(Credit: Witthaya Prasongsin/Getty Images)
The judge presiding over the first capital murder trial of alleged senior living serial killer Billy Chemirmir declared a mistrial Friday after jurors continued to be deadlocked 11-1 after two days of deliberations, the Dallas News and other media outlets reported.
Prosecutors said they plan to bring the case to trial again. In the meantime, Chemirmir remains in the Dallas County Jail, awaiting trial in several other pending cases.
Chemirmir has been indicted on 18 counts of capital murder in Dallas and Collin counties but is thought to be linked to at least 24 deaths that took place between April 2016 and March 2018 in Texas, mostly of female residents of senior living communities. He has pleaded not guilty to the charges and still is being investigated for hundreds of other unsolved deaths or attacks.
The trial that ended Friday had begun Monday and was related to the death of Lu Thi Harris, an 81-year-old woman who was found dead in her home in Dallas in March 2018.
As McKnight’s Senior Living previously reported, police believe Chemirmir posed as a maintenance worker for more than a year to gain access to residents’ living quarters and then suffocated them and stole jewelry and other items to sell at area pawn shops. Most of the deaths initially were ruled to have been from natural causes until one potential victim survived and described her attack to police.
Lawsuits filed against some of the senior living communities where Chemirmir’s alleged victims lived maintain that operators did not do enough to protect residents.
A bipartisan group of Texas lawmakers introduced bills in response to the series of suspected murders thought to be tied to Chemirmir.
