Updates From Day 3 of the Chemirmir Murder Trial – NBC 5 Dallas-Fort Worth

Continuous coverage: Watch full coverage of the capital murder trial of Billy Chemirmir on NBC 5 and live stream from the courtroom in the above video player and on NBC 5’s AppleTV, Roku and Fire TV streaming platforms all week.

From time to time the camera may be pointed at a court seal or stationary object when the court is on hiatus or when graphic evidence is displayed.

Day 3 of the process should continue on Wednesday at 8:30 a.m. It will show up in the above player as soon as it starts.

What you should know

  • Billy Chemirmir is accused of killing 18 elderly women, suffocating them with a pillow and stealing their jewelry.
  • This week’s trial is linked to the death of 81-year-old Lu Thi Harris, who was found in her bedroom with lipstick on her pillow in March 2018.
  • Authorities are expected to review hundreds of deaths following Chemirmir’s arrest in 2018.

After two days of testimony, the capital murder trial of the accused serial killer Billy Chemirmir will continue on Wednesday in Dallas.

Chemirmir, 48, faces life without parole if convicted of the murder of 81-year-old Lu Thi Harris. His lawyer pleaded not guilty on Monday at the start of the trial.

Wednesday morning began with lawyers arguing over whether Chemirmir should wear a face mask in court. Prosecutor Glen Fitzmartin argued his witnesses might not be able to identify Chemirmir. He offered to provide clear face protection.

Chemirmir lawyers protested the clear face shield and the prosecution’s request to remove his mask so that his face could be seen while witnesses are on the stand.

“I think compelling him is detrimental and we will object to it,” said Chemirmir’s attorney, Kobby Warren.

The judge briefly left the courtroom and did not make her decision public.

When the court reopened, the testimony began with a Dallas detective telling the jury how he used a Walmart receipt from Harris’ purse to investigate some of her most recent visits on the day of her death.

Prosecutors played a video showing Harris and a man they identified as Chemirmir checking out at a Walmart near Coit and Arapaho Roads at around 3:30 p.m. on March 20, 2018.

Prosecutor Glen Fitzmartin said Harris and Chemirmir checked out at the same time on the same day.

Harris’ son-in-law testified Tuesday that she was a generous person who loved giving people $ 2 bills. “My mother-in-law was a scream. It was a lot of fun to be with her, ”said Richard Rinehart.

Chemirmir was arrested in March 2018 after 91-year-old Mary Annis Bartel survived an attack on her apartment in an independent community for the elderly in Plano. She died in 2020.

The jury listened to Bartel for a taped testimony Monday in which she said she knew she was in “great danger” after opening her door to a man in green rubber gloves. Bartel described how she was hit in the face with a pillow and her assailant “used all weight to keep me from breathing”.

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When the police tracked Chemirmir to his nearby apartment the next day, he was holding jewelry and cash. Documents in a large red jewelry box that police said took her to a house in Dallas where Harris was lying dead in her bedroom, lipstick smeared on her pillow.

Evidence presented Monday showed that Chemirmir was also in possession of numerous $ 2 bills at the time.

Rinehart testified Tuesday that the jewelry box found in the trash belonged to his mother-in-law, as well as numerous pieces of jewelry that officials found when Chemirmir was arrested.

Police also said that a bunch of keys Chemirmir found when he was arrested opened the front door of Harris’ house.

Lu Thi Harris

Richard Rinehart said his mother-in-law, Lu Thi Harris, whom he named Kim, was born on an island in China. When she was a young girl, her family moved to what is now Vietnam before World War II. He said she grew up in Saigon, now Ho Chi Minh City, and eventually owned a restaurant and bar there.

The restaurant was across from an oil company where the man who became her second husband, William Harris, worked.

Family photo

Lu Thi Harris

“By the time Saigon’s demise was imminent, she had already married Mr. Harris and he was called to Hong Kong by his company, but he had arranged the paperwork for her and she actually left Saigon by helicopter at the American embassy to an aircraft carrier in the South China Sea.” said Rinehart.

Rinehart said the couple lived in Tanzania after leaving Vietnam before William Harris retired and they moved to Dallas. William Harris died in 2008.

Rinehart said his wife, Loan Rinehart, died of cancer in 2013. He said one of Lu Thi Harris’s sons still runs her restaurant in Vietnam.

Hundreds of deaths need to be reviewed

Following Chemirmir’s arrest, authorities announced they would be investigating hundreds of deaths, suggesting the possibility that a serial killer had persecuted elderly people. In the years that followed, the number of people accused of being killed by Chemirmir grew.

Prosecutor Glen Fitzmartin said the jury would also hear about the murder of 87-year-old Mary Brooks, who was found dead at her Richardson home in January 2018. Chemirmir was charged with her death.

He said Brooks’ death was originally labeled a natural death, but following an investigation into Chemirmir’s arrest, the coroner changed the cause of death to murder.

Fitzmartin said that the day before Brooks was found dead, she was in a Walmart, the same Walmart Harris was in later in the year before she died. Fitzmartin said a model vehicle known to be driven by Chemirmir was parked next to Brooks’ vehicle.

On Tuesday, the coroner who performed Harris’s autopsy testified that he had to rely on investigative information to determine the cause of death, even though she had small broken blood vessels and some bruises.

Travis Danielsen, who was working for the Dallas County medical examiner at the time of Harris’ death, said he had labeled her cause of death as choking and the cause of death as murder.

He said that without information from the investigation, the death would have been classified as indeterminate or natural.

“When it comes to suffocation deaths, I believe we, as coroners, rely most heavily on investigative information,” he said.

Most of the victims were killed in independent shared apartments for the elderly, where Chemirmir allegedly broke into apartments or posed as a craftsman. He is also accused of killing women in private homes, including the widow of a man he cared for in his job as a housekeeper.

The defense did not make an opening speech. Chemirmir’s attorney has labeled the evidence against Chemirmir as circumstantial.

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