Mistrial declared in case of man charged in 18 Texas deaths

DALLAS » A Texas judge declared a mistrial Friday in the first murder case against a man charged with killing 18 older women in the Dallas area over a two-year span, but prosecutors vowed to continue to pursue convictions.

Judge Raquel Jones issued the ruling when a jury deadlocked after deliberating since Thursday afternoon in the capital murder case charging Billy Chemirmir with killing 81-year-old Lu Thi Harris.

Dallas County District Attorney John Creuzot said he was committed to retrying the case and bringing another one against the 48-year-old. “Our commitment was to get two convictions and that does not change,” Creuzot told The Dallas Morning News.

In a series of notes to the court Friday, the 12 jurors said they were “hopelessly deadlocked 11 to one” over the case. It was not clear what verdict the majority of jurors supported. Jones initially resisted declaring a mistrial, repeatedly ordering the jury to continue deliberation.

After the decision, family of the women Chemirmir is accused of killing spoke outside the courtroom, which they’d been prohibited from entering during the trial as a COVID-19 precaution. They expressed frustration with the mistrial, anger with the juror they saw as a hold out against conviction and determination to get a different outcome the next time around.

“We are devastated at the outcome of this trial,” said Loren Adair-Smith, the daughter of Phyllis Payne. “We are sickened that we have to come back and hear the same evidence again.”

Chemirmir’s attorneys rested their case without calling any witnesses or presenting evidence, and he didn’t testify. They dismissed the evidence against their client as “quantity over quality” and asserted that prosecutors had not proved Chemirmir’s guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.