An illegal alien who used a loophole to obtain a green card is now suspected of smothering 22 elderly people in Texas, most of whom were women.

Billy Chemirmir had posed as a maintenance worker at various senior living facilities throughout the Dallas-Forth Worth metro area between 2016 and 2018. In May 2019 he was finally arrested and charged with the deaths of at least a dozen elderly women, making him one of Texas’ most prolific serial killers.

Now Chemirmir is suspected of killing up to 22 elderly residents of Texas, mostly women, The Dallas Morning News reported. Two lawsuits were filed in the 4th County Court at Law in Dallas by three families alleging their loved ones were killed by Chemirmir and the retirement community where they lived, Preston Place Retirement Community, didn’t do enough to protect them.

One of the victims mentioned in the lawsuits is Miriam Nelson, who told staff at Preston Place that a man she did not recognize had entered her apartment. Two days later, she would be dead. Her son-in-law, former Dallas Cowboys safety Cliff Harris has since called for improved security at Preston Place.

“We made an assumption that it was safe,” Harris told the Morning News. “These ladies, these widows are the most vulnerable part of society. I feel like they were sitting ducks.

Nelson had told her family that a man believed to be Chemirmir entered her apartment claiming he needed to check for leaks. Nelson did not recognize him as one of the regular maintenance men, so she called the front office. It was the middle of a weekday, yet no one answered. The next morning her grandson complained to the management office. At the time, five women had already died under mysterious circumstances. The day after her grandson complained, Nelson was murdered.

“By the end of the month, Miriam’s family would discover the horrific and preventable reality about what happened on the last day of their mom’s life. They would discover that the same man who had accessed and robbed Miriam’s apartment on March 7, 2018 had returned two days later on March 9th. They would learn that he forced his way into Miriam’s apartment and forced Miriam into her bed. They would learn that he then placed a pillow over their mother’s face and held it down as Miriam struggled helplessly to breathe. They learned that, after he had killed Miriam, Chemirmir had scavenged her apartment to steal the fine jewelry he must have identified during his first visit,” the lawsuit stated.

Two other women – Mamie Dell Miya and another unnamed woman – were mentioned in the lawsuits. Chemirmir has not been charged with their deaths, but the Morning News reported that police reports included in the lawsuit show that authorities suspected Miya’s death may have been a capital murder case. If Chemirmir did indeed kill the 22 people that have been publicly linked to him, it would make him a more prolific serial killer than even Jeffrey Dahmer, who was proven to have killed 16 people. (For reference, John Wayne Gacy was proven to have killed 33 people).

Chemirmir has only been charged with 12 deaths so far, including seven from Preston Place. Chemirmir is alleged to have overstayed his tourist visa and then marrying an American woman as part of a sham marriage that allowed him to stay in the country. He had already been arrested for driving while under the influence and aggravated assault, which should have gotten him deported.

As for the retirement community where many of the murders took place, CBSDFW reported that the lawsuit against Preston Place accused the retirement community of being “geared only toward in luring elderly residents to maximize occupancy and profits for their private equity owners and investors.”