UPDATE:
Sadly, but not unexpectedly our numbers continue to rise. We add Marilyn Bixler to our timeline. She was a victim of the murderer on September 17, 2017, at Parkview in Frisco.
The Dallas County Medical Examiner Dr. Jeffrey Barnard has amended Joyce Abramowitz’s death certificate to homicide. She was a victim on July 18, 2016 at The Tradition Prestonwood. We hope the other families with pending cases will get answers soon. They were told in early September their cases are under review.
Why Legislation is Needed to Improve Senior Security
A Story of the Destruction Non-Communication Wrought
We always hope that businesses work in our best interests. Unfortunately, this does not always happen. When other concerns take precedence over integrity (they feel optimum safety is too costly, too time-consuming, or may cause negative public opinion) and the business is unwilling to make changes needed to prevent criminal activity, it is time for regulation.
Our loved ones were living full active lives. They wanted to live where they did not have to prepare daily meals, had access to exercise classes, speaker events, social activities. Some of us helped find their residential establishment. Some of us supported the choice they made. We joined our loved ones for meals, got to know their friends, loved hearing about their experiences. We would leave them feeling contented they were in a secure place. Key fob access and 24/7 concierge service were often touted.
Starting in April 2016, our loved ones were found deceased with concerning circumstances attached (theft, unusual body placement, the situation did not make sense). We were told they died naturally, and other concerns were dismissed. This was difficult to accept, but we had no option other than to get on with our lives mourning our loved ones. As we mourned, we still had unanswered questions.
Dallas Police arrested Billy Chemirmir on March 20, 2018, for the murder of Lu Thi Harris. Following the arrest, we started getting phone calls from law enforcement that our loved ones’ cause of death was being reviewed. The unanswered questions we had shelved would finally be addressed.
The criminal investigation led to shocking information. This criminal accessed our loved ones’ residential establishments numerous times unchallenged. How does this happen we asked? The answers led to the formation of SOSS (Secure Our Seniors’ Safety) and our push for legislation.
Residents were not informed of a suspicious person entering the building and wandering for hours. In November 2016 when management at one business was asked “What will you do to make my mother’s friends safer than she was?” the response was “We have no evidence anyone entered the apartment.” A police report, an autopsy ordered, and an insurance claim settled would suggest there was a suspicion that someone had entered the apartment. In December 2018 when a family inquired about Chemirmir accessing the establishment, the same management denied he had been on their property – despite video showing him in their building.
In Summer 2018 Dallas and Plano’s detectives visited establishments to investigate homicides. Their request to speak with residents about a suspicious person on their property in 2016 was denied at one establishment. They were not permitted to leave their contact information if residents wished to speak with detectives to help with investigations. One detective was escorted off the property and told to only return if he had subpoenas and warrants. This business has stated publicly numerous times they “cooperated fully with all the authorities”.
We talked with our loved ones about security.
Do not give financial information out.
Call us before you send money for a kidnapped grandchild.
Be aware of your surroundings.
We would have discussed not opening their door for unscheduled visitors had we known there was criminal activity in their building. WE DID NOT KNOW. And our loved ones were murdered.
We struggle by asking:
If only residents had been informed of the criminal activity occurring in their building.
If only law enforcement had access to residents to investigate.
If only residents had felt comfortable to discuss openly the criminal activity occurring in their building.
We hope our legislation will improve senior security. We look forward to sharing our legislative proposal with you and gaining your support for it. We are thankful for State Senator Nathan Johnson’s dedicated work on legislation. As we have seen recently, ignoring silent killers be it COVID or a serial killer is unacceptable. Time to take care of those who cared for us.
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“This article appeared in The Dallas Business Journal. It is a shortened version of article written by Natalie Posgate Texas Lawbook July 1, 2019” https://www.bizjournals.com/dallas/news/2019/07/03/i-ve-never-heard-of-a-situation-like-this-families.html
‘I’ve never heard of a situation like this’:
Families file suits against upscale senior living community in Dallas
Jul 3, 2019, 7:22am CDT
For all the horror and heartache surrounding the deaths of eight elderly North Dallas residents – apparently at the hands of an accused serial killer – litigation filed last week by their families against the community that had pledged to protect them didn’t have to find its way into court.
Negotiations were well under way and both sides were making headway. Families were closer to answers. And owners of The Tradition-Prestonwood – the upscale residence that had pledged to protect them – were on the verge of avoiding a public relations nightmare.
But as you may suspect from the way those two paragraphs are written, that’s not the way it played out.
On Tuesday, June 18, Trey Crawford, Ali Ohlinger and Michael Lang – of Crawford, Wish new & Lang – were in the middle of mediation on the issue with former federal judge Royal Furgeson when the die was cast.
The firm, which represents six of the Tradition-Prestonwood families, was deep into the second day. Nondisclosure agreements had been signed. Clients were traveling to Dallas from as far away as Minnesota. After a year of investigation and negotiation, things seemed to be falling into place.
But during the lunch hour, Judge Furgeson told them that lawyers for The Tradition had dropped off some documents at the CWL offices. What soon became clear was that the day before – even as they engaged in good-faith mediation – lawyers for The Tradition had filed six separate arbitration actions in a hardball play against the six families.
“To do this in the middle of mediation was just disappointing,” said Lang, circumspectly.
Last week, just days after their mediation fell apart, CWL struck back for the families. They filed counterclaims in the arbitrations as well as six sister lawsuits in Dallas County, adopting the counterclaims in one as claims in the other. The lawsuits ask for a ruling that the parties’ arbitration provision is invalid and unenforceable.
Lawyers for The Tradition-Prestonwood, Dallas attorneys David Macdonald and James Stanton, aren’t talking. They deferred comment to Merrie Spaeth, a public relations representative who specializes in crisis management. She, in turn, declined to answer specific written questions.
The timing of the move has embittered a ghastly situation that may now be played out before a jury, a strategy that left some lawyers scratching their heads.
”I’ve never heard of a situation like this,” says Dave Wishnew, another lawyer on the case for the families. “With facts as egregious as this … to double down and triple down on bad decisions by filing arbitration actions against the families that have already lost so much.”
By striking the first blow, lawyers for The Tradition have now allowed the families to make present their claims as counter-claims, says Dallas trial lawyer Jeff Tillotson, who is not involved with the case. And now the families can do so with almost none of the usual procedural limitations. “I think it’s the first petition I’ve seen in over 20 years that starts with: ‘Here are our counterclaims,”‘ Tillotson said. “It was a very smart, very clever use of the defendant’s first punch effort against them.
” Moreover, if the purpose of arbitration was to keep the situation out of the public eye, the damage might already be done. “Arbitration clauses are imperfect weapons,” said Tillotson “As long as there’s a fight over whether the arbitration clause applies, the odds are that fight will end up in court.”
‘No.never:’
Even under the kindest light, the underlying facts in the dispute are beyond disturbing. Eight families, including the six represented by CWL, allege that their elderly relatives, all residents of The TraditionPrestonwood, died at the hands of Billy Chemirmir, an accused serial killer who currently faces 12 charges of capital murder. Chemirmir, 46, is suspected of targeting elderly victims by posing as a maintenance worker at The Tradition and other independent living facilities. Once he gained access to their homes, the charges against him allege, he suffocated them with a pillow and stole valuable jewelry. He is currently in custody at Dallas County jail with bail set at $11.6 million. For the most part, the eight deaths at The Tradition fit a pattern. They occurred in a three-and-a-half-month span between July 18 and October 30, 2016. All but one victim were women. All but one died of asphyxiation. And all but one was missing valuable jewelry at the time of death. The sole male, 89-year old Solomon Spring, was found with a head wound in a pool of his own blood. Until Chemirmir’s arrest in March 2018, the deaths were officially listed as resulting from “natural causes.” Even Solomon’s death was assumed by police to have been the result of a fall. Only two of the deaths at The Tradition – those of Norma French, 85, and Doris Gleason, 92 – have been formally charged to Chemirmir. Their two families filed lawsuits against The Tradition-Prestonwood in July 2018. But the lawsuits filed this past week allege all eight deaths, including that of Solomon, have been attributed to Chemirmir by law enforcement. After Chemirmir’s arrest, according to a court filing, law enforcement was able to use location tracking to place him at The Tradition-Prestonwood at the time of each death. The lawsuits charge that during that spate of deaths, The Tradition-Prestonwood had allowed Chemirmir to move virtually unfettered on the property among the elderly residents. In a potentially more serious charge, the lawsuits allege that police might have been able to apprehend Chemirmir much earlier in their investigation had The Tradition been more forthcoming with information they apparently possessed. For instance, the six lawsuits allege that in late 2016, employees at The Tradition conducted their own internal investigation of the jewelry thefts that had occurred at the time of the deaths. As a result of that investigation, according to an employee whistleblower, Chemirmir was confronted and actually escorted off the premises by one of The Tradition’s executives. According to the whistleblower, Tradition’s owner Jonathan Perlman, who is also a named as a defendant, threatened to fire anyone who informed residents or their families about their contact with Chemirmir. And even after they knew better, the suit maintains, The Tradition’s staff sought to divert attention from the accused serial killer. When the body of Solomon Spring was found in a pool of blood in his apartment, staff at The Tradition were sufficiently alarmed that they reported the death as a possible homicide. During the investigation, however, police were never informed about the four previous deaths at the complex, information that might have put Solomon’s death in a far different light. Moreover, when families questioned the disappearance of jewelry during the incidents, the staff at The Tradition attempted to direct suspicion toward paramedics who had been called to the scene.
After Chemirmir was arrested, according to the lawsuits, a family member of one of the victims asked Jeff Wells, executive director of The Tradition-Prestonwood, if the accused serial killer had ever been on the property. “No, never,” Wells answered, according to the lawsuit. But according to the whistleblower, it was Wells himself who had escorted Chemirmir off the property.
In a statement provided to the media, The Tradition-Prestonwood denied culpability and disputed what was presented in the lawsuits.
“The Tradition-Prestonwood regards all our residents as family,” said the statement. “The Tradition-Prestonwood relied on the investigations of the Dallas police, its detectives, and other reputable, established governmental entities, including the Dallas County Medical Examiner, the Collin County Medical Examiner, and more. Any death was investigated by Dallas police and the Dallas County Medical Examiner and ruled as attributed to natural causes. Additionally, there were two autopsies which also confirmed death by natural causes.”
“Those rulings stood for more than 27 months,” it continued. “The Tradition-Prestonwood has cooperated with all the authorities and will continue to do so. The allegations against Mr. Perlman that he withheld information are absolutely false.”
The ownership
The Tradition-Prestonwood is no fly-by-night. It is managed and partly owned by Tradition Senior Living, a company founded in 2007 by Jonathan Perlman SMU-trained lawyer distinguished by two distinct earlier careers: as a major league baseball player and an associate at Vinson & Elkins.
Like many real estate ventures, The Tradition-Prestonwood is jointly-owned and operated by a variety of real estate and real estate management companies that are, in turn, owned and operated by Perlman. But ultimately the largest stake in the operation is owned by Franklin Mountain Investments, a company owned by Franklin Mountain Capital.
CWL’s lawsuits claim The Tradition withheld what it knew because its “singular focus” was to increase “its bottom line at the expense of its residents’ safety.”
Although The Tradition markets to its customers by touting its state-of-the-art security standards, the complex failed to take some of the most basic security measures – and failed to fix “massive security defects,” including some exposed by burglaries that occurred before any of the deaths, according to the lawsuits.
To read a longer version of this story, visit https://texaslawbook.net