Podcast on Crimes Against Women
The Conference on Crimes Against Women (CCAW) is thrilled the announce the Podcast on Crimes Against Women (PCAW). Continuing with our fourth season, the PCAW releases new episodes every Monday. The PCAW serves as an extension of the information and topics presented at the annual Conference, providing in-depth dialogue, fresh perspectives, and relevant updates by experts in the fields of victim advocacy, criminal justice, medicine, and more. This podcast’s format hopes to create a space for topical conversations aimed to engage and educate community members on the issue of violence against women, how it impacts our daily lives, and how we can work together to create lasting cultural and systemic change.
Podcast on Crimes Against Women
Case Closed: The Capture & Conviction of Billy Chemirmir
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.
The subject matter of this podcast will address difficult topics multiple forms of violence, and identity-based discrimination and harassment. We acknowledge that this content may be difficult and have listed specific content warnings in each episode description to help create a positive, safe experience for all listeners.
Speaker 2:In this country, 31 million crimes 31 million crimes are reported every year. That is one every second. Out of that, every 24 minutes there is a murder. Every five minutes there is a rape. Every two to five minutes there is a sexual assault. Every nine seconds in this country, a woman is assaulted by someone who told her that he loved her, by someone who told her it was her fault, by someone who tries to tell the rest of us it's none of our business and I am proud to stand here today with each of you to call that perpetrator a liar.
Speaker 1:Welcome to the podcast on Crimes Against Women. I'm Maria McMullin. We're recording at the 2024 Conference on Crimes Against Women and my guest today is Glenn Fitzmartin, a deputy administrator at the Dallas County District Attorney's Office. Mr Fitzmartin supervises all of the felony trial courts, the white-collar crime, elder abuse, fraud, gang community response and organized crime units and the investigator corps. He has tried hundreds of cases, many of them high profile. Mr Fitzmartin joined the Dallas DA's office in 1997. After four years, and rising to the level of felony prosecutor, he left the office to start his own law practice. In 2006, mr Fitzmartin was appointed judge of Dallas County Criminal Court number three to fulfill the term of the then vacated seat. In 2007, he returned to the Dallas County DA's office as a felony prosecutor. He currently serves as the chair of the training committee for the Texas District and County Attorneys Association. Glenn, welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 3:Hi, thank you for having me here.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so we're here at the Conference on Crimes Against Women, where you presented a case study about the Tamir Mir case, and, for people not familiar with that case, tell us what happened.
Speaker 3:So Billy Chamirmeir was an individual that stalked and preyed upon elderly individuals in the mainly the Dallas area. It was Dallas County, collin County, kind of in between, if you're familiar with Dallas in between the toll road and 75 and kind of up going north of Dallas up into the Collin County, frisco Plano area. He was indicted for. Eventually, when he was caught, he was indicted for over 20 capital murders, for the death of elderly women. His modus operandi I guess what you you would say is he would go into their homes, gain access through a number of different methods, put them down on the ground or on their bed, smother them with a pillow and then take their jewelry.
Speaker 1:And you are the prosecutor in that case, right, or you were?
Speaker 3:Yes, I was the lead prosecutor in that case for Dallas County.
Speaker 1:And so how did you all go about figuring out that he was this serial murderer?
Speaker 3:The cases, the amount that I'm telling you about, spanned over two years, from 2016 to 2018. The way he was eventually caught it was mainly the work of the Plano Police Department. They had a number of ladies who were found deceased in a certain resident community in the Plano area called Preston Place, and it was in March of 2018. And a number of times these family members would call in and say these ladies are found dead. They're healthy. They were active just days before, hours before, and then they would notice that certain things that should be on their person wedding rings, engagement rings, rings, sentimental rings that they wore every day of their life are missing. And so it started piquing the interest of the Plano Police Department.
Speaker 3:And on March 19th of 2018, there was another attack on an individual by the name of Mary Bartell. And it just so happened that Mary survived. She had a pacemaker. We think that might have helped her to survive the attack. So when she came to one of her neighbors who was checking on her they were supposed to go to an exercise class found her. She was passed out. They called paramedics, were able to revive her. She was able to tell her story that 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 pillow over her face and she passed out. When she woke up she was missing rings.
Speaker 3:So that really started the investigation in full force. They knew exactly what was going on. It wasn't a situation where someone had died and someone had stolen their stuff. Someone was actually killing these ladies. So once the police, the Plano Police 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 there in Preston Place in Plano. Because, like I said, they had a couple of other suspected situations where jewelry is missing off of these individuals. And this was a couple of days before, weeks before In fact, the date that they encountered Mary Bartell. They sent a police officer to wait at her door as they started to do the investigation, because she had said that a man had come in and so they wanted to secure the crime scene there. Well, across the door from her, right across the breezeway, another individual came to check up on her mom and she was found deceased inside that apartment.
Speaker 1:Oh, my goodness.
Speaker 3:So Billy Chimamere had killed her the day before and so now Plano Police Department is obviously they've they've sent every individual that'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 could find so they knew they had a suspect. There was a suspicious person's call that had come in a few days before to the home. An individual was at the same Preston place picking up his mom, had seen an individual earlier in the parking lot. When he picked up his mom he took his mom to a doctor's appointment, brought her back the individual still sitting in the parking lot. So he was suspicious, went up and had an encounter with the individual and the guy said he was just here to he was waiting on someone, but it still didn't seem right. So man's name was Richard Plink. He went and got the license plate and the make of the model of the car. So that information made it to the Plano Police Department.
Speaker 3:Shortly after they discovered Mary Bartell and they started doing research on that car came back with an accident report and the name on the accident report was Billy Tremier. It had just been really three or four days before this incident His car was in the Dallas Pound and that gave him a phone number. I gave him an address to go and look 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. By the time they get to his house on the 20th, his parking, his designated parking spot, is empty. They sit up on it. They dedicated like six or seven undercover detectives to sit and wait there. They were looking in every known location that they could possibly think of for Billy Tremere.
Speaker 3:But, later that evening I'd say it's probably around 530, six o'clock a car does show up. They spy someone who's driving it. That matches the description of Billy Tremere. He goes to a dumpster not far from his parking spot, spends a little time there there's actually a detective sitting right next to that dumpster so knows that he's there, hears some banging. But then he parks into his regular parking spot. They approach him, take him out of his car In his hands he's clutching money, a stack of $2 bills, jewelry, his phone. They take him out, put him down on the ground.
Speaker 3:They look into, they go back to the dumpster and there's a jewelry box inside the dumpster. When they look inside the dumpster and the jewelry box they find a name of an individual by the name of Luti Vang, another name tag of a W Harris. They start looking into that information and they come up with a Luti Harris who lives in Dallas. They alert Dallas Police Department to go and do a welfare check on Ms Harris. When they kick in her door because she doesn't answer the door and it's all locked up, they find her deceased inside her house. So now they have Mary Bartell telling us exactly what happened and they have jewelry from an individual down in Dallas who's also deceased.
Speaker 3:At that time, when they're doing the investigation of Ms Harris, they see that she had bags from Walmart. They look inside the bag from Walmart, get a receipt, go back to the Walmart that she was just at hours before. And on the video checking out at the same time as she is is Mr Chamirman. He actually kind of walks to her lane, looks at her, goes back, checks out. He leaves the store about a minute before she does, leaves the parking lot about two minutes before she does. But we had them there both at the same time, same location.
Speaker 1:So I'm practically speechless at the MO of this guy. Approximately how many women had been murdered before law enforcement caught on that they had a serial offender?
Speaker 3:Well, they didn't. I guess we had 13 indictments in Dallas spanning back from 2016. Collin County indicted, I believe, nine capital murders when it all was said and done, and then we had two attempted capital murders. There's two individuals that lived along with Ms Bartell. There was Kay Lawson, who was a Frisco case. She also survived, and so now are there more potential victims out there? I would say yes. Once they had Mr Chamirmer in custody, they talked to him. They had his phone. They were able to get phone records back to 2016 initially, and so they looked at all unattended deaths in the Dallas area going back to January of 2016. So what they were looking for is anybody that had an unattended meeting, that there wasn't anybody around them, obviously elderly individual who's living on their own, active in a couple of these different retirement communities on the active side of it, not in like the hospice side or the caregiving side.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 3:They look back and what they're looking for is his phone or are we able to put him kind of in the general area? Was there a deceased individual who was missing jewelry? And then was there a sale of Mr Shamir Mir around that time? We had some records from some pawn shops that showed his transactions and also he would use online sales platforms like OfferUp and so we look back to see any of his transactions around that time that could potentially match to the description of the jewelry that was missing. So it was a yeoman's effort on all these law enforcement agencies to go back and reopen any case back in that timeframe to see if we could come up with any cases, and that's how we were able to discover all of these other cases.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and so I mean, from everything you've described, it kind of sounds like this should have been a slam dunk, but that is not what happened, right Like this should have been a slam dunk, but that is not what happened, right?
Speaker 3:No, we did so we tried him after a couple of years, we discovered it was 2018. I think my first trial was in 2021. There was a lot that happened in between those two things. There was time to investigate, time for coordination amongst all these law enforcement agencies, time for coordination amongst all these law enforcement agencies. We decided we were going to try him for two cases, two separate cases, so that we would make sure that he would die in prison. Basically, two capital life sentences.
Speaker 3:We had selected the DAs of both counties because there's cases in Colleen County, cases in Dallas County had decided that Dallas would go first. We had what we believed at the time to be the strongest case, which was Ms Harris's case, because he's caught with her property shortly after being in close proximity to her on video. We also selected a case out of Richardson, mrs Brooks's case. She was at that same Walmart with him and his phone On that day. We were able to track his phone going to her apartment or to her house or her condominium and so we decided we're going to try them for these two cases.
Speaker 3:The first trial was during COVID. We were in COVID restrictions so everybody was wearing masks, everybody had to social distance, the jury had to social distance. It was kind of nerve wracking that my victim's families were not allowed in the courtroom because that's where the jury was sitting, was where usually the spectators would sit. It was kind of awkward. They were to my left, my witnesses to the right, the defendant was right in front of me.
Speaker 3:We presented what we thought was a very strong case but we had one juror hold out on us. At the end, after a short amount of time, she decided she was not going to deliberate anymore with the rest of the jury, and so after we went home that evening, after a couple of hours of deliberations or as the jury was out, returned the next morning and they kept sending notes out saying we were hopelessly deadlocked and we cannot get this one juror to come around and make a decision, and so the legal ramifications of that is that the judge has to declare a mistrial and then basically we had to start all over Wow, and that's just on the Dallas County side.
Speaker 3:That was just on the Dallas. Yes, we were the. Yeah, we had his body, we had the case. So during that trial I put on not only the evidence of Ms Harris's case but I was also allowed to put on the evidence for Ms Brooks's case and. Ms Bartell's case, the woman I told you about earlier who survived.
Speaker 2:I took her deposition early on.
Speaker 3:Because of her elderly, advanced years, I was afraid that as the case progressed on that, you know, if she were to succumb to an illness or was not capable of coming to testify, I wanted to preserve her testimony, which turned out to be a good decision. She had deceased before the trial came about. So the law doesn't generally allow you to talk about other crimes during one case until you get to the punishment phase. But because this was a circumstantial case, in order to show identity to his motive, his planning, those types of things you are allowed to get into some other cases and that's what we were able to put on those other two cases in that trial. But it didn't. It didn't work out for that one juror. But we decided right away, I mean, we weren't going to stop. We had promised two convictions and 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 few months to get the transcript put together.
Speaker 1:And so both trials had a successful outcome for the prosecution.
Speaker 3:Yeah, the next, the second time around, after I think it was probably less than 45 minutes, that jury came back with a guilty. And then, a few months after that, we tried Ms Brooks' case and after about 30 minutes I think it was that jury came back with a guilty. So it was just really just a one juror hang up on this, because I even had the alternate jurors in all those cases were ready to convict him as well.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So then what was the sentencing? You got two life sentences.
Speaker 3:Two capital life sentences. So in Texas that means that you do not get out of prison. When they say life in prison, it's life without the possibility of parole.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's probably for the best here. So we talked a lot about Mr Chamir Mir and what his actions were and his behaviors. Let's talk about the victims and what made women of that age group so vulnerable and just good prey for a predator like this one.
Speaker 3:I think in our society today we are probably less likely to, you know, want to challenge those individuals that are around us for fear that we might offend them, you know, or to come across like we're not accepting of everybody, and so I think that that might be part of this, I think, the fact that you know they might have been more trusting of a stranger than maybe they should be. He was pretty well accomplished. He did do home health care at one point in time, so he was able to, I think, communicate pretty well with individuals he was able to get access to. The two cases I tried were from private residences, but a score of these were at active living retirement communities. So there's a place, edgemere in Dallas, which is a very nice environment. There was two indictments out of that place. There's probably a third murder out of that place as well. The medical examiner did not switch Dr Sinclair's case toa homicide and so we did not indict that one. There's Parkview is in Frisco. There was two capital murders out of there and an attempted capital murder out of there.
Speaker 3:I spoke about Preston Place, that's in Plano. There was, I want to say I don't know the number in front of me, but there was a number of deaths there six or seven there, and then at Traditions in Dallas 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 in and be able to walk among those halls without anybody even stopping him or asking him really any questions. And at Edgemere they were kind of on to him. There was a security guard there. They kind of figured out that he was at least stealing from people. I had thought that maybe he might be involved in some of the deaths, but nothing really ever came of that. The Holmes did not really do anything with that, as far as you know. Police might have been involved but they didn't realize that there was these connections to these other cases.
Speaker 1:You know when you call a police officer out on a death.
Speaker 3:They're working that one case and they don't have any way of really knowing that there was one a month before or a month before that, because it's a different shift and a different group of people, a different, you know, responding officer.
Speaker 3:It just so happens that Plano was able to figure it out later on. But I think I think the homes are definitely somewhat responsible in that they could have had a better security system. They rave about their security systems but you know doors get left ajar, you know the gates aren't working. There's no cameras. There was no. I didn't have cameras. Edgemere had some cameras there but, like traditions, only had like cameras at the entries and exits but not on the floors.
Speaker 3:You know where he's able to just kind of walk up and down and they had so many people come through there who weren't legitimate home health care, so you don't even know who's on your campus, you know, because they're just able to kind of come in and out. We try to get some changes in the legislature I helped. There's a group of ladies who are kind of combined now together victims of Mr Tremier who have a support group and a really a political action committee almost, where they're working out to try to get things changed. And that was one of the changes that I went down and testified at the legislature to try to help them out to get some changes. One thing I thought that would really 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 walk around the school that says you're supposed to be there. But they were fighting us.
Speaker 3:The lobbyists were fighting us on that, saying that these individuals want their freedom and they don't want to have all these constraints at their homes.
Speaker 1:And I'd like to take a poll of those citizens you know and actually see if that's true or not. Yeah, yeah, I kind of thought of the school example myself. You know, today it's very restricted access to our schools, right, and so there's a ring doorbell and you have to show your license and there's a whole process and procedure of signing a child out or into school during the day. And one would think that in living facilities like the ones you described, visitors would sign in and out. You know, we do that in lots of places. We do it in office buildings.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think there's far more secure areas than these. These are vulnerable individuals, you know. I mean, they've brought us so far in our society and done so much for us and yet we're just kind of ignoring them here at the end. And I think that those types of things can be done, but I don't know if it's a profit thing. I'm not really sure what the holdup would be there but maybe it's just the information that isn't out there for people to understand.
Speaker 3:I mean, you see school shootings all the time, so unfortunately we're almost numb to it. Now it's like not that you don't see it as this, as horrible as it really is, and maybe now with this story maybe there is some change that can come about it. But there still doesn't seem to be that much interest in this vulnerable part of our society.
Speaker 1:So to those points, then, since you worked so closely on this case, is it? What's your opinion about the motivation? Was it financial? Was it gender based? What, how? What do you think motivated him?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I spent a lot of time thinking about that. You know, he's not your typical serial killer and maybe that's why the story didn't really garner as much interest as some of our other. You know, almost everybody's heard of Ted Bundy or those John Wayne Gacy, you know, maybe because of their victims or things of that nature, and maybe there is some other psychological kind of interest that people might have in those types of individuals, whereas I really do think it's just greed that was the true motivator of Billy Chimur. I did never come across anything where it was any kind of a sexual thing or anything like that. It just seemed to really just be greed.
Speaker 3:Now I think, psychologically, we'd love to psychologically diagnose him and have experts go and look at him to see how he's able to just totally disregard human life, to just be so kind of caught up in his own desires that this individual who he supposedly has been trained to take care of, you know, in his background, can just be just an object of them to fulfill his own desires. And so I think that's his motivation, I think. And then once he gets that, I think he just was picking on the weakest people he could pick on that have the most for him to gain from. You know, maybe if he picked on, you know, eight or nine-year-old children might be as able to fight back as much as my 91-year-old four-foot-eight.
Speaker 3:You know victims, but they're not going to have rings and jewelry and things that he can profit from, and so I mean it's sad because, you wear this wedding ring or this engagement ring or a bracelet that someone gave you to remind you of your widowed husband, or something of that nature, and now you're, I guess, expected that you shouldn't wear it out in public because someone like him might see it. I mean, it's just sad. You know and he knew the places to go this Walmart that he found two of my victims from I've spent many time going to that Walmart, just just different times of the day, and it is just teeming with elderly individuals and he would park in a way that he just could see the handicapped parking spots.
Speaker 3:I have video of him coming in and out, uh, and so he knew exactly who. I've got a video of him uh helping a woman on the day he killed, uh, miss brooks earlier that day. He is helping that another lady just get a shopping cart, you know, and I've got video of him and they're all smiling and he's helping her unhitch a shopping cart and it just kind of shows just how well he is at communicating. He's got this big smile on his face and being able to connect with these individuals that maybe trusted him 10 seconds, you know, when he knocks on their door 10 seconds before to trust him, to open the door to him, and then he turns on them like that. There's a couple of stories where he was posing, as you know, maintenance individuals for for the different facilities and checking on leaks and things like that.
Speaker 1:He's very good at what he did.
Speaker 3:I mean, it's just he was very good at what he did. He was. He went under the radar, he killed here and then, when he kind of got ruffled there, he moved to another location, killed there for a while, then moved on to another location, killed there, different agencies, different departments. I think he just thought he would never get caught.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it sounds like he, as you said, picked on the most vulnerable people he could find and assumed he would always be able to get away with it.
Speaker 3:Absolutely yeah, he made between the first trial that was hung and the second trial where he was convicted, he went on a podcast and got interviewed and then also gave an interview to the Dallas Morning News reporter and in that he was very brazen and he said I'm never going to the penitentiary. I didn't do this, I'm innocent. They don't have the evidence on me. You know my family owned health. His sister ran a health home health care business. You know, none of none of her clients have ever turned up dead. So how could I possibly, you know, be the one who did this? Now he might have been emboldened by the hung jury, but you know everybody everybody watched the trial was surprised about the hung jury, the commentators on the TV and things of that nature. So he probably shouldn't have been as bracing as he was, but you know.
Speaker 1:Did he ever ultimately confess or offer any additional information about why he did it or what other victims there might be?
Speaker 3:No, when he was first arrested, the police officers the detectives from Dallas and the detectives from Plano came in and talked to him, asked him about the specific evidence they had. They had some pretty good evidence on him even at that short amount of time from arrest to interview, which was just hours. He had given up his phone and on his phone was a picture of the ring that Mary Bartell wore on her finger for 50 years and her family had identified that he'd taken a picture to sell it online.
Speaker 2:The family had identified that.
Speaker 3:So the police officers are asking him about that specific ring when did you get this? Because it came off of a victim. He said no, no, no, I bought that a couple of days before in Garland, but he could never come up with who he bought it from. He had the keys to Lou Harris's house in his cup holder of his car and they were asking him about that. He goes oh, I bought a jewelry box from a man on the street and he had that. Those were in his jewelry box. I don't know why I kept the keys. So he kept deflecting on everything.
Speaker 3:A couple of days later the Plano police and the Frisco police go back in and talk to him another time and now they have phone data so they're able to track his phone everywhere and show him you were at these locations at this time. He goes no, that's not me, that's not, I couldn't have done that. And he had this stack of two dollar bills from Miss Harris's house and she she would use that as a gimmick. She would kind of give two dollar bills out when she traveled to people. She thought it was kind of an interesting thing to do, so she would go to the bank and get a whole stack of them. He said that he bought those $2 bills off a man at Fort Worth a week before. And the detective asked him you know, why are we? How much do you buy these $2 bills for? So I bought them for $2.50. I was going to sell them for $3. I mean things you could get at the bank for $2, right, Right.
Speaker 3:And then we told him you know, we have your phone data and your phone never goes to Fort Worth, never, never, traveled there. He said no, that's, that's, that's where I went. So I had even had an opportunity to sit down with him at one time to see if he would confess to to these things, which is kind of uncommon. His lawyers were there, but I laid out my whole case to him and all the cases and all the indictments and all the facts that I had to try to get him to not have to go through trials, to get him to actually confess and to admit to all this. And he turned me down and he said that wasn't him, he just didn't do it. So now he never did and we'll never have an opportunity to ask him now and he never will because he died in prison. So his case is shut. We'll never really have the answer to how many for sure that he prayed him on.
Speaker 1:So when did he pass away that he?
Speaker 3:prayed him on. So when did he pass away? So we tried him two times. After the third time the cases then went to Collin County for them to decide what they wanted to do. They determined they weren't going to seek the death penalty because he was eligible for the death penalty. They decided that I believe sometime in 2023, like maybe August of 2023.
Speaker 3:So September, I think September 19th of 2023, I get a call from one of the wardens at his prison that he was at to inform me that his Billy's Jamiro's roommate beat him to death that morning. They'd only been together for two weeks and, according to what the warden said, that Mr Jamiro had made some comment to his roommate talking about the roommate's children and what he would do to the roommate's children maybe sexual in nature or something along those lines and the roommate, I guess, had enough and beat him and there's some indication that he also had a sharp object. I don't really know the whole details about that, but beat him and then just kind of dragged him out of the cell and left him for dead.
Speaker 1:Wow. Ok, let's go back and talk about the prosecution just a little bit more. Were there any challenges prosecuting this case or this individual?
Speaker 3:There's a couple of different challenges, I think. For one, the scope. I mean we had four different primary agencies with Dallas Police Department, richardson Police Department, plano Police Department and Frisco Police Department. We also had some other agencies involved, obviously the medical examiner's office. We used the FBI for phones, you know, trying to juggle all of that information, I came onto the case. There was a different prosecutor that was the lead prosecutor on it. At first I was in support. I did go to Ms Harris's house you know those types of things but I did not think it was going to turn out to be what it turned out to be. I thought it was just going to be a one time deal. I didn't think there was any possibility. We had a serial killer in Dallas, you know, at that time yeah.
Speaker 3:And so I came on to it late. So these detectives and these agencies had already put in so many hours of research and dedication and time. The Plano Police Department dedicated numerous, numerous detectives doing background searches and trying to find exactly everything they could about Billy Tamir. He's from Kenya and so they were going back to when he first came to the country and looking into that. Richardson had done a bunch of work on their cases because not only did he, he had some aggravated robbery cases too and some other types of burglary type things that they were looking into. Of course Dallas is where he.
Speaker 3:I kind of came in late and I felt kind of intimidated because all these detectives knew all about this case that I didn't know anything about and I didn't want to let them down and I didn't really want to show my ignorance, and so it took a lot to get through all the evidence and the discovery and what they had kind of put together. The other thing that's challenging usually, as one of the you have a capital murder case, there's usually one family that you have to deal with. Here I had 13 different families just in my jurisdiction and then I took on communications with a lot of the Collin County families as well, because they were all had a vested interest in these outcomes. So some families wanted to have, you know, a lot more contact than other families. Some I just kind of told them about the hot topics that were happening and they would never really circle back around. Some didn't want to be communicated with at all really. But then there were some that you know they wanted I was, I would be talking to someone every three or four days about what's going on, and you know we hit COVID and so COVID put a big delay.
Speaker 3:We had a change of administration One DA when it came in. Another DA came in afterwards, and so I would try to communicate. But when you sit down you have to call 13 families when something different is happening, and I have other obligations too, and so you start a phone call in the morning and then maybe you don't get to the someone in the afternoon. But they, they became very tight group and so they would text each other all day long.
Speaker 3:Well, I just talked to Glenn and he said this, and then another family member might be upset. Why did you tell her and you didn't tell me? You know? I mean, it's like trying to get a hold of everything you know. I finally went to an email system where I just kind of blasted out to everybody all the same information.
Speaker 3:So that was challenging. I think just all of these cases were circumstantial. You know I didn't have anybody saying I saw Billy Tamir put a pillow over someone's face. We did have some DNA and some none of my cases in Dallas, but some of the Collin County cases had some DNA. It's still circumstantial evidence because we're still talking about percentages, but you know it's definitely stronger evidence than some you know might think of. As you know, but I didn't have any fingerprints, I didn't have DNA, I didn't have a video of him, you know, actually doing these crimes. So those types of challenges, and then you know in the end, when you're kind of done with the cases, you have to do something with the remaining cases. We had to dismiss the cases and so that caused some angst among some of the family members because their cases weren't heard and I get that.
Speaker 3:But you know we had to do, we had to move on, and those were the decisions we had to make. Presenting the evidence there wasn't. Everything kind of went according to our plan, like we didn't find any real challenges All of our witnesses it was one of the cases where if I called a witness, they said, when do you need me, I'll be there, kind of thing, which was very encouraging. We had good support staff here at the Dallas DA's office. I had a great investigator helping me out. I had a great trial team. I had an appellate attorney, jacqueline O'Connor Lambert. She was with me through everything.
Speaker 3:Dimitri Anagnostas, connor Lambert, she was with me through everything. Dimitri Anagnostas, he did all my phone stuff. He's an expert on that. The second trial and the third trial, da Crusoe. John Crusoe actually picked the jury, so he sat next to me throughout the whole trials there, which you know has another layer of stress. You've already got a hung jury and then now you've got your boss sitting right next to you and making sure, but he's he's pretty much a trial dog, so he understands the ups and downs of trials. And so it turned out to be a great experience because everything did kind of kind of fall in place.
Speaker 1:Were the families able to give impact statements or even even any of the people who survived?
Speaker 3:Yeah. So unfortunately the two people that survived by the time trial came up, they were both deceased. But when we were done with our last trial that we knew we were going to do, I approached the judge and I asked the judge that not only the family typically, it's just the family members of the people whose trial you had are the people who get to make victim impact statements. And so we only had two family members, two family situations like that. But I asked the judge she was obviously aware of the scope of this that we could invite up anybody who had an indicted case or whose case the medical examiners switched from natural causes to undetermined at least, or homicide. But they have an opportunity to address Mr Tremere and she agreed to that.
Speaker 3:So one day we brought Mr Tremere down to the central jury room and any family member who fell in that category who wished to address him got two or three minutes to say what was on their mind. It was a pretty impactful day. I got to sit in the front row and he's sitting up there with his lawyer, and one after another these family members came up and kind of unleashed on him what their thoughts and feelings are and how he's destroyed their lives and so he had no reaction to it. He just kind of sat there as most lawyers would encourage their clients just to sit there and not have any reaction, because if a case did overturn and he had a reaction or he did something, I would use that against them the next time around, obviously.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:And so he just had that soulless look in his eye that he had throughout all the other proceedings, and so there's some closure there. I don't know if it really really in the end closes out. You know, obviously, all their feelings, so they still have the tragedy of their loved ones. That's the last few minutes of their days, but at least the last few minutes of their life. But at least the opportunity was there if they wanted to take advantage of it.
Speaker 1:So, having gone through this process and worked with these families, has it given you any ideas or thoughts about what can be done to prevent these types of crimes against people who are elderly, in particular women? I assume these women were widowed.
Speaker 3:Yeah, at least everyone that yes, there was there was. They were living in their house by themselves.
Speaker 1:So if they, if they, were widowed or, if I don't know, if any were separated, and maybe there was Sure.
Speaker 3: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 ever go outside, don't ever do all these things. But they're active citizens, I mean they, they, they're seniors that have a life and so you can't live that way and they wouldn't want to live that way. So but there are definitely things you can do a little bit better, you know. I mean, and for one, if I had elderly parents that I had to put in the home, I would check that home out top to bottom.
Speaker 3:You know what is the security measures there? How are they making sure that they're? You know they can say they have top notch security, but show me it. You know what are. What are the procedures for when I come to visit my family? Now they could do things where they give a lanyard to regular visitors, you know. So that when a citizen or a resident looks and sees, ok, that is a issued lanyard that my daughter is given, so they have, they don't have to go through these 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 to flag. That, you know.
Speaker 3:And then and then, once that flag has gone up, they need to do something about it, because there was, there was some times where suspicious people were noted on premises and nothing was done about it. You know they, the homes, I think were more concerned with, you know, making money and not stirring up the pot. And you know, I would imagine it's a bit of a rumor mill in those places, just like my office is a bit of a rumor mill and maybe where you work is a bit of a rumor mill. So they don't want to stir up false information, which I get, but they had solid information, I think, for what I could see, that there was, there were some problems and there were some people on premises. At least one person on premises shouldn't have been there. And so making sure that wherever you you choose to to because I think these places are great, I mean I I had my mother and my, my wife's grandmother was in one of these homes. I thought it was a great environment for her. There was other people her age and most of these people say that about their you know they have like-minded individuals with the same interests in life, that you know activities for them to do. So you want to encourage them to find those places that they feel comfortable in, but at the same time the security has to be there.
Speaker 3:Now for the, I had three victims, four victims that were private residents. I mean there's nothing really to do there, just be more aware of your surroundings. But I don't think there's anything that Ms Harris could have done. I think he approached her when she pulled into her garage. I think Ms Brooks was probably unloading her groceries at the same time, because her groceries were out when he approached her. And so I mean there's really little you can do, not only for an elderly person but for anybody in that situation, if the individual is dead set on committing those types of crimes.
Speaker 2:We are a vulnerable society.
Speaker 3:It's just we have to trust in the good faith of our common man, and sometimes that doesn't exist.
Speaker 1:It's unfortunate, but at least in this case it was prosecuted and justice has been served, and I really appreciate you being at the conference this week and sharing this story with us. Thank you for being here.
Speaker 3:My pleasure. Thank you very much.
Speaker 1:Thanks so much for listening. Until next time, stay safe. The 2024 Conference on Crimes Against Women has ended, but you can read all about it on our website, conferencecaworg, and begin planning now for the 2025 conference that will be held in Dallas, texas, may 19th through the 22nd. Stay up to date on everything related to the conference by following us on social media at nationalccaw. So well, thank you again. And this will be released in a couple weeks, and to me it sounds like it was kind of a condensed version of the case study that you did yeah, I think that's it's the easiest thing for me to do.
Speaker 3:It's tough to you know, to put this you know into a powerpoint you know, and to try to present it because there's so many different.
Speaker 3:There's a there's a documentary out right now called pillowcase murders and they they tell the story kind of in a different, in a different fashion. You know they focus a lot on the homes kind of thing. I'm not as much on the trials. I just found out there's another one that just came out on another TV show. It's got me in it a little bit more. That really goes through the kind of the actions of Mr Tremere. So hopefully the story is going to get out a little bit more and maybe get some changes that need to happen.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah. Well, I'll keep an eye on that because I do have an elderly mother who she actually lives with me and my husband and my kids and so many of the things that you're saying sound like the actions of a woman who's nearly immobile and walks with a walker and, you know, takes her good old time coming up the driveway and doing her thing. And I've told her repeatedly when 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 the house by going, you know, in another door. You do not have to answer that door and she still answers it. And it's so easy to overwhelm or overtake a person like that. I mean, you know I'm a little five foot three person and I could tackle my mother because she'd just tip right over. You know she's got a walker and she's very unsteady, so I can't. I can't think of like how I'm going to go home and fix this situation without scaring her to death.
Speaker 3:Yeah, ms Bartell, and in her deposition she said that she's like you know, there was this rapping at my door and they tell me I'm supposed to ask who is it? But I've got hearing aids, I can't hear, and most likely my friends can't hear that I'm asking the question either, you know. And so it's like what are you supposed to do? And Ms Lawson, the other lady that survived, she was, I think, four foot 10, four foot 11, maybe, and she couldn't even get to her peephole, like her peephole, like her peephole was too hot, so she wasn't that way of looking out, you know and you just wouldn't.
Speaker 1:You think you're in an enclosed area. There's only good people are going to be in there, you know? I mean, I can only assume that that he had to have been watching them to make sure there was the presence of no um, no husband or um and anyone else who was living in the house.
Speaker 3:Yeah, absolutely yeah because I think you know, at some of the times during the Walmarts I watched a lot of Walmart video. I mean lots of Walmart. I had three months yeah. So yeah, I would see him pull in and then park, and then I would see an elderly woman get into her car and then he would drive away and she would drive away and his car would peel off after, and then 10 minutes later he would come back and park again and then he would do it again.
Speaker 2:And so something spooked him.
Speaker 3:Either she went to a different store or there was something in her environment that it wasn't conducive for him to attack that person. So many people are fortunate that they didn't fall victim to him too.
Speaker 1:For sure.
Speaker 3:Yeah.