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Kenyan-born Billy Chemirmir a serial killer convicted of high profile murder in the US died in a Texas prison after being attacked by his cellmate on Tuesday morning.

Details about his death remain scanty with authorities saying that they are treating the murder as homicide where his cellmate, also a murder convict, is the suspected assailant.

Texas Department of Criminal Justice did not release any information about the motive for the attack and the impact his death has on the ongoing investigations into the alleged murder of the other victims. However, the family members of the victims were notified of his death.

 Chemirmir was arrested in 2018 and was initially charged with capital murder in the deaths of 12 women in Dallas and Collin counties. He was also suspected of killing at least 10 others, but the charges were dismissed after his convictions.

 The court handled him two life sentences in prison after he was found guilty of killing two women although he was initially accused of murdering about 22 women.

 During his trial the court heard that Chemirmir targeted old women inside their homes or at senior living facilities. He would smother his victims to death with pillows before stealing their jewellery.

 As a result, many of his murder victims were first suspected to have died by natural causes as no foul play was suspected.

 His trial commenced in November 2021 and in April 2022 he was found guilty of killing Lu Thi Harris and sentenced to life in prison. Later in October, Chemirmir was convicted of killing Mary Brooks and received another life sentence.

Harris was found dead in her bedroom with lipstick smeared on her pillow.

The pillow was in November adduced as exhibit while an autopsy done on her body showed evidence consistent with asphyxiation, which could have been caused by being smothered with a pillow.

Prior to the murder, prosecutors said that the Chemirmir and Harris were seen together at a local mall before he went to her home, killed her and stole her jewellery.

 Chemirmir 50, reportedly begun his killing spree in 2016, two years before his arrest while serving as a caregiver for the elderly in nursing homes.

He was arrested in March 2018 after a botched murder attempt at Plano’s Preston Place Retirement Community and has been linked to 1000 unexplained deaths in Texas.  The victim, Mary Bartel, survived the attack at Plano and proceeded to report her missing jewellery to the authorities.

 After missing death by a whisker, Bartel narrated to the police how a man forced his way into her apartment at an independent living community for seniors in the Dallas suburb of Plano.

Her account of the ordeal enabled the police to place Chemirmir at the crime scene before making an arrest that month.

Police arrested him in his apartment block as he was disposing a box in a dumpster. Upon opening the box, the police found jewellery and a piece of paper which they were able to link to a woman in Dallas.

Reports say that during Chemirmir’s trial, US authorities were all along under pressure from prosecutors and family members of alleged murder victims not to impose a death penalty on him.

Preyed on the vulnerable

 Describing him as an evil person who preyed upon their most vulnerable citizens, they said that he didn’t deserve a death sentence since he was not going to be a free man owing to the multiple murder charges he was facing.

 Despite being implicated in multiple murder case, Chemirmir pleaded innocent saying he was just in the wrong place at the wrong time.

 Chemirmir was born and brought up in Kabunyony Village in Eldama Ravine, Baringo county.

 Residents described him as a calm man who always kept to himself.

He was the son of a former senior colonial chief, the late Joel Chemirmir, who was very famous and represented the larger Lembus Location.

 The senior Chemirmir is said to have married three wives and later relocated to Kamundu farm in Solai, Nakuru County, several years ago where the accused and his siblings grew up.

 Apparently, the junior Chemirmir moved to the US in the late 90s after his eldest sisters secured a visa for him and two other siblings. He later became a permanent US citizen.

 “The late Chemirmir was a nice man who used to worked diligently and interacted well with the people,” added the elder.

The younger  Chemirmir was the eighth born child in a family of nine children sired by the retired chief and his second wife. His parents passed on more than 20 years ago.

 According to locals, Chemirmir relocated to Eldama Ravine in his mid-20s where he lived with his maternal grandmother in Kabunyony village where he has been described as a very quiet, generous man who did not talk much but loved taking alcoholic beverages at the sprawling Bondeni estate at the outskirts of Eldama Ravine town.

 He is said to have lived with his grandmother but later got engaged to a woman and stayed in Bondeni estate until he relocated to the US in the early 1990s.

 His sisters are said to have gotten concerned with Chemirmir’s and his two brothers excessive drinking habits forcing them to secure visas for them to the US.

 The sisters are said to have been owning nursing homes for the elderly in the US where the brothers secured employment.

 “We later established that Chemirmir later differed with his sisters and instead resorted to offer services to the elderly at their homes before cases of mysterious deaths of the elderly started emerging.

 It also emerged that Chemirmir’s sister who coordinated their relocation to the US died after a long illness 14 years ago.