prosecution demonstrated unwavering determination, ultimately securing justice for the victims and their grieving families.
Finally, we address the pressing need for heightened security in retirement communities. Delve into specific incidents that exposed the vulnerabilities in these environments and the efforts to advocate for stronger protective measures. By drawing parallels to security protocols in schools, we underscore the importance of vigilance and legislative action to prevent future tragedies. Listen and gain insights into the profound impact of community, security, and the undying quest for justice in safeguarding our elderly population.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
The subject matter of this podcast will address
difficult topics multiple formsof violence, and identity-based
discrimination and harassment.
We acknowledge that thiscontent may be difficult and
have listed specific contentwarnings in each episode
description to help create apositive, safe experience for
all listeners.
Speaker 2 (00:21):
In this country, 31 million crimes 31 million crimes
are reported every year.
That is one every second.
Out of that, every 24 minutesthere is a murder.
Every five minutes there is arape.
Every two to five minutes thereis a sexual assault.
Every nine seconds in thiscountry, a woman is assaulted by
someone who told her that heloved her, by someone who told
(00:42):
her it was her fault, by someonewho tries to tell the rest of
us it's none of our business andI am proud to stand here today
with each of you to call thatperpetrator a liar.
Speaker 1 (00:53):
Welcome to the podcast on Crimes Against Women.
I'm Maria McMullin.
We're recording at the 2024Conference on Crimes Against
Women and my guest today isGlenn Fitzmartin, a deputy
administrator at the DallasCounty District Attorney's
Office.
Mr Fitzmartin supervises all ofthe felony trial courts, the
white-collar crime, elder abuse,fraud, gang community response
(01:15):
and organized crime units andthe investigator corps.
He has tried hundreds of cases,many of them high profile.
Mr Fitzmartin joined the DallasDA's office in 1997.
After four years, and rising tothe level of felony prosecutor,
he left the office to start hisown law practice.
In 2006, mr Fitzmartin wasappointed judge of Dallas County
(01:37):
Criminal Court number three tofulfill the term of the then
vacated seat.
In 2007, he returned to theDallas County DA's office as a
felony prosecutor.
He currently serves as thechair of the training committee
for the Texas District andCounty Attorneys Association.
Glenn, welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 3 (01:56):
Hi, thank you for having me here.
Speaker 1 (01:57):
Yeah, so we're here at the Conference on Crimes
Against Women, where youpresented a case study about the
Tamir Mir case, and, for peoplenot familiar with that case,
tell us what happened.
Speaker 3 (02:08):
So Billy Chamirmeir was an individual that stalked
and preyed upon elderlyindividuals in the mainly the
Dallas area.
It was Dallas County, collinCounty, kind of in between, if
you're familiar with Dallas inbetween the toll road and 75 and
kind of up going north ofDallas up into the Collin County
, frisco Plano area.
(02:29):
He was indicted for.
Eventually, when he was caught,he was indicted for over 20
capital murders, for the deathof elderly women.
His modus operandi I guess whatyou you would say is he would
go into their homes, gain accessthrough a number of different
(02:50):
methods, put them down on theground or on their bed, smother
them with a pillow and then taketheir jewelry.
Speaker 1 (02:57):
And you are the prosecutor in that case, right,
or you were?
Speaker 3 (03:01):
Yes, I was the lead prosecutor in that case for
Dallas County.
Speaker 1 (03:06):
And so how did you all go about figuring out that
he was this serial murderer?
Speaker 3 (03:12):
The cases, the amount that I'm telling you about,
spanned over two years, from2016 to 2018.
The way he was eventuallycaught it was mainly the work of
the Plano Police Department.
They had a number of ladies whowere found deceased in a
certain resident community inthe Plano area called Preston
(03:32):
Place, and it was in March of2018.
And a number of times thesefamily members would call in and
say these ladies are found dead.
They're healthy.
They were active just daysbefore, hours before, and then
they would notice that certainthings that should be on their
(03:53):
person wedding rings, engagementrings, rings, sentimental rings
that they wore every day oftheir life are missing.
And so it started piquing theinterest of the Plano Police
Department.
And on March 19th of 2018, therewas another attack on an
individual by the name of MaryBartell.
And it just so happened thatMary survived.
She had a pacemaker.
We think that might have helpedher to survive the attack.
(04:15):
So when she came to one of herneighbors who was checking on
her they were supposed to go toan exercise class found her.
She was passed out.
They called paramedics, wereable to revive her.
She was able to tell her storythat an individual was knocking
on her door, came to her door,pushed the door in and told her
to get on the bed, put a pillowover her face and she passed out
.
When she woke up she wasmissing rings.
(04:36):
So that really started theinvestigation in full force.
They knew exactly what wasgoing on.
It wasn't a situation wheresomeone had died and someone had
stolen their stuff.
Someone was actually killingthese ladies.
So once the police, the PlanoPolice Department, get the
information from Mary Bartell,they start in earnest to try to
figure out what's going on,especially at this one home
(04:56):
there in Preston Place in Plano.
Because, like I said, they hada couple of other suspected
situations where jewelry ismissing off of these individuals
.
And this was a couple of daysbefore, weeks before In fact,
the date that they encounteredMary Bartell.
They sent a police officer towait at her door as they started
to do the investigation,because she had said that a man
had come in and so they wantedto secure the crime scene there.
(05:18):
Well, across the door from her,right across the breezeway,
another individual came to checkup on her mom and she was found
deceased inside that apartment.
Speaker 1 (05:28):
Oh, my goodness.
Speaker 3 (05:29):
So Billy Chimamere had killed her the day before
and so now Plano PoliceDepartment is obviously they've
they've sent every individualthat's not has time on their
hands to work on this case,which is a huge amount of
resources that they put into it.
They went everywhere they couldfind so they knew they had a
suspect.
There was a suspicious person'scall that had come in a few
(05:53):
days before to the home.
An individual was at the samePreston place picking up his mom
, had seen an individual earlierin the parking lot.
When he picked up his mom hetook his mom to a doctor's
appointment, brought her backthe individual still sitting in
the parking lot.
So he was suspicious, went upand had an encounter with the
(06:14):
individual and the guy said hewas just here to he was waiting
on someone, but it still didn'tseem right.
So man's name was Richard Plink.
He went and got the licenseplate and the make of the model
of the car.
So that information made it tothe Plano Police Department.
Shortly after they discoveredMary Bartell and they started
doing research on that car cameback with an accident report and
(06:35):
the name on the accident reportwas Billy Tremier.
It had just been really threeor four days before this
incident His car was in theDallas Pound and that gave him a
phone number.
I gave him an address to go andlook at and they sat up on his
house.
When he showed up at his house,that goes from evening of the
19th to the morning of the 20th.
(06:55):
By the time they get to hishouse on the 20th, his parking,
his designated parking spot, isempty.
They sit up on it.
They dedicated like six orseven undercover detectives to
sit and wait there.
They were looking in everyknown location that they could
possibly think of for BillyTremere.
But, later that evening I'd sayit's probably around 530, six
(07:16):
o'clock a car does show up.
They spy someone who's drivingit.
That matches the description ofBilly Tremere.
He goes to a dumpster not farfrom his parking spot, spends a
little time there there'sactually a detective sitting
right next to that dumpster soknows that he's there, hears
some banging.
But then he parks into hisregular parking spot.
They approach him, take him outof his car In his hands he's
(07:37):
clutching money, a stack of $2bills, jewelry, his phone.
They take him out, put him downon the ground.
They look into, they go back tothe dumpster and there's a
jewelry box inside the dumpster.
When they look inside thedumpster and the jewelry box
they find a name of anindividual by the name of Luti
Vang, another name tag of a WHarris.
(08:00):
They start looking into thatinformation and they come up
with a Luti Harris who lives inDallas.
They alert Dallas PoliceDepartment to go and do a
welfare check on Ms Harris.
When they kick in her doorbecause she doesn't answer the
door and it's all locked up,they find her deceased inside
her house.
So now they have Mary Bartelltelling us exactly what happened
(08:23):
and they have jewelry from anindividual down in Dallas who's
also deceased.
At that time, when they're doingthe investigation of Ms Harris,
they see that she had bags fromWalmart.
They look inside the bag fromWalmart, get a receipt, go back
to the Walmart that she was justat hours before.
And on the video checking outat the same time as she is is Mr
(08:45):
Chamirman.
He actually kind of walks toher lane, looks at her, goes
back, checks out.
He leaves the store about aminute before she does, leaves
the parking lot about twominutes before she does.
But we had them there both atthe same time, same location.
Speaker 1 (08:59):
So I'm practically speechless at the MO of this guy
.
Approximately how many womenhad been murdered before law
enforcement caught on that theyhad a serial offender?
Speaker 3 (09:13):
Well, they didn't.
I guess we had 13 indictmentsin Dallas spanning back from
2016.
Collin County indicted, Ibelieve, nine capital murders
when it all was said and done,and then we had two attempted
capital murders.
There's two individuals thatlived along with Ms Bartell.
There was Kay Lawson, who was aFrisco case.
She also survived, and so noware there more potential victims
(09:36):
out there?
I would say yes.
Once they had Mr Chamirmer incustody, they talked to him.
They had his phone.
They were able to get phonerecords back to 2016 initially,
and so they looked at allunattended deaths in the Dallas
area going back to January of2016.
So what they were looking foris anybody that had an
(09:58):
unattended meeting, that therewasn't anybody around them,
obviously elderly individualwho's living on their own,
active in a couple of thesedifferent retirement communities
on the active side of it, notin like the hospice side or the
caregiving side.
Speaker 1 (10:12):
Right.
Speaker 3 (10:12):
They look back and what they're looking for is his
phone or are we able to put himkind of in the general area?
Was there a deceased individualwho was missing jewelry?
And then was there a sale of MrShamir Mir around that time?
We had some records from somepawn shops that showed his
transactions and also he woulduse online sales platforms like
(10:34):
OfferUp and so we look back tosee any of his transactions
around that time that couldpotentially match to the
description of the jewelry thatwas missing.
So it was a yeoman's effort onall these law enforcement
agencies to go back and reopenany case back in that timeframe
to see if we could come up withany cases, and that's how we
were able to discover all ofthese other cases.
Speaker 1 (10:56):
Yeah, and so I mean, from everything you've described
, it kind of sounds like thisshould have been a slam dunk,
but that is not what happened,right Like this should have been
a slam dunk, but that is notwhat happened, right?
Speaker 3 (11:06):
No, we did so we tried him after a couple of
years, we discovered it was 2018.
I think my first trial was in2021.
There was a lot that happenedin between those two things.
There was time to investigate,time for coordination amongst
all these law enforcementagencies, time for coordination
amongst all these lawenforcement agencies.
(11:26):
We decided we were going to tryhim for two cases, two separate
cases, so that we would makesure that he would die in prison
.
Basically, two capital lifesentences.
We had selected the DAs of bothcounties because there's cases
in Colleen County, cases inDallas County had decided that
Dallas would go first.
We had what we believed at thetime to be the strongest case,
which was Ms Harris's case,because he's caught with her
property shortly after being inclose proximity to her on video.
(11:48):
We also selected a case out ofRichardson, mrs Brooks's case.
She was at that same Walmartwith him and his phone On that
day.
We were able to track his phonegoing to her apartment or to
her house or her condominium andso we decided we're going to
try them for these two cases.
The first trial was during COVID.
We were in COVID restrictionsso everybody was wearing masks,
(12:11):
everybody had to social distance, the jury had to social
distance.
It was kind of nerve wrackingthat my victim's families were
not allowed in the courtroombecause that's where the jury
was sitting, was where usuallythe spectators would sit.
It was kind of awkward.
They were to my left, mywitnesses to the right, the
defendant was right in front ofme.
(12:32):
We presented what we thought wasa very strong case but we had
one juror hold out on us.
At the end, after a shortamount of time, she decided she
was not going to deliberateanymore with the rest of the
jury, and so after we went homethat evening, after a couple of
hours of deliberations or as thejury was out, returned the next
morning and they kept sendingnotes out saying we were
(12:53):
hopelessly deadlocked and wecannot get this one juror to
come around and make a decision,and so the legal ramifications
of that is that the judge has todeclare a mistrial and then
basically we had to start allover Wow, and that's just on the
Dallas County side.
That was just on the Dallas.
Yes, we were the.
Yeah, we had his body, we hadthe case.
So during that trial I put onnot only the evidence of Ms
(13:17):
Harris's case but I was alsoallowed to put on the evidence
for Ms Brooks's case and.
Ms Bartell's case, the woman Itold you about earlier who
survived.
Speaker 2 (13:25):
I took her deposition early on.
Speaker 3 (13:27):
Because of her elderly, advanced years, I was
afraid that as the caseprogressed on that, you know, if
she were to succumb to anillness or was not capable of
coming to testify, I wanted topreserve her testimony, which
turned out to be a good decision.
She had deceased before thetrial came about.
So the law doesn't generallyallow you to talk about other
(13:48):
crimes during one case until youget to the punishment phase.
But because this was acircumstantial case, in order to
show identity to his motive,his planning, those types of
things you are allowed to getinto some other cases and that's
what we were able to put onthose other two cases in that
trial.
But it didn't.
It didn't work out for that onejuror.
But we decided right away, Imean, we weren't going to stop.
(14:09):
We had promised two convictionsand we were going to keep going
until we got two convictions.
So we were able to try the same, the same indictment Ms
Harris's case again.
We just had to wait a fewmonths to get the transcript put
together.
Speaker 1 (14:19):
And so both trials had a successful outcome for the
prosecution.
Speaker 3 (14:22):
Yeah, the next, the second time around, after I
think it was probably less than45 minutes, that jury came back
with a guilty.
And then, a few months afterthat, we tried Ms Brooks' case
and after about 30 minutes Ithink it was that jury came back
with a guilty.
So it was just really just aone juror hang up on this,
because I even had the alternatejurors in all those cases were
(14:44):
ready to convict him as well.
Speaker 1 (14:46):
Yeah.
So then what was the sentencing?
You got two life sentences.
Speaker 3 (14:50):
Two capital life sentences.
So in Texas that means that youdo not get out of prison.
When they say life in prison,it's life without the
possibility of parole.
Speaker 1 (15:00):
Yeah, that's probably for the best here.
So we talked a lot about MrChamir Mir and what his actions
were and his behaviors.
Let's talk about the victimsand what made women of that age
group so vulnerable and justgood prey for a predator like
this one.
Speaker 3 (15:20):
I think in our society today we are probably
less likely to, you know, wantto challenge those individuals
that are around us for fear thatwe might offend them, you know,
or to come across like we'renot accepting of everybody, and
so I think that that might bepart of this, I think, the fact
that you know they might havebeen more trusting of a stranger
(15:40):
than maybe they should be.
He was pretty well accomplished.
He did do home health care atone point in time, so he was
able to, I think, communicatepretty well with individuals he
was able to get access to.
The two cases I tried were fromprivate residences, but a score
of these were at active livingretirement communities.
So there's a place, edgemere inDallas, which is a very nice
(16:06):
environment.
There was two indictments outof that place.
There's probably a third murderout of that place as well.
The medical examiner did notswitch Dr Sinclair's case toa
homicide and so we did notindict that one.
There's Parkview is in Frisco.
There was two capital murdersout of there and an attempted
capital murder out of there.
(16:27):
I spoke about Preston Place,that's in Plano.
There was, I want to say Idon't know the number in front
of me, but there was a number ofdeaths there six or seven there
, and then at Traditions inDallas there was a number of
deaths there as well.
And he was able to have access,kind of unfettered access, to
these places.
He would just kind of walk inand be able to walk among those
(16:48):
halls without anybody evenstopping him or asking him
really any questions.
And at Edgemere they were kindof on to him.
There was a security guardthere.
They kind of figured out thathe was at least stealing from
people.
I had thought that maybe hemight be involved in some of the
deaths, but nothing really evercame of that.
The Holmes did not really doanything with that, as far as
(17:08):
you know.
Police might have been involvedbut they didn't realize that
there was these connections tothese other cases.
Speaker 1 (17:15):
You know when you call a police officer out on a
death.
Speaker 3 (17:16):
They're working that one case and they don't have any
way of really knowing thatthere was one a month before or
a month before that, becauseit's a different shift and a
different group of people, adifferent, you know, responding
officer.
It just so happens that Planowas able to figure it out later
on.
But I think I think the homesare definitely somewhat
responsible in that they couldhave had a better security
(17:39):
system.
They rave about their securitysystems but you know doors get
left ajar, you know the gatesaren't working.
There's no cameras.
There was no.
I didn't have cameras.
Edgemere had some cameras therebut, like traditions, only had
like cameras at the entries andexits but not on the floors.
You know where he's able to justkind of walk up and down and
they had so many people comethrough there who weren't
(18:00):
legitimate home health care, soyou don't even know who's on
your campus, you know, becausethey're just able to kind of
come in and out.
We try to get some changes inthe legislature I helped.
There's a group of ladies whoare kind of combined now
together victims of Mr Tremierwho have a support group and a
really a political actioncommittee almost, where they're
(18:21):
working out to try to get thingschanged.
And that was one of the changesthat I went down and testified
at the legislature to try tohelp them out to get some
changes.
One thing I thought that wouldreally work out well is if they
would just have a.
You know, you go to a school,you have to give your driver's
license.
You get a sticker to walkaround the school that says
you're supposed to be there.
But they were fighting us.
The lobbyists were fighting uson that, saying that these
(18:41):
individuals want their freedomand they don't want to have all
these constraints at their homes.
Speaker 1 (18:56):
And I'd like to take a poll of those citizens you
know and actually see if that'strue or not.
Yeah, yeah, I kind of thoughtof the school example myself.
You know, today it's veryrestricted access to our schools
, right, and so there's a ringdoorbell and you have to show
your license and there's a wholeprocess and procedure of
signing a child out or intoschool during the day.
And one would think that inliving facilities like the ones
you described, visitors wouldsign in and out.
(19:19):
You know, we do that in lots ofplaces.
We do it in office buildings.
Speaker 3 (19:24):
Yeah, I think there's far more secure areas than
these.
These are vulnerableindividuals, you know.
I mean, they've brought us sofar in our society and done so
much for us and yet we're justkind of ignoring them here at
the end.
And I think that those types ofthings can be done, but I don't
know if it's a profit thing.
I'm not really sure what theholdup would be there but maybe
(19:46):
it's just the information thatisn't out there for people to
understand.
I mean, you see school shootingsall the time, so unfortunately
we're almost numb to it.
Now it's like not that youdon't see it as this, as
horrible as it really is, andmaybe now with this story maybe
there is some change that cancome about it.
But there still doesn't seem tobe that much interest in this
(20:06):
vulnerable part of our society.
Speaker 1 (20:08):
So to those points, then, since you worked so
closely on this case, is it?
What's your opinion about themotivation?
Was it financial?
Was it gender based?
What, how?
What do you think motivated him?
Speaker 3 (20:24):
Yeah, I spent a lot of time thinking about that.
You know, he's not your typicalserial killer and maybe that's
why the story didn't reallygarner as much interest as some
of our other.
You know, almost everybody'sheard of Ted Bundy or those John
Wayne Gacy, you know, maybebecause of their victims or
things of that nature, and maybethere is some other
psychological kind of interestthat people might have in those
(20:47):
types of individuals, whereas Ireally do think it's just greed
that was the true motivator ofBilly Chimur.
I did never come acrossanything where it was any kind
of a sexual thing or anythinglike that.
It just seemed to really justbe greed.
Now I think, psychologically,we'd love to psychologically
diagnose him and have experts goand look at him to see how he's
(21:09):
able to just totally disregardhuman life, to just be so kind
of caught up in his own desiresthat this individual who he
supposedly has been trained totake care of, you know, in his
background, can just be just anobject of them to fulfill his
own desires.
And so I think that's hismotivation, I think.
(21:31):
And then once he gets that, Ithink he just was picking on the
weakest people he could pick onthat have the most for him to
gain from.
You know, maybe if he picked on, you know, eight or
nine-year-old children might beas able to fight back as much as
my 91-year-old four-foot-eight.
You know victims, but they'renot going to have rings and
(21:52):
jewelry and things that he canprofit from, and so I mean it's
sad because, you wear thiswedding ring or this engagement
ring or a bracelet that someonegave you to remind you of your
widowed husband, or something ofthat nature, and now you're, I
guess, expected that youshouldn't wear it out in public
because someone like him mightsee it.
I mean, it's just sad.
You know and he knew the placesto go this Walmart that he
(22:16):
found two of my victims fromI've spent many time going to
that Walmart, just justdifferent times of the day, and
it is just teeming with elderlyindividuals and he would park in
a way that he just could seethe handicapped parking spots.
I have video of him coming inand out, uh, and so he knew
exactly who.
I've got a video of him uhhelping a woman on the day he
(22:39):
killed, uh, miss brooks earlierthat day.
He is helping that another ladyjust get a shopping cart, you
know, and I've got video of himand they're all smiling and he's
helping her unhitch a shoppingcart and it just kind of shows
just how well he is atcommunicating.
He's got this big smile on hisface and being able to connect
(23:00):
with these individuals thatmaybe trusted him 10 seconds,
you know, when he knocks ontheir door 10 seconds before to
trust him, to open the door tohim, and then he turns on them
like that.
There's a couple of storieswhere he was posing, as you know
, maintenance individuals forfor the different facilities and
checking on leaks and thingslike that.
Speaker 1 (23:18):
He's very good at what he did.
Speaker 3 (23:20):
I mean, it's just he was very good at what he did.
He was.
He went under the radar, hekilled here and then, when he
kind of got ruffled there, hemoved to another location,
killed there for a while, thenmoved on to another location,
killed there, different agencies, different departments.
I think he just thought hewould never get caught.
Speaker 1 (23:36):
Yeah, it sounds like he, as you said, picked on the
most vulnerable people he couldfind and assumed he would always
be able to get away with it.
Speaker 3 (23:46):
Absolutely yeah, he made between the first trial
that was hung and the secondtrial where he was convicted, he
went on a podcast and gotinterviewed and then also gave
an interview to the DallasMorning News reporter and in
that he was very brazen and hesaid I'm never going to the
penitentiary.
I didn't do this, I'm innocent.
They don't have the evidence onme.
(24:06):
You know my family owned health.
His sister ran a health homehealth care business.
You know, none of none of herclients have ever turned up dead
.
So how could I possibly, youknow, be the one who did this?
Now he might have beenemboldened by the hung jury, but
you know everybody everybodywatched the trial was surprised
about the hung jury, thecommentators on the TV and
(24:27):
things of that nature.
So he probably shouldn't havebeen as bracing as he was, but
you know.
Speaker 1 (24:32):
Did he ever ultimately confess or offer any
additional information about whyhe did it or what other victims
there might be?
Speaker 3 (24:42):
No, when he was first arrested, the police officers
the detectives from Dallas andthe detectives from Plano came
in and talked to him, asked himabout the specific evidence they
had.
They had some pretty goodevidence on him even at that
short amount of time from arrestto interview, which was just
hours.
He had given up his phone andon his phone was a picture of
the ring that Mary Bartell woreon her finger for 50 years and
(25:05):
her family had identified thathe'd taken a picture to sell it
online.
Speaker 2 (25:09):
The family had identified that.
Speaker 3 (25:10):
So the police officers are asking him about
that specific ring when did youget this?
Because it came off of a victim.
He said no, no, no, I boughtthat a couple of days before in
Garland, but he could never comeup with who he bought it from.
He had the keys to Lou Harris'shouse in his cup holder of his
car and they were asking himabout that.
He goes oh, I bought a jewelrybox from a man on the street and
(25:32):
he had that.
Those were in his jewelry box.
I don't know why I kept thekeys.
So he kept deflecting oneverything.
A couple of days later the Planopolice and the Frisco police go
back in and talk to him anothertime and now they have phone
data so they're able to trackhis phone everywhere and show
him you were at these locationsat this time.
He goes no, that's not me,that's not, I couldn't have done
(25:53):
that.
And he had this stack of twodollar bills from Miss Harris's
house and she she would use thatas a gimmick.
She would kind of give twodollar bills out when she
traveled to people.
She thought it was kind of aninteresting thing to do, so she
would go to the bank and get awhole stack of them.
He said that he bought those $2bills off a man at Fort Worth a
week before.
And the detective asked him youknow, why are we?
(26:16):
How much do you buy these $2bills for?
So I bought them for $2.50.
I was going to sell them for $3.
I mean things you could get atthe bank for $2, right, Right.
And then we told him you know,we have your phone data and your
phone never goes to Fort Worth,never, never, traveled there.
(26:37):
He said no, that's, that's,that's where I went.
So I had even had anopportunity to sit down with him
at one time to see if he wouldconfess to to these things,
which is kind of uncommon.
His lawyers were there, but Ilaid out my whole case to him
and all the cases and all theindictments and all the facts
that I had to try to get him tonot have to go through trials,
to get him to actually confessand to admit to all this.
And he turned me down and hesaid that wasn't him, he just
didn't do it.
So now he never did and we'llnever have an opportunity to ask
(26:59):
him now and he never willbecause he died in prison.
So his case is shut.
We'll never really have theanswer to how many for sure that
he prayed him on.
Speaker 1 (27:07):
So when did he pass away that he?
Speaker 3 (27:09):
prayed him on.
So when did he pass away?
So we tried him two times.
After the third time the casesthen went to Collin County for
them to decide what they wantedto do.
They determined they weren'tgoing to seek the death penalty
because he was eligible for thedeath penalty.
They decided that I believesometime in 2023, like maybe
August of 2023.
So September, I think September19th of 2023, I get a call from
(27:33):
one of the wardens at his prisonthat he was at to inform me
that his Billy's Jamiro'sroommate beat him to death that
morning.
They'd only been together fortwo weeks and, according to what
the warden said, that Mr Jamirohad made some comment to his
roommate talking about theroommate's children and what he
(27:54):
would do to the roommate'schildren maybe sexual in nature
or something along those linesand the roommate, I guess, had
enough and beat him and there'ssome indication that he also had
a sharp object.
I don't really know the wholedetails about that, but beat him
and then just kind of draggedhim out of the cell and left him
for dead.
Speaker 1 (28:11):
Wow.
Ok, let's go back and talkabout the prosecution just a
little bit more.
Were there any challengesprosecuting this case or this
individual?
Speaker 3 (28:21):
There's a couple of different challenges, I think.
For one, the scope.
I mean we had four differentprimary agencies with Dallas
Police Department, richardsonPolice Department, plano Police
Department and Frisco PoliceDepartment.
We also had some other agenciesinvolved, obviously the medical
examiner's office.
We used the FBI for phones, youknow, trying to juggle all of
that information, I came ontothe case.
(28:42):
There was a differentprosecutor that was the lead
prosecutor on it.
At first I was in support.
I did go to Ms Harris's houseyou know those types of things
but I did not think it was goingto turn out to be what it
turned out to be.
I thought it was just going tobe a one time deal.
I didn't think there was anypossibility.
We had a serial killer inDallas, you know, at that time
yeah.
And so I came on to it late.
So these detectives and theseagencies had already put in so
(29:05):
many hours of research anddedication and time.
The Plano Police Departmentdedicated numerous, numerous
detectives doing backgroundsearches and trying to find
exactly everything they couldabout Billy Tamir.
He's from Kenya and so theywere going back to when he first
came to the country and lookinginto that.
Richardson had done a bunch ofwork on their cases because not
(29:27):
only did he, he had someaggravated robbery cases too and
some other types of burglarytype things that they were
looking into.
Of course Dallas is where he.
I kind of came in late and Ifelt kind of intimidated because
all these detectives knew allabout this case that I didn't
know anything about and I didn'twant to let them down and I
didn't really want to show myignorance, and so it took a lot
(29:48):
to get through all the evidenceand the discovery and what they
had kind of put together.
The other thing that'schallenging usually, as one of
the you have a capital murdercase, there's usually one family
that you have to deal with.
Here I had 13 differentfamilies just in my jurisdiction
and then I took oncommunications with a lot of the
Collin County families as well,because they were all had a
(30:10):
vested interest in theseoutcomes.
So some families wanted to have, you know, a lot more contact
than other families.
Some I just kind of told themabout the hot topics that were
happening and they would neverreally circle back around.
Some didn't want to becommunicated with at all really.
But then there were some thatyou know they wanted I was, I
would be talking to someoneevery three or four days about
(30:31):
what's going on, and you know wehit COVID and so COVID put a
big delay.
We had a change ofadministration One DA when it
came in.
Another DA came in afterwards,and so I would try to
communicate.
But when you sit down you haveto call 13 families when
something different is happening, and I have other obligations
(30:53):
too, and so you start a phonecall in the morning and then
maybe you don't get to thesomeone in the afternoon.
But they, they became verytight group and so they would
text each other all day long.
Well, I just talked to Glenn andhe said this, and then another
family member might be upset.
Why did you tell her and youdidn't tell me?
You know?
I mean, it's like trying to geta hold of everything you know.
I finally went to an emailsystem where I just kind of
(31:13):
blasted out to everybody all thesame information.
So that was challenging.
I think just all of these caseswere circumstantial.
You know I didn't have anybodysaying I saw Billy Tamir put a
pillow over someone's face.
We did have some DNA and somenone of my cases in Dallas, but
some of the Collin County caseshad some DNA.
It's still circumstantialevidence because we're still
(31:36):
talking about percentages, butyou know it's definitely
stronger evidence than some youknow might think of.
As you know, but I didn't haveany fingerprints, I didn't have
DNA, I didn't have a video ofhim, you know, actually doing
these crimes.
So those types of challenges,and then you know in the end,
when you're kind of done withthe cases, you have to do
something with the remainingcases.
We had to dismiss the cases andso that caused some angst among
(31:59):
some of the family membersbecause their cases weren't
heard and I get that.
But you know we had to do, wehad to move on, and those were
the decisions we had to make.
Presenting the evidence therewasn't.
Everything kind of wentaccording to our plan, like we
didn't find any real challengesAll of our witnesses it was one
of the cases where if I called awitness, they said, when do you
need me, I'll be there, kind ofthing, which was very
(32:20):
encouraging.
We had good support staff hereat the Dallas DA's office.
I had a great investigatorhelping me out.
I had a great trial team.
I had an appellate attorney,jacqueline O'Connor Lambert.
She was with me througheverything.
Dimitri Anagnostas, connorLambert, she was with me through
everything.
Dimitri Anagnostas, he did allmy phone stuff.
He's an expert on that.
The second trial and the thirdtrial, da Crusoe.
(32:42):
John Crusoe actually picked thejury, so he sat next to me
throughout the whole trialsthere, which you know has
another layer of stress.
You've already got a hung juryand then now you've got your
boss sitting right next to youand making sure, but he's he's
pretty much a trial dog, so heunderstands the ups and downs of
trials.
And so it turned out to be agreat experience because
(33:03):
everything did kind of kind offall in place.
Speaker 1 (33:05):
Were the families able to give impact statements
or even even any of the peoplewho survived?
Speaker 3 (33:12):
Yeah.
So unfortunately the two peoplethat survived by the time trial
came up, they were bothdeceased.
But when we were done with ourlast trial that we knew we were
going to do, I approached thejudge and I asked the judge that
not only the family typically,it's just the family members of
the people whose trial you hadare the people who get to make
victim impact statements.
(33:33):
And so we only had two familymembers, two family situations
like that.
But I asked the judge she wasobviously aware of the scope of
this that we could invite upanybody who had an indicted case
or whose case the medicalexaminers switched from natural
causes to undetermined at least,or homicide.
(33:53):
But they have an opportunity toaddress Mr Tremere and she
agreed to that.
So one day we brought Mr Tremeredown to the central jury room
and any family member who fellin that category who wished to
address him got two or threeminutes to say what was on their
mind.
It was a pretty impactful day.
I got to sit in the front rowand he's sitting up there with
(34:15):
his lawyer, and one afteranother these family members
came up and kind of unleashed onhim what their thoughts and
feelings are and how he'sdestroyed their lives and so he
had no reaction to it.
He just kind of sat there asmost lawyers would encourage
their clients just to sit thereand not have any reaction,
because if a case did overturnand he had a reaction or he did
(34:36):
something, I would use thatagainst them the next time
around, obviously.
Speaker 1 (34:39):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (34:40):
And so he just had that soulless look in his eye
that he had throughout all theother proceedings, and so
there's some closure there.
I don't know if it reallyreally in the end closes out.
You know, obviously, all theirfeelings, so they still have the
tragedy of their loved ones.
That's the last few minutes oftheir days, but at least the
last few minutes of their life.
But at least the opportunitywas there if they wanted to take
(35:02):
advantage of it.
Speaker 1 (35:03):
So, having gone through this process and worked
with these families, has itgiven you any ideas or thoughts
about what can be done toprevent these types of crimes
against people who are elderly,in particular women?
I assume these women werewidowed.
Speaker 3 (35:23):
Yeah, at least everyone that yes, there was
there was.
They were living in their houseby themselves.
Speaker 1 (35:27):
So if they, if they, were widowed or, if I don't know
, if any were separated, andmaybe there was Sure.
Speaker 3 (35:33):
But they were, they were living by themselves and
you know it's.
It's a tough thing to say.
I mean, obviously you could,you could say you know, don't
ever open your door, don't evergo outside, don't ever do all
these things.
But they're active citizens, Imean they, they, they're seniors
that have a life and so youcan't live that way and they
wouldn't want to live that way.
So but there are definitelythings you can do a little bit
(35:54):
better, you know.
I mean, and for one, if I hadelderly parents that I had to
put in the home, I would checkthat home out top to bottom.
You know what is the securitymeasures there?
How are they making sure thatthey're?
You know they can say they havetop notch security, but show me
it.
You know what are.
What are the procedures forwhen I come to visit my family?
Now they could do things wherethey give a lanyard to regular
(36:18):
visitors, you know.
So that when a citizen or aresident looks and sees, ok,
that is a issued lanyard that mydaughter is given, so they have
, they don't have to go throughthese procedures of checking in
every time.
You know kind of thing.
But if they don't have that,they don't have a sticker that
the resident should be able toflag.
That, you know.
And then and then, once thatflag has gone up, they need to
(36:41):
do something about it, becausethere was, there was some times
where suspicious people werenoted on premises and nothing
was done about it.
You know they, the homes, Ithink were more concerned with,
you know, making money and notstirring up the pot.
And you know, I would imagineit's a bit of a rumor mill in
those places, just like myoffice is a bit of a rumor mill
(37:01):
and maybe where you work is abit of a rumor mill.
So they don't want to stir upfalse information, which I get,
but they had solid information,I think, for what I could see,
that there was, there were someproblems and there were some
people on premises.
At least one person on premisesshouldn't have been there.
And so making sure thatwherever you you choose to to
(37:23):
because I think these places aregreat, I mean I I had my mother
and my, my wife's grandmotherwas in one of these homes.
I thought it was a greatenvironment for her.
There was other people her ageand most of these people say
that about their you know theyhave like-minded individuals
with the same interests in life,that you know activities for
them to do.
So you want to encourage themto find those places that they
(37:45):
feel comfortable in, but at thesame time the security has to be
there.
Now for the, I had three victims, four victims that were private
residents.
I mean there's nothing reallyto do there, just be more aware
of your surroundings.
But I don't think there'sanything that Ms Harris could
have done.
I think he approached her whenshe pulled into her garage.
I think Ms Brooks was probablyunloading her groceries at the
(38:06):
same time, because her grocerieswere out when he approached her
.
And so I mean there's reallylittle you can do, not only for
an elderly person but foranybody in that situation, if
the individual is dead set oncommitting those types of crimes
.
Speaker 2 (38:20):
We are a vulnerable society.
Speaker 3 (38:21):
It's just we have to trust in the good faith of our
common man, and sometimes thatdoesn't exist.
Speaker 1 (38:26):
It's unfortunate, but at least in this case it was
prosecuted and justice has beenserved, and I really appreciate
you being at the conference thisweek and sharing this story
with us.
Thank you for being here.
Speaker 3 (38:38):
My pleasure.
Thank you very much.
Speaker 1 (38:41):
Thanks so much for listening.
Until next time, stay safe.
The 2024 Conference on CrimesAgainst Women has ended, but you
can read all about it on ourwebsite, conferencecaworg, and
begin planning now for the 2025conference that will be held in
Dallas, texas, may 19th throughthe 22nd.
Stay up to date on everythingrelated to the conference by
(39:02):
following us on social media atnationalccaw.
So well, thank you again.
And this will be released in acouple weeks, and to me it
sounds like it was kind of acondensed version of the case
(39:23):
study that you did yeah, I thinkthat's it's the easiest thing
for me to do.
Speaker 3 (39:26):
It's tough to you know, to put this you know into
a powerpoint you know, and totry to present it because
there's so many different.
There's a there's a documentaryout right now called pillowcase
murders and they they tell thestory kind of in a different, in
a different fashion.
You know they focus a lot onthe homes kind of thing.
I'm not as much on the trials.
(39:47):
I just found out there'sanother one that just came out
on another TV show.
It's got me in it a little bitmore.
That really goes through thekind of the actions of Mr
Tremere.
So hopefully the story is goingto get out a little bit more
and maybe get some changes thatneed to happen.
Speaker 1 (40:03):
Yeah, yeah.
Well, I'll keep an eye on thatbecause I do have an elderly
mother who she actually liveswith me and my husband and my
kids and so many of the thingsthat you're saying sound like
the actions of a woman who'snearly immobile and walks with a
walker and, you know, takes hergood old time coming up the
(40:24):
driveway and doing her thing.
And I've told her repeatedlywhen I am not home, you are not
supposed to answer the door.
I don't care who it is.
The kids know how to get in thehouse by going, you know, in
another door.
You do not have to answer thatdoor and she still answers it.
And it's so easy to overwhelmor overtake a person like that.
(40:48):
I mean, you know I'm a littlefive foot three person and I
could tackle my mother becauseshe'd just tip right over.
You know she's got a walker andshe's very unsteady, so I can't
.
I can't think of like how I'mgoing to go home and fix this
situation without scaring her todeath.
Speaker 3 (41:05):
Yeah, ms Bartell, and in her deposition she said that
she's like you know, there wasthis rapping at my door and they
tell me I'm supposed to ask whois it?
But I've got hearing aids, Ican't hear, and most likely my
friends can't hear that I'masking the question either, you
know.
And so it's like what are yousupposed to do?
And Ms Lawson, the other ladythat survived, she was, I think,
(41:26):
four foot 10, four foot 11,maybe, and she couldn't even get
to her peephole, like herpeephole, like her peephole was
too hot, so she wasn't that wayof looking out, you know and you
just wouldn't.
Speaker 1 (41:40):
You think you're in an enclosed area.
There's only good people aregoing to be in there, you know?
I mean, I can only assume thatthat he had to have been
watching them to make sure therewas the presence of no um, no
husband or um and anyone elsewho was living in the house.
Speaker 3 (41:51):
Yeah, absolutely yeah because I think you know, at
some of the times during theWalmarts I watched a lot of
Walmart video.
I mean lots of Walmart.
I had three months yeah.
So yeah, I would see him pullin and then park, and then I
would see an elderly woman getinto her car and then he would
drive away and she would driveaway and his car would peel off
after, and then 10 minutes laterhe would come back and park
(42:14):
again and then he would do itagain.
Speaker 2 (42:19):
And so something spooked him.
Speaker 3 (42:20):
Either she went to a different store or there was
something in her environmentthat it wasn't conducive for him
to attack that person.
So many people are fortunatethat they didn't fall victim to
him too.
Speaker 1 (42:27):
For sure.
Speaker 3 (42:28):
Yeah.
The subject matter of this podcast will address
difficult topics multiple formsof violence, and identity-based
discrimination and harassment.
We acknowledge that thiscontent may be difficult and
have listed specific contentwarnings in each episode
description to help create apositive, safe experience for
all listeners.
Speaker 2 (00:21):
In this country, 31 million crimes 31 million crimes
are reported every year.
That is one every second.
Out of that, every 24 minutesthere is a murder.
Every five minutes there is arape.
Every two to five minutes thereis a sexual assault.
Every nine seconds in thiscountry, a woman is assaulted by
someone who told her that heloved her, by someone who told
(00:42):
her it was her fault, by someonewho tries to tell the rest of
us it's none of our business andI am proud to stand here today
with each of you to call thatperpetrator a liar.
Speaker 1 (00:53):
Welcome to the podcast on Crimes Against Women.
I'm Maria McMullin.
We're recording at the 2024Conference on Crimes Against
Women and my guest today isGlenn Fitzmartin, a deputy
administrator at the DallasCounty District Attorney's
Office.
Mr Fitzmartin supervises all ofthe felony trial courts, the
white-collar crime, elder abuse,fraud, gang community response
(01:15):
and organized crime units andthe investigator corps.
He has tried hundreds of cases,many of them high profile.
Mr Fitzmartin joined the DallasDA's office in 1997.
After four years, and rising tothe level of felony prosecutor,
he left the office to start hisown law practice.
In 2006, mr Fitzmartin wasappointed judge of Dallas County
(01:37):
Criminal Court number three tofulfill the term of the then
vacated seat.
In 2007, he returned to theDallas County DA's office as a
felony prosecutor.
He currently serves as thechair of the training committee
for the Texas District andCounty Attorneys Association.
Glenn, welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 3 (01:56):
Hi, thank you for having me here.
Speaker 1 (01:57):
Yeah, so we're here at the Conference on Crimes
Against Women, where youpresented a case study about the
Tamir Mir case, and, for peoplenot familiar with that case,
tell us what happened.
Speaker 3 (02:08):
So Billy Chamirmeir was an individual that stalked
and preyed upon elderlyindividuals in the mainly the
Dallas area.
It was Dallas County, collinCounty, kind of in between, if
you're familiar with Dallas inbetween the toll road and 75 and
kind of up going north ofDallas up into the Collin County
, frisco Plano area.
(02:29):
He was indicted for.
Eventually, when he was caught,he was indicted for over 20
capital murders, for the deathof elderly women.
His modus operandi I guess whatyou you would say is he would
go into their homes, gain accessthrough a number of different
(02:50):
methods, put them down on theground or on their bed, smother
them with a pillow and then taketheir jewelry.
Speaker 1 (02:57):
And you are the prosecutor in that case, right,
or you were?
Speaker 3 (03:01):
Yes, I was the lead prosecutor in that case for
Dallas County.
Speaker 1 (03:06):
And so how did you all go about figuring out that
he was this serial murderer?
Speaker 3 (03:12):
The cases, the amount that I'm telling you about,
spanned over two years, from2016 to 2018.
The way he was eventuallycaught it was mainly the work of
the Plano Police Department.
They had a number of ladies whowere found deceased in a
certain resident community inthe Plano area called Preston
(03:32):
Place, and it was in March of2018.
And a number of times thesefamily members would call in and
say these ladies are found dead.
They're healthy.
They were active just daysbefore, hours before, and then
they would notice that certainthings that should be on their
(03:53):
person wedding rings, engagementrings, rings, sentimental rings
that they wore every day oftheir life are missing.
And so it started piquing theinterest of the Plano Police
Department.
And on March 19th of 2018, therewas another attack on an
individual by the name of MaryBartell.
And it just so happened thatMary survived.
She had a pacemaker.
We think that might have helpedher to survive the attack.
(04:15):
So when she came to one of herneighbors who was checking on
her they were supposed to go toan exercise class found her.
She was passed out.
They called paramedics, wereable to revive her.
She was able to tell her storythat an individual was knocking
on her door, came to her door,pushed the door in and told her
to get on the bed, put a pillowover her face and she passed out
.
When she woke up she wasmissing rings.
(04:36):
So that really started theinvestigation in full force.
They knew exactly what wasgoing on.
It wasn't a situation wheresomeone had died and someone had
stolen their stuff.
Someone was actually killingthese ladies.
So once the police, the PlanoPolice Department, get the
information from Mary Bartell,they start in earnest to try to
figure out what's going on,especially at this one home
(04:56):
there in Preston Place in Plano.
Because, like I said, they hada couple of other suspected
situations where jewelry ismissing off of these individuals
.
And this was a couple of daysbefore, weeks before In fact,
the date that they encounteredMary Bartell.
They sent a police officer towait at her door as they started
to do the investigation,because she had said that a man
had come in and so they wantedto secure the crime scene there.
(05:18):
Well, across the door from her,right across the breezeway,
another individual came to checkup on her mom and she was found
deceased inside that apartment.
Speaker 1 (05:28):
Oh, my goodness.
Speaker 3 (05:29):
So Billy Chimamere had killed her the day before
and so now Plano PoliceDepartment is obviously they've
they've sent every individualthat's not has time on their
hands to work on this case,which is a huge amount of
resources that they put into it.
They went everywhere they couldfind so they knew they had a
suspect.
There was a suspicious person'scall that had come in a few
(05:53):
days before to the home.
An individual was at the samePreston place picking up his mom
, had seen an individual earlierin the parking lot.
When he picked up his mom hetook his mom to a doctor's
appointment, brought her backthe individual still sitting in
the parking lot.
So he was suspicious, went upand had an encounter with the
(06:14):
individual and the guy said hewas just here to he was waiting
on someone, but it still didn'tseem right.
So man's name was Richard Plink.
He went and got the licenseplate and the make of the model
of the car.
So that information made it tothe Plano Police Department.
Shortly after they discoveredMary Bartell and they started
doing research on that car cameback with an accident report and
(06:35):
the name on the accident reportwas Billy Tremier.
It had just been really threeor four days before this
incident His car was in theDallas Pound and that gave him a
phone number.
I gave him an address to go andlook at and they sat up on his
house.
When he showed up at his house,that goes from evening of the
19th to the morning of the 20th.
(06:55):
By the time they get to hishouse on the 20th, his parking,
his designated parking spot, isempty.
They sit up on it.
They dedicated like six orseven undercover detectives to
sit and wait there.
They were looking in everyknown location that they could
possibly think of for BillyTremere.
But, later that evening I'd sayit's probably around 530, six
(07:16):
o'clock a car does show up.
They spy someone who's drivingit.
That matches the description ofBilly Tremere.
He goes to a dumpster not farfrom his parking spot, spends a
little time there there'sactually a detective sitting
right next to that dumpster soknows that he's there, hears
some banging.
But then he parks into hisregular parking spot.
They approach him, take him outof his car In his hands he's
(07:37):
clutching money, a stack of $2bills, jewelry, his phone.
They take him out, put him downon the ground.
They look into, they go back tothe dumpster and there's a
jewelry box inside the dumpster.
When they look inside thedumpster and the jewelry box
they find a name of anindividual by the name of Luti
Vang, another name tag of a WHarris.
(08:00):
They start looking into thatinformation and they come up
with a Luti Harris who lives inDallas.
They alert Dallas PoliceDepartment to go and do a
welfare check on Ms Harris.
When they kick in her doorbecause she doesn't answer the
door and it's all locked up,they find her deceased inside
her house.
So now they have Mary Bartelltelling us exactly what happened
(08:23):
and they have jewelry from anindividual down in Dallas who's
also deceased.
At that time, when they're doingthe investigation of Ms Harris,
they see that she had bags fromWalmart.
They look inside the bag fromWalmart, get a receipt, go back
to the Walmart that she was justat hours before.
And on the video checking outat the same time as she is is Mr
(08:45):
Chamirman.
He actually kind of walks toher lane, looks at her, goes
back, checks out.
He leaves the store about aminute before she does, leaves
the parking lot about twominutes before she does.
But we had them there both atthe same time, same location.
Speaker 1 (08:59):
So I'm practically speechless at the MO of this guy
.
Approximately how many womenhad been murdered before law
enforcement caught on that theyhad a serial offender?
Speaker 3 (09:13):
Well, they didn't.
I guess we had 13 indictmentsin Dallas spanning back from
2016.
Collin County indicted, Ibelieve, nine capital murders
when it all was said and done,and then we had two attempted
capital murders.
There's two individuals thatlived along with Ms Bartell.
There was Kay Lawson, who was aFrisco case.
She also survived, and so noware there more potential victims
(09:36):
out there?
I would say yes.
Once they had Mr Chamirmer incustody, they talked to him.
They had his phone.
They were able to get phonerecords back to 2016 initially,
and so they looked at allunattended deaths in the Dallas
area going back to January of2016.
So what they were looking foris anybody that had an
(09:58):
unattended meeting, that therewasn't anybody around them,
obviously elderly individualwho's living on their own,
active in a couple of thesedifferent retirement communities
on the active side of it, notin like the hospice side or the
caregiving side.
Speaker 1 (10:12):
Right.
Speaker 3 (10:12):
They look back and what they're looking for is his
phone or are we able to put himkind of in the general area?
Was there a deceased individualwho was missing jewelry?
And then was there a sale of MrShamir Mir around that time?
We had some records from somepawn shops that showed his
transactions and also he woulduse online sales platforms like
(10:34):
OfferUp and so we look back tosee any of his transactions
around that time that couldpotentially match to the
description of the jewelry thatwas missing.
So it was a yeoman's effort onall these law enforcement
agencies to go back and reopenany case back in that timeframe
to see if we could come up withany cases, and that's how we
were able to discover all ofthese other cases.
Speaker 1 (10:56):
Yeah, and so I mean, from everything you've described
, it kind of sounds like thisshould have been a slam dunk,
but that is not what happened,right Like this should have been
a slam dunk, but that is notwhat happened, right?
Speaker 3 (11:06):
No, we did so we tried him after a couple of
years, we discovered it was 2018.
I think my first trial was in2021.
There was a lot that happenedin between those two things.
There was time to investigate,time for coordination amongst
all these law enforcementagencies, time for coordination
amongst all these lawenforcement agencies.
(11:26):
We decided we were going to tryhim for two cases, two separate
cases, so that we would makesure that he would die in prison
.
Basically, two capital lifesentences.
We had selected the DAs of bothcounties because there's cases
in Colleen County, cases inDallas County had decided that
Dallas would go first.
We had what we believed at thetime to be the strongest case,
which was Ms Harris's case,because he's caught with her
property shortly after being inclose proximity to her on video.
(11:48):
We also selected a case out ofRichardson, mrs Brooks's case.
She was at that same Walmartwith him and his phone On that
day.
We were able to track his phonegoing to her apartment or to
her house or her condominium andso we decided we're going to
try them for these two cases.
The first trial was during COVID.
We were in COVID restrictionsso everybody was wearing masks,
(12:11):
everybody had to social distance, the jury had to social
distance.
It was kind of nerve wrackingthat my victim's families were
not allowed in the courtroombecause that's where the jury
was sitting, was where usuallythe spectators would sit.
It was kind of awkward.
They were to my left, mywitnesses to the right, the
defendant was right in front ofme.
(12:32):
We presented what we thought wasa very strong case but we had
one juror hold out on us.
At the end, after a shortamount of time, she decided she
was not going to deliberateanymore with the rest of the
jury, and so after we went homethat evening, after a couple of
hours of deliberations or as thejury was out, returned the next
morning and they kept sendingnotes out saying we were
(12:53):
hopelessly deadlocked and wecannot get this one juror to
come around and make a decision,and so the legal ramifications
of that is that the judge has todeclare a mistrial and then
basically we had to start allover Wow, and that's just on the
Dallas County side.
That was just on the Dallas.
Yes, we were the.
Yeah, we had his body, we hadthe case.
So during that trial I put onnot only the evidence of Ms
(13:17):
Harris's case but I was alsoallowed to put on the evidence
for Ms Brooks's case and.
Ms Bartell's case, the woman Itold you about earlier who
survived.
Speaker 2 (13:25):
I took her deposition early on.
Speaker 3 (13:27):
Because of her elderly, advanced years, I was
afraid that as the caseprogressed on that, you know, if
she were to succumb to anillness or was not capable of
coming to testify, I wanted topreserve her testimony, which
turned out to be a good decision.
She had deceased before thetrial came about.
So the law doesn't generallyallow you to talk about other
(13:48):
crimes during one case until youget to the punishment phase.
But because this was acircumstantial case, in order to
show identity to his motive,his planning, those types of
things you are allowed to getinto some other cases and that's
what we were able to put onthose other two cases in that
trial.
But it didn't.
It didn't work out for that onejuror.
But we decided right away, Imean, we weren't going to stop.
(14:09):
We had promised two convictionsand we were going to keep going
until we got two convictions.
So we were able to try the same, the same indictment Ms
Harris's case again.
We just had to wait a fewmonths to get the transcript put
together.
Speaker 1 (14:19):
And so both trials had a successful outcome for the
prosecution.
Speaker 3 (14:22):
Yeah, the next, the second time around, after I
think it was probably less than45 minutes, that jury came back
with a guilty.
And then, a few months afterthat, we tried Ms Brooks' case
and after about 30 minutes Ithink it was that jury came back
with a guilty.
So it was just really just aone juror hang up on this,
because I even had the alternatejurors in all those cases were
(14:44):
ready to convict him as well.
Speaker 1 (14:46):
Yeah.
So then what was the sentencing?
You got two life sentences.
Speaker 3 (14:50):
Two capital life sentences.
So in Texas that means that youdo not get out of prison.
When they say life in prison,it's life without the
possibility of parole.
Speaker 1 (15:00):
Yeah, that's probably for the best here.
So we talked a lot about MrChamir Mir and what his actions
were and his behaviors.
Let's talk about the victimsand what made women of that age
group so vulnerable and justgood prey for a predator like
this one.
Speaker 3 (15:20):
I think in our society today we are probably
less likely to, you know, wantto challenge those individuals
that are around us for fear thatwe might offend them, you know,
or to come across like we'renot accepting of everybody, and
so I think that that might bepart of this, I think, the fact
that you know they might havebeen more trusting of a stranger
(15:40):
than maybe they should be.
He was pretty well accomplished.
He did do home health care atone point in time, so he was
able to, I think, communicatepretty well with individuals he
was able to get access to.
The two cases I tried were fromprivate residences, but a score
of these were at active livingretirement communities.
So there's a place, edgemere inDallas, which is a very nice
(16:06):
environment.
There was two indictments outof that place.
There's probably a third murderout of that place as well.
The medical examiner did notswitch Dr Sinclair's case toa
homicide and so we did notindict that one.
There's Parkview is in Frisco.
There was two capital murdersout of there and an attempted
capital murder out of there.
(16:27):
I spoke about Preston Place,that's in Plano.
There was, I want to say Idon't know the number in front
of me, but there was a number ofdeaths there six or seven there
, and then at Traditions inDallas there was a number of
deaths there as well.
And he was able to have access,kind of unfettered access, to
these places.
He would just kind of walk inand be able to walk among those
(16:48):
halls without anybody evenstopping him or asking him
really any questions.
And at Edgemere they were kindof on to him.
There was a security guardthere.
They kind of figured out thathe was at least stealing from
people.
I had thought that maybe hemight be involved in some of the
deaths, but nothing really evercame of that.
The Holmes did not really doanything with that, as far as
(17:08):
you know.
Police might have been involvedbut they didn't realize that
there was these connections tothese other cases.
Speaker 1 (17:15):
You know when you call a police officer out on a
death.
Speaker 3 (17:16):
They're working that one case and they don't have any
way of really knowing thatthere was one a month before or
a month before that, becauseit's a different shift and a
different group of people, adifferent, you know, responding
officer.
It just so happens that Planowas able to figure it out later
on.
But I think I think the homesare definitely somewhat
responsible in that they couldhave had a better security
(17:39):
system.
They rave about their securitysystems but you know doors get
left ajar, you know the gatesaren't working.
There's no cameras.
There was no.
I didn't have cameras.
Edgemere had some cameras therebut, like traditions, only had
like cameras at the entries andexits but not on the floors.
You know where he's able to justkind of walk up and down and
they had so many people comethrough there who weren't
(18:00):
legitimate home health care, soyou don't even know who's on
your campus, you know, becausethey're just able to kind of
come in and out.
We try to get some changes inthe legislature I helped.
There's a group of ladies whoare kind of combined now
together victims of Mr Tremierwho have a support group and a
really a political actioncommittee almost, where they're
(18:21):
working out to try to get thingschanged.
And that was one of the changesthat I went down and testified
at the legislature to try tohelp them out to get some
changes.
One thing I thought that wouldreally work out well is if they
would just have a.
You know, you go to a school,you have to give your driver's
license.
You get a sticker to walkaround the school that says
you're supposed to be there.
But they were fighting us.
The lobbyists were fighting uson that, saying that these
(18:41):
individuals want their freedomand they don't want to have all
these constraints at their homes.
Speaker 1 (18:56):
And I'd like to take a poll of those citizens you
know and actually see if that'strue or not.
Yeah, yeah, I kind of thoughtof the school example myself.
You know, today it's veryrestricted access to our schools
, right, and so there's a ringdoorbell and you have to show
your license and there's a wholeprocess and procedure of
signing a child out or intoschool during the day.
And one would think that inliving facilities like the ones
you described, visitors wouldsign in and out.
(19:19):
You know, we do that in lots ofplaces.
We do it in office buildings.
Speaker 3 (19:24):
Yeah, I think there's far more secure areas than
these.
These are vulnerableindividuals, you know.
I mean, they've brought us sofar in our society and done so
much for us and yet we're justkind of ignoring them here at
the end.
And I think that those types ofthings can be done, but I don't
know if it's a profit thing.
I'm not really sure what theholdup would be there but maybe
(19:46):
it's just the information thatisn't out there for people to
understand.
I mean, you see school shootingsall the time, so unfortunately
we're almost numb to it.
Now it's like not that youdon't see it as this, as
horrible as it really is, andmaybe now with this story maybe
there is some change that cancome about it.
But there still doesn't seem tobe that much interest in this
(20:06):
vulnerable part of our society.
Speaker 1 (20:08):
So to those points, then, since you worked so
closely on this case, is it?
What's your opinion about themotivation?
Was it financial?
Was it gender based?
What, how?
What do you think motivated him?
Speaker 3 (20:24):
Yeah, I spent a lot of time thinking about that.
You know, he's not your typicalserial killer and maybe that's
why the story didn't reallygarner as much interest as some
of our other.
You know, almost everybody'sheard of Ted Bundy or those John
Wayne Gacy, you know, maybebecause of their victims or
things of that nature, and maybethere is some other
psychological kind of interestthat people might have in those
(20:47):
types of individuals, whereas Ireally do think it's just greed
that was the true motivator ofBilly Chimur.
I did never come acrossanything where it was any kind
of a sexual thing or anythinglike that.
It just seemed to really justbe greed.
Now I think, psychologically,we'd love to psychologically
diagnose him and have experts goand look at him to see how he's
(21:09):
able to just totally disregardhuman life, to just be so kind
of caught up in his own desiresthat this individual who he
supposedly has been trained totake care of, you know, in his
background, can just be just anobject of them to fulfill his
own desires.
And so I think that's hismotivation, I think.
(21:31):
And then once he gets that, Ithink he just was picking on the
weakest people he could pick onthat have the most for him to
gain from.
You know, maybe if he picked on, you know, eight or
nine-year-old children might beas able to fight back as much as
my 91-year-old four-foot-eight.
You know victims, but they'renot going to have rings and
(21:52):
jewelry and things that he canprofit from, and so I mean it's
sad because, you wear thiswedding ring or this engagement
ring or a bracelet that someonegave you to remind you of your
widowed husband, or something ofthat nature, and now you're, I
guess, expected that youshouldn't wear it out in public
because someone like him mightsee it.
I mean, it's just sad.
You know and he knew the placesto go this Walmart that he
(22:16):
found two of my victims fromI've spent many time going to
that Walmart, just justdifferent times of the day, and
it is just teeming with elderlyindividuals and he would park in
a way that he just could seethe handicapped parking spots.
I have video of him coming inand out, uh, and so he knew
exactly who.
I've got a video of him uhhelping a woman on the day he
(22:39):
killed, uh, miss brooks earlierthat day.
He is helping that another ladyjust get a shopping cart, you
know, and I've got video of himand they're all smiling and he's
helping her unhitch a shoppingcart and it just kind of shows
just how well he is atcommunicating.
He's got this big smile on hisface and being able to connect
(23:00):
with these individuals thatmaybe trusted him 10 seconds,
you know, when he knocks ontheir door 10 seconds before to
trust him, to open the door tohim, and then he turns on them
like that.
There's a couple of storieswhere he was posing, as you know
, maintenance individuals forfor the different facilities and
checking on leaks and thingslike that.
Speaker 1 (23:18):
He's very good at what he did.
Speaker 3 (23:20):
I mean, it's just he was very good at what he did.
He was.
He went under the radar, hekilled here and then, when he
kind of got ruffled there, hemoved to another location,
killed there for a while, thenmoved on to another location,
killed there, different agencies, different departments.
I think he just thought hewould never get caught.
Speaker 1 (23:36):
Yeah, it sounds like he, as you said, picked on the
most vulnerable people he couldfind and assumed he would always
be able to get away with it.
Speaker 3 (23:46):
Absolutely yeah, he made between the first trial
that was hung and the secondtrial where he was convicted, he
went on a podcast and gotinterviewed and then also gave
an interview to the DallasMorning News reporter and in
that he was very brazen and hesaid I'm never going to the
penitentiary.
I didn't do this, I'm innocent.
They don't have the evidence onme.
(24:06):
You know my family owned health.
His sister ran a health homehealth care business.
You know, none of none of herclients have ever turned up dead
.
So how could I possibly, youknow, be the one who did this?
Now he might have beenemboldened by the hung jury, but
you know everybody everybodywatched the trial was surprised
about the hung jury, thecommentators on the TV and
(24:27):
things of that nature.
So he probably shouldn't havebeen as bracing as he was, but
you know.
Speaker 1 (24:32):
Did he ever ultimately confess or offer any
additional information about whyhe did it or what other victims
there might be?
Speaker 3 (24:42):
No, when he was first arrested, the police officers
the detectives from Dallas andthe detectives from Plano came
in and talked to him, asked himabout the specific evidence they
had.
They had some pretty goodevidence on him even at that
short amount of time from arrestto interview, which was just
hours.
He had given up his phone andon his phone was a picture of
the ring that Mary Bartell woreon her finger for 50 years and
(25:05):
her family had identified thathe'd taken a picture to sell it
online.
Speaker 2 (25:09):
The family had identified that.
Speaker 3 (25:10):
So the police officers are asking him about
that specific ring when did youget this?
Because it came off of a victim.
He said no, no, no, I boughtthat a couple of days before in
Garland, but he could never comeup with who he bought it from.
He had the keys to Lou Harris'shouse in his cup holder of his
car and they were asking himabout that.
He goes oh, I bought a jewelrybox from a man on the street and
(25:32):
he had that.
Those were in his jewelry box.
I don't know why I kept thekeys.
So he kept deflecting oneverything.
A couple of days later the Planopolice and the Frisco police go
back in and talk to him anothertime and now they have phone
data so they're able to trackhis phone everywhere and show
him you were at these locationsat this time.
He goes no, that's not me,that's not, I couldn't have done
(25:53):
that.
And he had this stack of twodollar bills from Miss Harris's
house and she she would use thatas a gimmick.
She would kind of give twodollar bills out when she
traveled to people.
She thought it was kind of aninteresting thing to do, so she
would go to the bank and get awhole stack of them.
He said that he bought those $2bills off a man at Fort Worth a
week before.
And the detective asked him youknow, why are we?
(26:16):
How much do you buy these $2bills for?
So I bought them for $2.50.
I was going to sell them for $3.
I mean things you could get atthe bank for $2, right, Right.
And then we told him you know,we have your phone data and your
phone never goes to Fort Worth,never, never, traveled there.
(26:37):
He said no, that's, that's,that's where I went.
So I had even had anopportunity to sit down with him
at one time to see if he wouldconfess to to these things,
which is kind of uncommon.
His lawyers were there, but Ilaid out my whole case to him
and all the cases and all theindictments and all the facts
that I had to try to get him tonot have to go through trials,
to get him to actually confessand to admit to all this.
And he turned me down and hesaid that wasn't him, he just
didn't do it.
So now he never did and we'llnever have an opportunity to ask
(26:59):
him now and he never willbecause he died in prison.
So his case is shut.
We'll never really have theanswer to how many for sure that
he prayed him on.
Speaker 1 (27:07):
So when did he pass away that he?
Speaker 3 (27:09):
prayed him on.
So when did he pass away?
So we tried him two times.
After the third time the casesthen went to Collin County for
them to decide what they wantedto do.
They determined they weren'tgoing to seek the death penalty
because he was eligible for thedeath penalty.
They decided that I believesometime in 2023, like maybe
August of 2023.
So September, I think September19th of 2023, I get a call from
(27:33):
one of the wardens at his prisonthat he was at to inform me
that his Billy's Jamiro'sroommate beat him to death that
morning.
They'd only been together fortwo weeks and, according to what
the warden said, that Mr Jamirohad made some comment to his
roommate talking about theroommate's children and what he
(27:54):
would do to the roommate'schildren maybe sexual in nature
or something along those linesand the roommate, I guess, had
enough and beat him and there'ssome indication that he also had
a sharp object.
I don't really know the wholedetails about that, but beat him
and then just kind of draggedhim out of the cell and left him
for dead.
Speaker 1 (28:11):
Wow.
Ok, let's go back and talkabout the prosecution just a
little bit more.
Were there any challengesprosecuting this case or this
individual?
Speaker 3 (28:21):
There's a couple of different challenges, I think.
For one, the scope.
I mean we had four differentprimary agencies with Dallas
Police Department, richardsonPolice Department, plano Police
Department and Frisco PoliceDepartment.
We also had some other agenciesinvolved, obviously the medical
examiner's office.
We used the FBI for phones, youknow, trying to juggle all of
that information, I came ontothe case.
(28:42):
There was a differentprosecutor that was the lead
prosecutor on it.
At first I was in support.
I did go to Ms Harris's houseyou know those types of things
but I did not think it was goingto turn out to be what it
turned out to be.
I thought it was just going tobe a one time deal.
I didn't think there was anypossibility.
We had a serial killer inDallas, you know, at that time
yeah.
And so I came on to it late.
So these detectives and theseagencies had already put in so
(29:05):
many hours of research anddedication and time.
The Plano Police Departmentdedicated numerous, numerous
detectives doing backgroundsearches and trying to find
exactly everything they couldabout Billy Tamir.
He's from Kenya and so theywere going back to when he first
came to the country and lookinginto that.
Richardson had done a bunch ofwork on their cases because not
(29:27):
only did he, he had someaggravated robbery cases too and
some other types of burglarytype things that they were
looking into.
Of course Dallas is where he.
I kind of came in late and Ifelt kind of intimidated because
all these detectives knew allabout this case that I didn't
know anything about and I didn'twant to let them down and I
didn't really want to show myignorance, and so it took a lot
(29:48):
to get through all the evidenceand the discovery and what they
had kind of put together.
The other thing that'schallenging usually, as one of
the you have a capital murdercase, there's usually one family
that you have to deal with.
Here I had 13 differentfamilies just in my jurisdiction
and then I took oncommunications with a lot of the
Collin County families as well,because they were all had a
(30:10):
vested interest in theseoutcomes.
So some families wanted to have, you know, a lot more contact
than other families.
Some I just kind of told themabout the hot topics that were
happening and they would neverreally circle back around.
Some didn't want to becommunicated with at all really.
But then there were some thatyou know they wanted I was, I
would be talking to someoneevery three or four days about
(30:31):
what's going on, and you know wehit COVID and so COVID put a
big delay.
We had a change ofadministration One DA when it
came in.
Another DA came in afterwards,and so I would try to
communicate.
But when you sit down you haveto call 13 families when
something different is happening, and I have other obligations
(30:53):
too, and so you start a phonecall in the morning and then
maybe you don't get to thesomeone in the afternoon.
But they, they became verytight group and so they would
text each other all day long.
Well, I just talked to Glenn andhe said this, and then another
family member might be upset.
Why did you tell her and youdidn't tell me?
You know?
I mean, it's like trying to geta hold of everything you know.
I finally went to an emailsystem where I just kind of
(31:13):
blasted out to everybody all thesame information.
So that was challenging.
I think just all of these caseswere circumstantial.
You know I didn't have anybodysaying I saw Billy Tamir put a
pillow over someone's face.
We did have some DNA and somenone of my cases in Dallas, but
some of the Collin County caseshad some DNA.
It's still circumstantialevidence because we're still
(31:36):
talking about percentages, butyou know it's definitely
stronger evidence than some youknow might think of.
As you know, but I didn't haveany fingerprints, I didn't have
DNA, I didn't have a video ofhim, you know, actually doing
these crimes.
So those types of challenges,and then you know in the end,
when you're kind of done withthe cases, you have to do
something with the remainingcases.
We had to dismiss the cases andso that caused some angst among
(31:59):
some of the family membersbecause their cases weren't
heard and I get that.
But you know we had to do, wehad to move on, and those were
the decisions we had to make.
Presenting the evidence therewasn't.
Everything kind of wentaccording to our plan, like we
didn't find any real challengesAll of our witnesses it was one
of the cases where if I called awitness, they said, when do you
need me, I'll be there, kind ofthing, which was very
(32:20):
encouraging.
We had good support staff hereat the Dallas DA's office.
I had a great investigatorhelping me out.
I had a great trial team.
I had an appellate attorney,jacqueline O'Connor Lambert.
She was with me througheverything.
Dimitri Anagnostas, connorLambert, she was with me through
everything.
Dimitri Anagnostas, he did allmy phone stuff.
He's an expert on that.
The second trial and the thirdtrial, da Crusoe.
(32:42):
John Crusoe actually picked thejury, so he sat next to me
throughout the whole trialsthere, which you know has
another layer of stress.
You've already got a hung juryand then now you've got your
boss sitting right next to youand making sure, but he's he's
pretty much a trial dog, so heunderstands the ups and downs of
trials.
And so it turned out to be agreat experience because
(33:03):
everything did kind of kind offall in place.
Speaker 1 (33:05):
Were the families able to give impact statements
or even even any of the peoplewho survived?
Speaker 3 (33:12):
Yeah.
So unfortunately the two peoplethat survived by the time trial
came up, they were bothdeceased.
But when we were done with ourlast trial that we knew we were
going to do, I approached thejudge and I asked the judge that
not only the family typically,it's just the family members of
the people whose trial you hadare the people who get to make
victim impact statements.
(33:33):
And so we only had two familymembers, two family situations
like that.
But I asked the judge she wasobviously aware of the scope of
this that we could invite upanybody who had an indicted case
or whose case the medicalexaminers switched from natural
causes to undetermined at least,or homicide.
(33:53):
But they have an opportunity toaddress Mr Tremere and she
agreed to that.
So one day we brought Mr Tremeredown to the central jury room
and any family member who fellin that category who wished to
address him got two or threeminutes to say what was on their
mind.
It was a pretty impactful day.
I got to sit in the front rowand he's sitting up there with
(34:15):
his lawyer, and one afteranother these family members
came up and kind of unleashed onhim what their thoughts and
feelings are and how he'sdestroyed their lives and so he
had no reaction to it.
He just kind of sat there asmost lawyers would encourage
their clients just to sit thereand not have any reaction,
because if a case did overturnand he had a reaction or he did
(34:36):
something, I would use thatagainst them the next time
around, obviously.
Speaker 1 (34:39):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (34:40):
And so he just had that soulless look in his eye
that he had throughout all theother proceedings, and so
there's some closure there.
I don't know if it reallyreally in the end closes out.
You know, obviously, all theirfeelings, so they still have the
tragedy of their loved ones.
That's the last few minutes oftheir days, but at least the
last few minutes of their life.
But at least the opportunitywas there if they wanted to take
(35:02):
advantage of it.
Speaker 1 (35:03):
So, having gone through this process and worked
with these families, has itgiven you any ideas or thoughts
about what can be done toprevent these types of crimes
against people who are elderly,in particular women?
I assume these women werewidowed.
Speaker 3 (35:23):
Yeah, at least everyone that yes, there was
there was.
They were living in their houseby themselves.
Speaker 1 (35:27):
So if they, if they, were widowed or, if I don't know
, if any were separated, andmaybe there was Sure.
Speaker 3 (35:33):
But they were, they were living by themselves and
you know it's.
It's a tough thing to say.
I mean, obviously you could,you could say you know, don't
ever open your door, don't evergo outside, don't ever do all
these things.
But they're active citizens, Imean they, they, they're seniors
that have a life and so youcan't live that way and they
wouldn't want to live that way.
So but there are definitelythings you can do a little bit
(35:54):
better, you know.
I mean, and for one, if I hadelderly parents that I had to
put in the home, I would checkthat home out top to bottom.
You know what is the securitymeasures there?
How are they making sure thatthey're?
You know they can say they havetop notch security, but show me
it.
You know what are.
What are the procedures forwhen I come to visit my family?
Now they could do things wherethey give a lanyard to regular
(36:18):
visitors, you know.
So that when a citizen or aresident looks and sees, ok,
that is a issued lanyard that mydaughter is given, so they have
, they don't have to go throughthese procedures of checking in
every time.
You know kind of thing.
But if they don't have that,they don't have a sticker that
the resident should be able toflag.
That, you know.
And then and then, once thatflag has gone up, they need to
(36:41):
do something about it, becausethere was, there was some times
where suspicious people werenoted on premises and nothing
was done about it.
You know they, the homes, Ithink were more concerned with,
you know, making money and notstirring up the pot.
And you know, I would imagineit's a bit of a rumor mill in
those places, just like myoffice is a bit of a rumor mill
(37:01):
and maybe where you work is abit of a rumor mill.
So they don't want to stir upfalse information, which I get,
but they had solid information,I think, for what I could see,
that there was, there were someproblems and there were some
people on premises.
At least one person on premisesshouldn't have been there.
And so making sure thatwherever you you choose to to
(37:23):
because I think these places aregreat, I mean I I had my mother
and my, my wife's grandmotherwas in one of these homes.
I thought it was a greatenvironment for her.
There was other people her ageand most of these people say
that about their you know theyhave like-minded individuals
with the same interests in life,that you know activities for
them to do.
So you want to encourage themto find those places that they
(37:45):
feel comfortable in, but at thesame time the security has to be
there.
Now for the, I had three victims, four victims that were private
residents.
I mean there's nothing reallyto do there, just be more aware
of your surroundings.
But I don't think there'sanything that Ms Harris could
have done.
I think he approached her whenshe pulled into her garage.
I think Ms Brooks was probablyunloading her groceries at the
(38:06):
same time, because her grocerieswere out when he approached her
.
And so I mean there's reallylittle you can do, not only for
an elderly person but foranybody in that situation, if
the individual is dead set oncommitting those types of crimes
.
Speaker 2 (38:20):
We are a vulnerable society.
Speaker 3 (38:21):
It's just we have to trust in the good faith of our
common man, and sometimes thatdoesn't exist.
Speaker 1 (38:26):
It's unfortunate, but at least in this case it was
prosecuted and justice has beenserved, and I really appreciate
you being at the conference thisweek and sharing this story
with us.
Thank you for being here.
Speaker 3 (38:38):
My pleasure.
Thank you very much.
Speaker 1 (38:41):
Thanks so much for listening.
Until next time, stay safe.
The 2024 Conference on CrimesAgainst Women has ended, but you
can read all about it on ourwebsite, conferencecaworg, and
begin planning now for the 2025conference that will be held in
Dallas, texas, may 19th throughthe 22nd.
Stay up to date on everythingrelated to the conference by
(39:02):
following us on social media atnationalccaw.
So well, thank you again.
And this will be released in acouple weeks, and to me it
sounds like it was kind of acondensed version of the case
(39:23):
study that you did yeah, I thinkthat's it's the easiest thing
for me to do.
Speaker 3 (39:26):
It's tough to you know, to put this you know into
a powerpoint you know, and totry to present it because
there's so many different.
There's a there's a documentaryout right now called pillowcase
murders and they they tell thestory kind of in a different, in
a different fashion.
You know they focus a lot onthe homes kind of thing.
I'm not as much on the trials.
(39:47):
I just found out there'sanother one that just came out
on another TV show.
It's got me in it a little bitmore.
That really goes through thekind of the actions of Mr
Tremere.
So hopefully the story is goingto get out a little bit more
and maybe get some changes thatneed to happen.
Speaker 1 (40:03):
Yeah, yeah.
Well, I'll keep an eye on thatbecause I do have an elderly
mother who she actually liveswith me and my husband and my
kids and so many of the thingsthat you're saying sound like
the actions of a woman who'snearly immobile and walks with a
walker and, you know, takes hergood old time coming up the
(40:24):
driveway and doing her thing.
And I've told her repeatedlywhen I am not home, you are not
supposed to answer the door.
I don't care who it is.
The kids know how to get in thehouse by going, you know, in
another door.
You do not have to answer thatdoor and she still answers it.
And it's so easy to overwhelmor overtake a person like that.
(40:48):
I mean, you know I'm a littlefive foot three person and I
could tackle my mother becauseshe'd just tip right over.
You know she's got a walker andshe's very unsteady, so I can't
.
I can't think of like how I'mgoing to go home and fix this
situation without scaring her todeath.
Speaker 3 (41:05):
Yeah, ms Bartell, and in her deposition she said that
she's like you know, there wasthis rapping at my door and they
tell me I'm supposed to ask whois it?
But I've got hearing aids, Ican't hear, and most likely my
friends can't hear that I'masking the question either, you
know.
And so it's like what are yousupposed to do?
And Ms Lawson, the other ladythat survived, she was, I think,
(41:26):
four foot 10, four foot 11,maybe, and she couldn't even get
to her peephole, like herpeephole, like her peephole was
too hot, so she wasn't that wayof looking out, you know and you
just wouldn't.
Speaker 1 (41:40):
You think you're in an enclosed area.
There's only good people aregoing to be in there, you know?
I mean, I can only assume thatthat he had to have been
watching them to make sure therewas the presence of no um, no
husband or um and anyone elsewho was living in the house.
Speaker 3 (41:51):
Yeah, absolutely yeah because I think you know, at
some of the times during theWalmarts I watched a lot of
Walmart video.
I mean lots of Walmart.
I had three months yeah.
So yeah, I would see him pullin and then park, and then I
would see an elderly woman getinto her car and then he would
drive away and she would driveaway and his car would peel off
after, and then 10 minutes laterhe would come back and park
(42:14):
again and then he would do itagain.
Speaker 2 (42:19):
And so something spooked him.
Speaker 3 (42:20):
Either she went to a different store or there was
something in her environmentthat it wasn't conducive for him
to attack that person.
So many people are fortunatethat they didn't fall victim to
him too.
Speaker 1 (42:27):
For sure.
Speaker 3 (42:28):
Yeah.
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