FOR Shannon Dion, the waking nightmare began with the discovery of a piece of missing jewelry.
Shannon had just found her 92-year-old mom, Doris Gleason, dead in her apartment, but her grief was quickly muddied with panic and confusion when she noticed the gold Guardian Angel necklace Doris never took off missing from around her neck.
For the Gleason girls, the necklace held a significant sentimental value.
Doris and Shannon were both given identical necklaces by Shannon’s sister Nancy before she died of pancreatic cancer in 2003.
Nancy considered Shannon and Doris as her guardian angels after they helped her through a traumatic incident in 1988 when she was abducted at gunpoint and raped by a man disguised as a delivery driver.
She bought the gold chains as a symbolic gesture of thanks during a trip to Florence, Italy, and Shannon and her mom continued to wear them every day, long after Nancy passed away.
So when Shannon leaned down to warm her mom’s lifeless frame with one final kiss on the forehead and realized the treasured pendant was missing, she immediately spiraled into a fit of panic.
Looking up at two funeral workers with tears in her eyes, Shannon asked where her mother’s jewelry was.
The workers pointed over to a nearby counter where two of Doris’ wedding rings were stacked on top of one another – but where was the necklace?
“[The workers] responded, ‘What?’ And I told them, ‘the Guardian Angel necklace charm on a thin gold chain – she wears it all the time, 24/7’,” recounted Shannon.
“But they told me they didn’t have it and they hadn’t seen it.
“They opened up the body bag and looked around in there but there was no necklace.”
Shannon said that was the moment when she knew something was amiss with her mother’s death.
“I don’t know why, but then I went and looked in her billfold,” said Shannon.
“I’d helped her withdraw cash on Friday and the money was missing.
“Then I looked in her jewelry box and other items were missing from there.
“I had about an hour of grieving my mother’s passing as a natural loss.”
HEARTBREAK AND SUSPICION
Shannon found her mother dead inside the Tradition-Prestonwood, a luxury senior independent-living complex in Dallas, Texas, on October 30, 2016.
She arrived at the complex to pick up her mom for their weekly church visit, but alarm bells sounded when Doris wasn’t waiting on the bench outside for her as usual.
With the help of a concierge, Shannon gained access to Doris’ apartment and found her lying on the ground in the dining room, her laptop still open on the table.
She last saw her mother only 48 hours earlier, and Doris had been in great health and spirits, appearing far younger and more spritely than her 92 years of age would suggest.
When the sad discovery was made, two Dallas police officers arrived to conduct a brief investigation, asked Shannon a few questions, and ruled Doris’ death was natural and likely the result of a cardiac event.
After discovering her mom’s necklace and money were missing, she summoned Dallas PD again, this time to report a robbery.
Two homicide detectives came to the apartment to dust for fingerprints and search for signs of a struggle but found nothing.
Shannon point-blank asked the detectives if they believed something bad had happened to her mom.
They assured her they didn’t believe that was the case, suggesting instead that Doris had died naturally and someone happened to come by to burglarize her apartment before she was found.
The theory offered little in the way of comforting Shannon, who was disturbed at the thought of her mom’s body and home being violated after she died.
She was determined to find the culprit responsible.
GRIEVING DAUGHTER TURNS SLEUTH
In the following days, Shannon discovered more of her mother’s jewelry missing.
Then, one of her church friends who also lived at the Tradition-Prestonwood told Shannon there had been another death with a robbery at the facility only a few weeks earlier.
Overcome with a gut feeling that something wasn’t right, she began conducting her own investigation into Tradition-Prestonwood.
It was shocking. Devastating. Heartbreaking.
Shannon Dion
That investigation began with filing a lengthy records request with the Dallas Police Department about all the incidents reported at the complex for the last two years.
In the meantime, an autopsy ordered by Dallas PD came back with the results finding no signs of trauma on Doris’ body.
The State of Texas eventually declared that Doris had died of natural causes, with her official cause of death listed as cardiac dysrhythmia, or old age.
Then, Shannon’s police records finally arrived in the mail after months of waiting.
Within the cache of documents, Shannon found evidence of other unattended deaths with robberies reported at the complex going back to July 2016, in addition to a string of suspicious-person reports, break-ins, and thefts.
The first of the suspicious deaths was Joyce Abramowitz, who was found dead in her apartment from what appeared to be natural causes in July 2016.
However, a week later her son called the police to report that her safe had been stolen from her room.
Later that month, Juanita Purdy died suddenly at the facility, again from what was initially deemed to be natural causes.
Her children called Dallas PD a few days later to report Purdy’s jewelry cabinet appeared to have been raided by a thief.
Six other so-called natural deaths – including Doris’ – would be reported at the complex between July and October, including one woman whose daughter reported $6,000 worth of jewelry and cash missing.
Shannon also uncovered a report of a suspicious person who was spotted at the complex in November 2016.
The culprit in question was described as a black male, around 5 feet 10 inches tall, who was carrying a leather satchel.
The man was never caught, but Shannon believed she’d uncovered a pattern and had a concrete theory of what she believed happened to her mom.
She theorized that someone was sneaking into the Tradition-Prestonwood, breaking into the apartments of the recently deceased, and stealing their jewelry before their remains were discovered.
Shannon sent her findings to local media but the story was never picked up.
After months of trying to raise the alarm, she eventually gave up and resorted to leaving a brief, one-star review on Tradition-Prestenwood’s Yelp page.
“The food and ambiance are lovely. The security is unacceptable,” wrote Shannon.
“I urge anyone considering living here to evaluate how easy it is for uninvited outsiders to have unmonitored access to residential floors.”
SERIAL KILLER SNARED
Shannon’s snarky review would prove pivotal in the shocking chain of events that unfolded over the next few months.
In July 2018, months after Shannon had vowed to move on with her life and let her mother’s mysterious death go, the phone rang.
It was a detective by the name of John Hoffman who had read her Yelp review and had some questions about her mother’s death.
They arranged to meet the following day and Hoffman shared with Shannon some earth-shattering news.
Hoffman told Shannon he was investigating a potential serial killer of elderly women in the Dallas area and he believed Doris Gleason was among a dozen of his victims.
The suspect’s name? Billy Chemirmir.
Timeline of Billy Chemirmir's Alleged Victims
May 14, 2016: Phyllis Payne, 91, is found dead at Edgemere Senior Living in Dallas
June 5, 2016: Phoebe Perry, 94, is murdered in Dallas
July 31, 2016: Juanita Purdy, 83, is found dead at The Tradition-Prestonwood
August 19, 2016: Leah Corken, 83 is found dead at The Tradition weeks later
October 2017: Attempted murder of a 93-year-old woman in Frisco who survives the attack
October 8, 2016: Death of Norma French, 85, at The Tradition-Prestonwood
October 29, 2016: Doris Gleason, 92, is found dead by her daughter and a concierge at the Tradition-Prestonwood
October 31, 2017: Death of Minnie Campbell, 83, at Preston Place
December 31, 2017: Death of Carolyn MacPhee, 81
January 17, 2018: Death of Rosemary Curtis, 76,
January 31, 2018: Death of Mary Brooks
March 2018: Attempted murder of a 91-year-old woman in Plano who identifies a photo of Chemirmir as the likely culprit
March 4, 2018: Death of Martha Williams, 80, at Preston Place
March 9, 2018: Miriam Nelson, 81, is also found dead at Preston Place
March 18, 2018: Ann Conklin, 82, dies at Preston Place
March 20, 2018: Lu Thi Harris, 81, is smothered to death and Chemirmir is arrested the same day.
Chemirmir was snared by police in March 2018 after a 91-year-old woman survived a smothering attack in her apartment complex in Plano.
The woman said she opened the door to a tall and imposing figure who ordered her to go into the bedroom where the attacker attempted to suffocate her with a pillow.
The would-be killer stole a diamond ring and wedding band from her left hand and $270 in cash from her purse, before fleeing.
Investigators looked back through records of similar cases and discovered a 93-year-old woman had survived a nearly identical incident the previous October at a senior living complex in Frisco.
The two incidents were investigated as the work of the same culprit and, soon after, detectives uncovered a report of a suspicious vehicle at the Plano complex.
The car in question was a silver Nissan Altima registered to Billy Chemirmir.
A surveillance team began following Chemirmir the following day and watched as he tossed a jewelry box into a dumpster, with a fistful of gold and cash in his other hand.
He was arrested on outstanding warrants and a piece of paper in the discarded box led police to the home of 81-year-old Lu Thi Harris, who they found dead in her bedroom near a pillow smeared with her lipstick.
In total, police believe Chemirmir murdered at least 22 elderly people in a two-year killing spree between 2016 and 2018.
The Kenyan-born in-home carer would pose as a maintenance worker to gain access to luxury senior communities across the Dallas area, smother vulnerable residents, and steal their jewelry to cash it in at pawn shops.
Shannon said losing her mom and being told she’d been robbed post-mortem was a hard enough pill to swallow.
But discovering she’d actually been murdered by a serial killer was beyond all belief and understanding, she said.
“Of all the possibilities and theories I had racing through my mind at that time, I never thought she could’ve been murdered because I was going off what authorities had told me and assured me,” said Shannon.
“It was shocking. Devastating. Heartbreaking.
“But it was also vindicating in a way because even though I’d put a lid on it a year earlier, it still wasn’t settled.”
KILLED BEHIND BARS
Chemirmir was eventually convicted of capital murder in the deaths of two women in separate cases in Dallas County.
He was sentenced to life without parole in both cases and, ultimately, Dallas prosecutors decided to drop all additional charges against him relating to the 20 other deaths.
In September 2023, the 50-year-old was murdered by his cellmate at the Coffield Unit prison in east Texas, following an altercation.
It has not been revealed how Chemirmir was killed, or what may have led to the slaying.
Officials also did not name the cellmate, though the culprit was also serving time for murder.
Shannon said Chemirmir – whom she refers to as “The Beast” – got exactly what he deserved.
“I am much healthier knowing that he’s not breathing,” she admitted.
But Shannon’s quest for justice and change didn’t end with Chemirmir’s arrest.
She sued the Tradition-Prestonwood after her mother’s case was reopened and the claim was settled confidentially out of court.
Shannon has also since started a foundation with the families of other victims called SOSS: Secure Our Seniors Safety, pushing for laws requiring security in independent senior living communities.
Collectively, the group calls themselves the Silver Tsunami.
“It started because I wanted to protect my mother’s friends,” said Shannon.
“It’s such a tragedy that this happened to all these people, and that was what was most important – protecting other people.
“I’m part of the tail end of the baby boomers, and I don’t want my daughters to experience with me what I had to with my mom; I don’t want my neighbors to experience it with their mothers and fathers.
“And we won’t rest until these communities are safer for elderly people – in Texas and beyond.”
Billy Chemirmir’s horrifying crimes are laid bare in a new Paramount Plus documentary, Pillowcase Murders.