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- [00:02]
A
Quick heads up that today's episode includes tape of my interviews with Billy Shamirmir. If you'd rather skip that part, you can jump ahead. We'll put the minute mark in the show. Notes we're also going to talk about domestic violence in this chapter. If you or someone you know needs help, please call the National Domestic violence hotline at 800-799-7233 or text START to 887-882. Questions have nagged at me in the years since I started reporting this story. Was Billy Shamirmere a brilliant criminal mastermind or just lucky enough to slip through the cracks of a broken patchwork system? More importantly, which reality is more terrifying? I'm Charlie Scudder, and this is the unnatural causes Chapter 6 the loopholes before we begin, I do want to pause a minute and talk about why we're hearing from Shamir Mir directly. I teach journalism ethics at Southern Methodist University, and I've thought a lot about whether playing this tape is an ethical decision or not. On one hand, giving a man accused of a capital crime by an often flawed justice system the opportunity to defend himself is part of responsible, objective reporting. On the other, spreading untruths and just letting the man speak unedited is irresponsible journalism. Giving him a platform can be difficult for victims to hear, and it speaks to our voyeuristic want to know rather than the public's need to know critical information about the world around them. So we're only going to hear parts of the interview that let you know more about Shamima's past as it is relevant to our story, and only if we're able to confirm that information independently. Our conversations were rambling, often filled with lies or distortions. I wanted to hear about his childhood, and he'd pivot into complaints about his defense team. I asked about inconsistencies in his story, and he'd dive into long soliloquies about his faith. Here's Shamirmir calling from the Dallas County Jail. You may notice that throughout this episode, it's sometimes hard to make out what he says. He had a tendency to move the mouthpiece of the phone away from his mouth, and I had to remind him to speak up a few times.
- [02:22]
B
Let's talk about Mrs. Bartel.
- [02:24]
A
Mrs. Bartel, you may recall, is Mary Bartel, the victim who survived Shamira's attack in 2018.
- [02:31]
B
Mr. Bartel said the intruder was in the warehouse and drink blood. He said her eyes were fixated on the green gloves. Now what they didn't tell me is that they get back to my car. In my apartment. There was only green gloves, only blue gloves.
- [02:49]
A
In case you missed that, he said that when police searched his car and apartment they found blue rubber gloves, not the green ones Mary Bartel described. I've seen these gloves as part of evidence. They're a greenish blue. He also didn't mention that the DNA of at least one other victim was found on the blue green gloves in his car. I gotta be honest with you, Billy. When I hear that you've had all this experience and you knew your way.
- [03:17]
C
Around.
- [03:19]
A
Senior living, I think that's one of the things that police say is why you had access. What do you have to say about why? I guess what do you have to say about that?
- [03:30]
B
Yeah, well, they didn't know when I was working. I don't know if I believe I could find my own kisses. I wouldn't have to find my own job.
- [03:40]
A
It seems like you're very unlucky to be at all of these places at the times when these people are killed and you just happen to be at all of them.
- [03:53]
B
What I'm saying is I don't even believe that there is pressure and all these.
- [04:04]
A
Sure.
- [04:04]
C
But.
- [04:07]
A
I guess I could see that. But again, if it's you being at these places and at the time that these people died and having their jewelry shortly afterwards, there's a lot of ands there. Here's what we know for sure. Shamirmir was raised near Eldama Ravine, a rural town between the major cities of Eldoret and Nukuru in Kenya's Rift Valley. The Shimirmere family is large there. Their tribal community uses the zebra as a symbol or totem to identify themselves. Billy's father, Joel Shamirmir, was a well known tribal chief in the region when Kenya was a British colony. He had three wives and 28 children. Born in December 1972, Billy was among the youngest. In keeping with a tribal tradition, he was given a Christian first name, Billy, and a Kenyan middle name, Kipkorir, which means born at dawn.
- [05:07]
B
We are very wealthy, we are very privileged and thank God for us. We have a big farm. My dad, we used to bury cows that we grow.
- [05:21]
A
Joel was an old man by then and the young Billy was tasked with taking care of his aging father at their rural home in the Rift Valley. Bathing him, helping him exercise and doing the kinds of things he'd do later as an in home caregiver.
- [05:35]
B
Before I came here to the US I took care of my dad who was 100 years old at that time. So I need some caregiving back home. I don't know what happened. They just said that he's the one who's going to take care of that. I don't know why they chose me.
- [05:50]
A
John Hoffman, the Plano police detective who researched the cash for gold shops you've heard from before, also investigated Shamimra's past and family life. Here's Detective Hoffman.
- [06:01]
D
He went to the Nakaru elementary and quickly became a sports legend, almost like a sports hero, track and field. And a couple of the people that I interviewed here in Texas that went to school with him in Kenya talked about what a athletic superstar he was and how respected he was because of his athletic ability. And it helps when you come from the chief's family where you have everything going.
- [06:33]
A
According to the Daily Nation, Kenya's largest and most widely read newspaper, Shamir's neighbors remembered him as generous. Others said he was quiet and kept to himself. But they also told the newspaper that he and his brothers would enjoy bitter alcohol drinks, which sometimes got him in trouble. Shamimra's sisters had moved to the United States earlier and had started working as senior caregivers. In 2003, those sisters arranged to get Billy a green card and give him a job in Dallas. At least one of those sisters still lives in the area. She owns and operates several senior group homes and assisted living facilities in Collin County. I reached out to her a few times over the years. She's declined to comment and did so again for this podcast. And no suspicious deaths have been reported at those facilities. When we spoke after the mistrial, Shamira pointed to that as evidence of his innocence. So I want to ask you a question. Did you kill any of these ladies?
- [07:33]
B
No, I haven't killed anybody, Charlie. I am not a killer. I am not a killer. If I was a killer, I could have killed all those in our senior living. My family only in your living. Nobody has been killed there. No jewelry has been stolen over there.
- [07:50]
A
He says that if he was a killer, he could have killed the residents of those group homes that his family owns. Instead, he says no one has been killed there.
- [08:00]
B
I do not know what they are saying. I am. I am very innocent person. I was not brought that way. I was brought in a Google family. I didn't have any.
- [08:10]
A
Although his family in Kenya hoped that sending Billy to the US Would help with his drinking, as the Daily Nation has reported, his problems with alcohol continued. He was arrested in 2010 on a charge of driving while intoxicated in Addison, Texas, and served 18 months probation. He picked up a second DWI in Dallas in 2011, didn't show up for court and ended up with a warrant for his arrest. In 2012, Hoffman says Shamir's cousin, who had been living and working in the US moved back home to Kenya but left his ID behind. Hoffman says Shamirmer used the ID to get work in his cousin's name, Benjamin Koedeba. Shamirmer also used that alias Benjamin Koeidiba to disguise his identity. Remember when Josh Alema knew him as a caregiver at Edgemere? Shamirmer was using his cousin's name, according to Benjamin Coitava.
- [09:04]
D
I've spoken with him on the phone and we've had some emails from him. He left tax documents and identification behind for Billy Chammer to help him get his tax refunds back. That's the story. To me it's not a very plausible story. It's probably more about being able to use his credentials for Billy to get some work because quickly that's what Billy started doing.
- [09:29]
A
Around that time, Shamir Mir began dating a woman who also worked as an at home caregiver. We've decided not to name her because she is a survivor of domestic violence and has not been accused of any wrongdoing. In the case against Shamirmir. We're going to call her Shamir's ex girlfriend. She's also the mother of Shamir Mir's young son who was playing with some particularly loud toys when we spoke on the phone recently. Do you think that he did the crimes he's accused of? Do you think he committed those murders?
- [10:02]
E
You know, I don't know. Seriously, I don't know. Even now I'm in a shock. Like, you know, I got so scared. I'm telling you our relationship was not that good all the time. We had an argument.
- [10:16]
A
The ex girlfriend told me that she was working for a woman who was mobility impaired in 2011. She and the client were grocery shopping when Shamir Mir walked up behind them and asked if she was African. She said she was. He said he was Kenyan, she said she was Nigerian. He asked for her number. She didn't want to give it. Her older client tried playing matchmaker, reminding the ex girlfriend that she was single and needed to find a man. She gave in and told Shamirmir to give her a call when she was off work that evening. They began dating soon after. The next summer, On a hot 90 degree night in July 2012, the ex girlfriend said she and Shamir went out to an African nightclub in Dallas. He started drinking and didn't stop. When it was time to go home, she got out her car keys, but he snatched them away. She didn't want to drive with him after he'd been drinking, she said, but he got behind the wheel and she climbed into the passenger seat. She said he drove all over the road so wildly that she had to jump out of the moving car as it approached her apartment complex in North Dallas. She went to her apartment, changed into a leopard print nightgown and went to bed.
- [11:32]
E
Five minutes later, he comes in and knocks the door so hard he awoke all the neighbors. And then when I tried to open the door like this, he hit me like three times.
- [11:42]
A
According to the report of the police officers who came to the apartment that night, the ex girlfriend told them that after she opened the door, Shamimu started punching her in the face, splitting her lip. He then grabbed a red metal pot from the kitchen and used it to beat her in the back of the head. She fell to the floor and he kicked her in the back several times. He then stopped, went to the couch and turned on the tv. That's when the ex girlfriend found her phone, according to police, and called 911. Shamimir heard her calling and beat her more. The ex girlfriend said the 911 operator could hear her screaming through the phone. He kicked the phone away and grabbed a knife from the kitchen. He started angrily stabbing and slicing her red leather loveseat in the living room. When the police arrived, they arrested him for misdemeanor assault, family violence. He pleaded guilty in exchange for a 70 day sentence in the Dallas County Jail.
- [12:38]
E
We stayed separately for some time. Then when it came to 2013, he was so good and then, you know, he was talking to me and they.
- [12:47]
A
Are protesting if you didn't follow. She says that they stayed separate for a while, but got back together in 2013. At that time, she said, he seemed to be a better man and was more protective of her.
- [13:00]
E
Again, I don't know. I wish I knew that time I could have separated, you know, I could have left him.
- [13:07]
A
Shamir Mir kept drinking, the ex girlfriend said, and she kept calling police when things got out of hand. He became a regular at a few African nightclubs, but rarely brought his girlfriend.
- [13:19]
D
Everybody knew him at these clubs as Billy Chmermur.
- [13:23]
A
Detective Hoffman again, it's one of the.
- [13:25]
D
Times he could be Billy Chimer, not have to fake like he's Benjamin Koi Tava. And one of the patterns that I've noticed talking to all of these different people at all these different clubs. The ones who knew him remembered him because he was such a big tipper. In one particular club, African Fusion, they said he was there. Like if he wasn't there every night, he was there every other night. He would drink until he would throw up. And it wasn't uncommon at all for him to leave a hundred dollar tip for the waitress. Well, what he's capable of producing financially isn't consistent with what he's spending. So could it be a motive? He's got a lifestyle where everybody thinks he's a high roller and, you know, he's wearing a suit and going into these clubs and he's liking all of the attention he's getting from the waitresses and everything.
- [14:18]
A
A few years after they got back together, she became pregnant with Shamira's child. Shamirmere wanted her to get an abortion and she refused. He disappeared until after the baby, a boy, was born. In early 2017, after Shamirmere had killed at least 11 older adults at Edgemere and the tradition Prestonwood, he was evicted from his apartment for non payment of rent. According to Dallas county court records, the couple moved in together at an apartment in far north Dallas. She said she didn't know anything about the crimes Shamir Mir was committing at that time. In her words, any woman can go out and get a boyfriend and you don't know what he's doing.
- [14:59]
E
We didn't know anything, so I don't know why it was me. Sometimes I return to God. I'm like, God, why did I travel in that road to meet somebody like that?
- [15:09]
A
She said that sometime in the first few months of 2018, Shamirmer showed her a flight itinerary for a one way trip to Kenya. He had booked for June or July. She said she can't remember the exact date. Now he said that once he was in Kenya, he'd send money to fly his son there next. But he never made that trip since he was arrested in March, just a few months before that one way flight. If he had left, if he hadn't attacked Mary Bartel or if she hadn't survived, if his killing spree had continued undetected for just another few weeks, Shamirmer would have caught that plane and left the country. He would have disappeared. He would have gotten away with all of it. Shamirmer told me again and again that he did not commit the crimes he was accused of.
- [15:59]
B
And this is one of. I'm 100% sure I will not do trivial. I want you to write about this again. I will not go to crime charges.
- [16:13]
A
I will not go to prison. 100%. What makes you so certain?
- [16:18]
B
I pray that God Almighty answers me, Charlie. God really answers me.
- [16:23]
A
God answers me. But police who have always believed Shamir Mir is guilty have sometimes wondered how much his ex girlfriend and family really knew. I asked his ex girlfriend. She said that she thought he had a senior care job where he would go to work each day. He'd talk about going to care for a man named Mr. Henry, but that he would be vague on specifics and she didn't ask him for details.
- [16:47]
E
It broke my heart. It broke my heart because I didn't know that that's what he was doing out there.
- [16:55]
A
Yeah. Did you have any idea how he was making a living, making money? No.
- [17:01]
E
He told me it was working. I know it was working for one family.
- [17:05]
A
Shamima's legitimate work as a senior caregiver is well documented. He was earning some money that way. And again, his family owned these kinds of businesses as residential properties. He knew the ins and outs of this system very well, and it's what allowed him to find loopholes. That's what allowed him to avoid detection as he continued to kill. The senior care homes that Shamir Mir's relatives own are state licensed assisted living facilities and group homes, which means they are required by law to provide minimum security standards. Still, though, according to a recent Washington Post analysis, since 2018, 2000 residents in communities like those have walked off properties nationwide in what the industry calls elopements. Nearly 100 of those residents, the newspaper found later died after wandering out of the building. And again, that's assisted living. Shamir Mir would have known the difference between the strict 24, 7 care at those kinds of facilities and the laissez faire attitude at independent living communities. It is up to people who own senior living communities to decide how much they're willing to spend on securing their residence. And not every owner will make those choices in the same way, especially when it comes with a high cost to provide comprehensive security. I asked David Schless of the American Senior Housing association what good ownership looks like in the industry.
- [18:33]
F
You'll see. Well, it's, you know, it's. There's no federal, no federal oversight, you know, and the, you know, we'll try and make people think, you know, this is the Wild west and no one is regulating these buildings. But again, that's not. But it is true. They're, they're not federally regulated, but they are regulated in all 50 states and in the District of Columbia and they're regulated with vigor. And the states, you know, if the states have issues and they see, you know, serious problems, they can revoke someone's license.
- [19:06]
A
That's not necessarily true of independent senior communities, especially not in Texas. As we've mentioned, there is no licensing at those kinds of communities. The most robust security offered is somewhere between a gated residential community and a college dorm. But this case shows vulnerabilities in more than just senior housing. There's more to the senior care system that millions of Americans rely on every day. And Shamir Mir found cracks in many corners of that system, which is why I recently sat down with Scott and Robert McPhee.
- [19:42]
G
I'm Scott McPhee. I am the son of Carolyn McPhee, and I'm her oldest son.
- [19:48]
F
And I'm the youngest brother, Robert McPhee, and we both live in Frisco, and we're pretty close.
- [19:55]
A
When the McPhee boys were young, the family moved around a lot. Their dad, Jack, worked for IBM and was often transferred to jobs around the country. Scott told me that Jack and Carolyn McPhee were quick to make lifelong friends wherever they went.
- [20:10]
G
That's what I remember the most. And that was always, as far as.
- [20:12]
F
I can remember, even being a little bitty.
- [20:14]
G
Oh, yeah.
- [20:15]
F
Always had people over.
- [20:17]
G
Yeah. And you go through pictures, right? Of course, we had that opportunity. You just go through pictures, and almost all the pictures are them with people. Right. It's not like mom and dad. It's mom and dad and, oh, the neighbors. And look, there's a party. You know, it's a Halloween party, and they're all dressed up, and they go from black and white through kind of old Kodachrome colors to. It's just this constant array of good times.
- [20:40]
A
The family eventually settled in the Dallas area, and as the boys grew up, they stayed close, too. In the mid-90s, Carolyn and Jack moved to a smaller home in Plano. Robert and Scott lived just a few minutes away. Did they have any thought of moving to a community, some kind of senior community?
- [21:00]
G
No. We raised that once or twice, and we were pretty much told to go mind our own business. I mean, to put it bluntly, am I being unfair?
- [21:08]
F
Just like you make your own decisions?
- [21:10]
G
Yeah. No, they were. They were. They were convinced to be in that house at pretty much at any cost. That was. That was their goal.
- [21:17]
F
I know she talked to Susie Kimbrough about moving in with her when it was time.
- [21:23]
A
By the way, that's the same Susie Kimbrough that we met in episode one. At Highland Springs, she and Carolyn were extremely close friends and Scott and Robert both talked about how involved she was in McPhee's lives.
- [21:37]
G
So the conversation I remember was as, as dad was sick, right? So he ended up getting what looked like, really kind of ended up looking like Lou Gehrig disease. All right, als. As he was getting bad and she was needing help, we sort of had the conversation about is it time for you two to go somewhere where you mom can get help, dad can get the care he needs. It gives you mom the ability to still be social.
- [22:04]
F
As he got worse, he fall in the bathroom. She couldn't get him up cuz he weighed 220 pounds. And she called the fire department for a lift and assist.
- [22:18]
A
That happened a couple times.
- [22:19]
F
Yes.
- [22:20]
G
And I think it happened more than we know because a lot of times we'd find out about it after the fact. But we started to find out as things got really hard for her. I think we started to realize what she'd been dealing with.
- [22:33]
A
Carolyn and Jack ultimately decided when it was time to hire in home caregivers to help out around the house. The brothers said their parents made the decision themselves, did the research themselves, and only told their sons once they'd selected a home health company they liked. Every day, millions of Americans invite caregivers into their homes to help themselves or an older relative age with dignity. According to one AARP survey, 90% of older people want to age at home rather than at a community like the ones we've already discussed. For people who can't afford to live in a nursing home or retirement community, or who make the choice to age at home in home, caregivers are often a requisite service. The company that Carolyn and Jack settled on was called Griswold Home Care. It's a national corporation that franchises with small local business owners to provide in home care. According to Griswold's website, franchisees need no experience in senior care to succeed as home health entrepreneurs in Texas, the caregivers are simply contracted on a case by case basis by Griswold. That's the relationship Carolyn and Jack entered with the company in 2016. Carolyn would write one check to the caregiver directly and one to Griswold as a referral finder's fee. Often the same caregivers came to the McPhee's home day after day. But if someone called in sick or was on vacation, Griswold would ask another caregiver to step in for a day here or there. Among those Stand ins was a man who Scott, Robert and Carolyn knew as Benjamin Koedeba. They didn't know his real name was Billy Shamirmir.
- [24:18]
G
As a general rule, these guys would come in, they'd sit and they watch tv. They'd sit in the living room and read a book with everybody else. Billy or Annette Kid in this case, Benjamin always went to the other room and did his own thing.
- [24:31]
F
Little but he took care of dad. He made him gun him up. So we had no problem with them that way. He would just kind of standoffish. And then finally Carolyn said, you know what? I don't like him anymore. Let's not have him.
- [24:49]
A
Was it just he wasn't personable, probably.
- [24:51]
F
Because she's a social butterfly and he didn't want to Talk.
- [24:56]
A
Later, the McPhee brothers sued Griswold as part of the litigation in the Shamirmir case. Through that suit, they learned that although the company promised they would ensure that everyone they sent into Carolyn and Jack's home was properly vetted and they did not do a background check on Coydoba Shamir Mir, if they had, they may have realized the pseudonym and his lengthy criminal record. All of the communities that we've mentioned so far have been hesitant to talk about the case. Some have responded with brief prepared statements or never responded at all to repeated calls and requests for comment. I expected the same when I called the Griswold Home Care office in Plano, I left a voicemail for Lisa hall, the local franchisee for the office that Carolyn and Jack hired. At most, I figured she'd provide a written statement or send me to Griswold's corporate office. But an hour later, my phone rang. This is Charlie Scudder.
- [25:54]
C
Hi, Charlie, this is Lisa hall with Griswold Home Care. I got your message.
- [25:57]
A
Yeah, hi. How are you?
- [25:59]
C
I'm doing fine, thanks. And yourself?
- [26:01]
A
Yeah, I'm doing well. Doing well. Thanks for giving me a call back.
- [26:05]
C
No problem. And I'm going to tell you right off the bat, I wish I could help you, but I'm the new owner.
- [26:12]
E
And.
- [26:14]
C
I. I was not involved when he was an employee, so I really don't have any information on him. I had asked about it because I had seen it in the news before I bought it. You know, wanted to know, you know, sort of how it had happened. And I would prefer, if at all possible, to keep our name out of it. We've worked real and since I bought it, we have done an incredibly hard job to keep, to rebuild that confidence with our clients, we have done just, I mean, spent a lot of money. We're doing background checks that, you know, the state of Texas doesn't require you to do. It's a very touchy subject. It's a very hard subject, you know, to gain the trust of clients and to have this old issue come up and it could be devastating to our business should it come up again with our name.
- [27:13]
A
She said that her franchise is going beyond state required measures and background checks to provide additional security measures she said the previous owner didn't take. She also repeats state background checks every six months for every employee, which she said isn't required either. Many in home caregivers work for multiple companies like Griswold, she said, and she works to keep a high standard for the people she sends into clients homes.
- [27:39]
C
You know, obviously it starts with your caregivers and we've, as I've come in, I've started adding benefits to our caregivers, you know, providing paid time off that, you know, health benefits. But we're also, we're firing caregivers that aren't, you know, following. And it starts out at small things. You know, you're late and you're not telling us or you're not communicating well, but it starts out at the small steps and we're not having any. We're having zero tolerance for those type of things. We're not going to allow anything to snowball into a bigger issue.
- [28:15]
A
Those steps, she said, are expensive, which means that some owners don't take them. She also said it's already difficult to build trust with clients when your business is sending strangers into their homes. Adding in the looming shadow of a previous employee slash serial killer makes it particularly hard to get clients to trust her caregivers.
- [28:36]
C
I mean, it's, it just makes you go, what? I mean, it's, you hope that it's the exception, but then when you think it's the exception, then something else like that comes up.
- [28:52]
A
In early 2017, after Scott and Robert's mom, Carolyn, called the Griswold office and asked that they not send Benjamin Koeidebe anymore. Jack's health continued to decline. He died while receiving hospice care at home. And in April, Carolyn continued to live in the house. She didn't need any type of care. She still ran her own errands, still took care of herself. New Year's Eve that year in 2017 landed on a Sunday, and normally Carolyn drove herself to church. When she didn't show up, her church friends called Scott, Scott called Robert and the whole family descended on the home, all arriving within about 30 seconds of each other. They found her body in the bedroom. Her arm was over her face. Her glasses were off kilter and had blood on them. They also found several bloody tissues in the bathroom trash, a broken jelly jar in the kitchen, and more blood on the garage door.
- [29:52]
F
So then I just put the glasses up on the bed. And then we noticed it's like, where. Where are her wedding rings? And the police said, oh, old people hide things. That was her explanation.
- [30:04]
G
But, you know, at the time, you're not thinking. You don't think anything, right?
- [30:08]
F
We weren't thinking straight.
- [30:10]
G
No, but you're not. You're in shock.
- [30:11]
B
Yeah.
- [30:11]
F
You're in shock, healthy. What happened? I kept saying, mom, what happened?
- [30:16]
A
A Plano police detective came to the house. He deduced that Carolyn must have been on her way to church when she got a nosebleed. She turned around and drove home, the detective assumed, explaining away the blood in the garage and the tissues. Then he said she must have had an aneurysm and dropped dead instantly. Nosebleeds can be a sign of an aneurysm, but only in rare cases. And that theory also didn't account for the missing jewelry either. Over the next few months, Scott and Robert continued to push police to investigate the missing jewelry. They thought maybe paramedics had taken it or even the detective who came out to the scene. Scott said he was getting ready to file an internal affairs complaint against the detective. And in March 2018, when he saw the news of Shamirmir's arrest.
- [31:04]
G
I was old school, got the hard paper and went, holy crap, this explains everything. And it was not long after that we ended up going into the Plano Police department, put two and two together and put the. The Benjamin Coytaba alias together to Billy Shamir Mir found Benjamin Coitaba's name in the material that I'd kept still from all. All of the visits that she'd had in the house, as well as still had those glasses. Don't ask me why. Still had the glasses. And we turned those over and it was. It was almost a year before they came back as a positive match to his DNA.
- [31:41]
A
Here's what Scott and Robert think happened now. There's no way to say for sure, but they guess that since their mom was so sociable and would have recognized the home healthcare worker that helped take care of her dying husband, she may have invited him in. She didn't drink tea, but there was a mug of tea on the counter. So they Think he asked for one. They think she hit Shamir Mir in the head with the jelly jar, which explains the tissues with the blood in the bathroom, in the garage, and on the glasses.
- [32:13]
G
He knew their routine because he'd been living in that house with them over the course of a couple months. He knew they went to church. He was obviously working, watching what she did, and he found an opportunity to go back in and kill her. So it was.
- [32:24]
F
He knew what she had.
- [32:25]
G
Yeah.
- [32:25]
F
He knew the rings. Yep. She probably stared at him every day.
- [32:29]
G
I don't know how you protect yourself from that. Right. Someone who knows your routine, knows your life you have a relationship with. He got in that house because of the relationship, and he killed her for $5,000.
- [32:41]
A
I.
- [32:42]
G
That's hard to protect yourself from. You need help to protect yourself from something like that. You can't do it yourself.
- [32:49]
F
The big thing is getting this fixed. The home health care is broken.
- [32:54]
G
Yes.
- [32:55]
F
There needs to be accountability, like, big time. There's deep pockets in the home health or the retirement communities where they're pushing back against regulation. Of course, in laws, it's all about the money.
- [33:11]
A
So Shamir Mir used his knowledge of the senior care industry to target independent communities where security is looser. He also managed to get a job at a home healthcare company despite his criminal record, and used it to identify even more victims in their own homes. He then sold his stolen goods at cash for gold dealers and online sales apps, avoiding regulatory oversight of his illegal transactions. Loophole after loophole after loophole. So now that we know these loopholes exist and how do we close them? Why haven't we yet? And who's standing in the way?
- [33:53]
H
Not hearing from her at all through the course of the entire day was the cause for concern. So that's why I went over and checked on her.
- [34:01]
A
This is Cheryl Pangburn. In September 2017, her mother, Marilyn Bixler, lived at an independent living community called Parkview Frisco. Her story is like many of the ones we've heard already. Just like Jenny Bassett at Preston Place, she realized something must be wrong when her mother didn't shout to stop her dogs from barking at the door.
- [34:24]
H
So I opened the door, and of course, these units are not very big. So I immediately saw her laying on the floor between the couch and the coffee table. I could see the back of her head, and just pain. Panic set in, just sheer panic. And, you know, everything's kind of a blur from that point on.
- [34:43]
A
Cheryl called 911. The officers called the medical examiner's office, which Cleared Marilyn's body to be picked up by the funeral home. Natural causes. But immediately, Cheryl had questions. Her mom's body was perfectly aligned between the couch and the coffee table in the living room with nothing disturbed. Then there were the glasses, broken and sitting on the other side of the room, opposite from the direction she was facing. About a week later, Cheryl realized that a few of her mother's best items of jewelry were gone. It all seemed suspicious, but Cheryl didn't know what to make of it. She tried to move on.
- [35:21]
H
I mean, there's nothing you can do with it. You just kind of try to accept it doesn't make sense, and you just. You kind of process it and compartmentalize it. You know, you lost your mom before you were ready to and before you thought she was ready, and you just kind of grieve and live life.
- [35:48]
A
Over the next year and a half, Cheryl pushed aside her suspicions and focused on the long process of learning to live without her mother. She didn't see the news about Shamir mir's arrest in 2018 or the investigation into hundreds of unattended deaths at senior communities in the area. Meanwhile, the dozens of other families had begun to get the news that their loved ones were murdered and had started to develop an informal support network. Among them was Karen Harris, whose mother, Miriam Nelson, was killed at Preston Place in March 2018. She had decided to sue Preston Place and had hired Tre Crawford, the lawyer you heard from in an earlier episode, to represent her. Trey had a list of victims and shared it with Karen.
- [36:35]
I
I didn't know anybody. I was, you know, on an island by myself.
- [36:40]
A
This is Karen, who you may remember from our first episode.
- [36:43]
I
I was up one night, sleepless nights, after my mom died. I didn't sleep for a year. I was up pouring over that list. And when I came across the name Marilyn Bixler, I thought, Bixler. I knew a Bixler in high school. Sure enough, when I Googled her obituary, there was Cheryl's name. And she married Joey Pangburn, another classmate of mine from high school. I didn't have her phone number, but I knew she was on Facebook, so that's how I found her. And I just private messaged her.
- [37:15]
H
I'm sitting in an appointment at a hair salon, and I get a Facebook messenger message, and it's someone that went to my high school, and she said, I was going over a list of victims, and I ran across the name Marilyn Bixler. And I just wanted to reach out to you and say my mom was also a victim. Of Bill Billy Shamir Mirror. And I know how hard this is, and if you would ever just like to talk about it or could find comfort in talking, here's my number. You know, please feel free to reach out to me. And so I googled the name Billy Shamir Mirror. I mean, I literally, I think I must have turned white as a ghost, because right at that time, my hair stylist turned the corner to the processing room and looked at me. She's like, you. You're like, are you okay? Like, you look like you're about to pass out. I mean, my mind was just spinning because you start to. To put together all of the suspicions that you had and wonder if this could actually be true. And the last thing you want is for that to be true. So that. That's how I found out is through Facebook messenger.
- [38:33]
A
While Karen called Plano police and demanded to know why Cheryl didn't know, Cheryl tried calling Frisco police and started to piece together what had happened. Early on, police determined that Marilyn had been killed by Shamir Mir. They'd even discussed exhuming her body. The medical examiner had changed the cause of death from natural causes to undetermined. And at no point did any official contact Sheryl or her family. She'd simply fallen through the administrative cracks. Police thought the medical examiner had called. The medical examiner thought the police had called.
- [39:10]
H
They. They just never reached out to me to let our family know.
- [39:14]
A
I can imagine a lot of emotions with that.
- [39:18]
H
A lot. Yeah, a lot. It's amazing to me, just from my personal experience, you know, the judicial system, law enforcement, is supposed to be working on behalf of the victims and the families, in my experience, was a fight every step of the way.
- [39:48]
A
In 2020, I wrote about Cheryl's experience finding out about her mother's murder on Facebook in a story for the Dallas Morning News. Her next door neighbor, Texas State House representative Jared Patterson, read the story and decided that situation was unacceptable. He drafted a bill that would require medical examiners to notify next of kin if a cause of death is altered. He called it Maryland's bill. It was part of a suite of bills pushed by a group called Secure Our Seniors Safety, or sosa, a political nonprofit founded by Shannon Dion, Ellen House, Mary Jo Jennings, and other family members of Schmnimir's victims. There were four bills in Maryland's bill on death certificate amendments. A bill to close loopholes in cash for gold regulations, one to eliminate forced arbitration clauses like those in the tradition Prestonwood leasing contracts, and one that would create a Comprehensive security certification program for Independent Living Communities. Why was it important for you to seek some kind of legislative change?
- [40:55]
H
Because my mom, this was her second family. She lived with these people under the same roof. She socialized with them and saw them daily. They were like family to her. She would have been down in Austin herself trying to make a difference. She would not have stood for the lack of security. I mean, it'd be easier to just try to live life and not do any of this and just move on. People have said that over the years, okay, now you've done this. It's time to move on. And the truth of the matter is it happened in 2017. But for all of us that are trying to make a change, it's like it happened yesterday. We wake up every single day, and there's some facet of it that just comes to mind. It never leaves us.
- [41:42]
A
The Texas legislature meets once every two years for 140 calendar days. During the 2021 session, I drove to Austin with Shannon Dion and Cheryl for the first hearing on Maryland's bill, which was the first to be considered by legislators. We arrived at the Capitol building before dawn and waited in a small committee room while Representative Patterson laid out the bill to his colleagues in the House.
- [42:09]
J
Thank you, Chairwoman Klick, and members of the committee for the opportunity to lay out this bill. I'm not expected you to answer this first question, by the way, but how many of you knew that an alleged serial killer recently operated for years in Dallas and Collin Counties targeting elderly residents? Members? This is a simple bill, and unlike the experience of my neighbor, it would allow for families to be appropriately informed by a professional. That's the least that we could do, is offer that courtesy to these families. Personally, I cannot imagine learning that my loved one had died from a different cause than originally communicated. And I certainly can't imagine hearing that on Facebook secondhand. No one should.
- [42:59]
A
Then it was Cheryl and Shannon's chance to speak directly to lawmakers for the first time.
- [43:05]
H
My name is Cheryl Pangburn. I'm representing myself today, and I'm here in support of House Bill 723. I'm here today because I'm the one that Jared was referring to. Excuse me. To learn about my mother's death on Facebook. So it was 11 months after this amendment occurred that I was made aware of it. And it was not that anyone reached out to me. It was simply that it came up in a conversation with. With the police investigator.
- [43:31]
A
Here's Shannon.
- [43:32]
I
Sos. Primary focus is simple. This cannot happen. To another Texas family. Nobody, no family should ever find out on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram or any other social media their loved one was murdered. HB723 is simple, short, budget neutral to Texas taxpayers and should mandate authorities to do their right thing.
- [43:56]
A
But nearly every one of the bills suggested by the victims was swiftly and strongly opposed by senior industry lobbyists. They said that the mandatory security measures would be too onerous and expensive to implement, that seniors wanted independence in their living choices, not security measures, that introducing any regulation like this was a slippery slope to much greater state control of their business interests. Among the loudest dissenting voices were two statewide PACs, leading age Texas and the Texas Assisted Living association, or talla. Leading Age Texas is the statewide arm of a national group that lobbies on behalf of senior groups and nonprofits, which spent $130,000 on federal lobbying last year. The Tala PAC spent $16,000 in political expenditures during the 2021 legislative session when Cheryl and Shannon first visited Austin Soss. The victims group had just a little over $13,000 total in the bank at that point, which was not enough to hire their own lobbyist. Although Wynn did take on their case part time pro bono, Leading Age Texas did not respond to multiple requests for comment and tala's leaders declined to be interviewed for this podcast. But they did send me a prepared statement that calls the killings horrific. It points out that the concerns and suspicions about the deaths were minimized and that the outcomes may have been very different if their concerns had been investigated. The statement goes on to say that TALA would support legislation that would ensure unusual deaths at senior communities are investigated more thoroughly, and that the group supported and will continue to support policies which improve safety for seniors while balancing their independence. Did it surprise you there was so much pushback from the senior industry?
- [45:45]
I
Not at all.
- [45:46]
A
Why not?
- [45:47]
I
It's a money making business. There is no regulation in senior independent living currently and they are very happy with the setup that they have right now. They were more concerned about keeping things calm, people thinking they're safe, letting the life continue as it was then, possibly sharing information that was important and would have been helpful to the residents. But that might have created an uproar, a concern that wasn't going to be helpful to their business.
- [46:26]
A
At the end of the 2021 legislative session, only Maryland's bill and the Cash for Gold measure were passed into law. The arbitration and security certification bills failed in 2023. The families returned with a single bill and five measures to improve senior living security, including mandated background checks for employees and required name tags for every visitor. It passed the Texas House, but the Senate committee assigned to review the bill never scheduled it for a hearing, and it died there. Next year, the group plans to return to Austin with more measures, but Shamirmere avoided detection for one other big how he killed. Smothering deaths leave few signs to the untrained eye. In its medical examiner, Dallas had a prime expert in the field, one who had seen multiple smothering deaths in the past and had written research papers on the signs serial killers leave behind. And even he missed it, only changing the death certificates of a dozen or so that Dallas police identified early on. So how many more victims could be out there? I think probably there are many people have experience with smotherings. They just don't know they're smotherings. Because that's the thing about smothering is.
- [47:46]
J
You'Re lucky if you get any real evidence.
- [47:50]
A
Next time on the Unforgotten Unnatural Causes.
- [47:53]
B
That's totally impossible.
- [47:55]
I
It's a really crappy excuse for not delivering good care. And it really bothered me.
- [48:03]
A
And in a society that is obsessed with race, it came up in the trial. She would not describe his race to me. The Unforgotten is a Free range production. Season 2 Unnatural Causes is created, written and hosted by me, Charlie Scudder. Our producer is Wes Ferguson. Associate producer is Monica Watkins. Audio, editing, engineering, mixing and mastering by Austin Sisler at Eastside Studios in Austin, Texas. Theme song and sound design by AJ LeGrand. Wes Ferguson is the Executive Producer at Free Range. Special thanks to the Dallas Morning News and the Division of Journalism at Southern Methodist University's Meadows School of Yards.