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DALLAS (AP) — After Mary Brooks was found dead on the floor of her Dallas-area condo, grocery bags from a shopping trip still on her countertop, authorities decided the 87-year-old had died of natural causes. Even after her family discovered jewelry was missing — including a coral necklace she loved and diamond rings — it took an attack on another woman weeks later for police to reconsider. The next capital murder trial for Billy Chemirmir, 49, begins Monday in Dallas in the death of Brooks, one of 22 older women he is charged with killing. The charges against Chemirmir grew in the years following his 2018 arrest, as police across the Dallas area reexamined the deaths of older people that had been considered natural, even though families raised alarm bells about missing jewelry. Four indictments were added this summer. Chemirmir, who maintains his innocence, was convicted in April of capital murder in the smothering death of 81-year-old Lu Thi Harris and sentenced to life in … [Read more...] about Texas man accused of killing 22 older women goes on trial again

This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate 26 FARMERSVILLE, Texas (AP) — A sweating Bart Barber trekked across a pasture in search of Bully Graham, the would-be patriarch of the rural pastor’s fledgling cattle herd. With the temperature in the mid-90s, the 52-year-old Texan found the bull — whose nickname reflects his owner’s affection for the late Rev. Billy Graham — and 11 heifers cooling under a canopy of trees. “Hey, baby girl,” Barber said as he patted a favorite cow he dubbed Lottie Moon after the namesake of his denomination’s international missions offering. For nearly a quarter-century, Barber enjoyed relative obscurity as a minister in this town 50 miles northeast of Dallas. That changed in June as delegates to the Southern Baptist Convention’s annual meeting in Anaheim, … [Read more...] about Amid crises, rural roots anchor Southern Baptists’ president