Secure Our Seniors Safety

Nonprofit group advocates for legislative change, education
By Sonia Duggan
Eight years ago, Shannon Dion’s world was turned upside down. Her mother, once vibrant and full of life, was found lifeless in her apartment at a senior living facility, robbed of jewelry and cash, leaving behind not just grief but questions and the suspicion that there was more than meets the eye.
Just months earlier, Loren Smith had faced a similar nightmare — abruptly summoned from vacation when her 92-year-old mother was discovered dead at another Dallas senior living facility. Little did they know, they were not alone.
It would later be revealed their mothers’ deaths were part of a sinister pattern — one that would eventually bring together a group of families bonded by loss and the determination to seek justice for their loved ones.
United by their shared pain, these families, led by Dion and Smith, embarked on a mission to ensure no one else would suffer the same fate. Their journey exposed shocking gaps in the protections for senior citizens and led to the formation of Secure Our Seniors’ Safety (SOSS), a nonprofit focused on legislative change and consumer education. Their fight for justice has already reshaped laws in Texas, but their work is far from over.
As the SOSS co-founder, Dion frequently speaks at events to deliver a powerful message drawn from personal tragedy.
During a 30-minute talk to Rotarians last month, Dion shared the heart-wrenching story of her mother, Doris Gleason, who’s death would eventually be connected to Billy Chemirmir, a serial killer preying on elderly women in senior living facilities, responsible for taking the lives of at least 22 elderly women, then robbing them of jewelry, cash and other valuables.
“It’s a difficult story for me to tell and it’s one difficult for you all to hear, but please stick with me, because there is a message of hope,” Dion told the audience.
She spoke first about her mother’s character, describing her as a true Steel Magnolia, “beautiful and gracious on the outside and tough and strong on the inside.”
“Faith and family and friends were her treasures,” she added. “She was a true genteel southern lady.”
On the day she was killed, Gleason had lunch with friends then planned to attend a birthday party, but she never made it. The next day, when Dion arrived to take her mother to church, Gleason wasn’t waiting on her usual bench outside the front door. Unable to reach her by phone, Dion and the concierge entered the unlocked apartment, where they discovered Gleason’s lifeless body on the floor by the dining table.
Initially, Dion believed her 92-year-old mother had died of natural causes due to her age. However, as funeral home attendants removed her mother’s jewelry at Dion’s request, she noticed that a necklace, which matched her own, was missing. A further search revealed that other valuables, including cash and items from her mother’s jewelry box, were also gone.
This led Dion’s husband to call the police, suspecting robbery. Detectives investigated the scene, dusted for fingerprints and staff and residents were questioned. No signs of forced entry were discovered, leaving Dion with questions about how her mother’s personal belongings had disappeared after her death.
Dion asked if they thought somebody had hurt her mother but the detectives reported that there weren’t any signs of struggle.
“I was told that somebody just happened to come by and rob the jewelry off her cold dead body, the necklace, a bracelet, a watch and possibly another ring,” she said, adding “it was all really unsettling thinking that somebody had messed with my mother’s body.”
A church friend later mentioned that an unattended death with a robbery had occurred at the same facility weeks earlier. When Dion and her husband met with management to turn in the keys to her mother’s apartment, she asked “what was going to be done to make my mother’s friends safer than she had been?”
Frustrated by management’s lack of accountability, Dion filed an open records request with the Dallas Police, requesting reports from the past two years related to her mother’s address.
“The reports I got showed, that including my mother, there had been four unattended deaths at the establishment beginning in July through October 2016,” she said.
In March 2017, Dion posted online reviews expressing concerns about safety issues at The Tradition-Prestonwood. A little over a year later, on July 16, 2018, Plano detective John Hoffman contacted Dion as part of a task force investigating a serial killer linked to elderly homicides. He referred her to Chemirmir’s name after reading her review detailing her mother’s unattended death with post-mortem robbery. Dion later discovered that her mother was the eighth homicide at The Tradition-Prestonwood in 2016 and Doris Wasserman became the ninth victim over a year later.
Full of life
In describing her mother, Phyllis Payne, Smith said she was a “ball of fire,” full of life and energy even in her later years.
In March 2016, Smith’s mother opted out of a family beach trip to Alabama to host bridge club at Edgemere, a senior living facility in Dallas.
On their first night away, Smith’s family called her mother. “She talked about bridge club, the good food, and her luck with cards. It was the last time I spoke to her—she was murdered the next day.”
Initially, there were no signs of a struggle and much of her mother’s valuable jewelry remained untouched, leading Smith to believe her death was natural although a recent check-up revealed she was in great health.
However, when packing up her mother’s apartment one week later, Smith noticed some of her mother’s prized possessions were missing.
“She had her best jewelry in the coffee can,” Smith said. She was so proud of that hiding place. We looked in her refrigerator and it was gone.”
Also missing were pieces of her mother’s sterling silver flatware. It was later discovered that the flatware, along with her mother’s gold, had been sold by Chemirmir just a few hours after her murder.
In 2018, after two years of believing her mother had died of natural causes, Smith received a phone call from Dallas County Detective Brian Tabor, who informed her that her mother was one of Chemirmir’s victims— his second known one. As with some of the other victims, Chemirmir had posed as a maintenance worker, gaining access to his victims’ homes by feigning routine work requests.
[The news] was just so shocking,” she said. “For two years we believed she died peacefully in her sleep, so that was kind of a comfort.”
Two convictions

Chemirmir’s killing spree spanned two to three years, with authorities believing his crimes may have begun as early as 2015.
Chemirmir’s pattern of murder came to light through a series of calculated actions. At Edgemere in Dallas, where he began his spree and Smith’s mother was killed, Chemirmir committed at least three homicides. His arrest in June 2016 for trespassing, following the suspicions of security guard Josh Aleman, halted the spree temporarily.
Dallas police found Chemirmir with an unloaded gun and a magnet he used to quickly identify valuable jewelry. But after serving only 10 days in jail, he was released and resumed his killings. He targeted several more facilities, including The Tradition Prestonwood, Parkview in Frisco and Preston Place in Plano, murdering numerous victims, many of whom were widows, by suffocation.
Dion highlighted this unsettling pattern: “In two cases, he was actually a caregiver for men in the family. When the men passed away, he returned to kill the widows.”
One of Chemirmir’s most courageous victims, Mary Bartel, survived an attack in March 2018 at Preston Place. He had knocked on her door and told her chillingly, “Go to bed. Don’t fight me.” Bartel’s bravery in coming forward with her experience led to Chemirmir’s arrest and the beginning of a broader investigation.
“We recognize her as a true heroine who stopped this criminal’s homicide spree,” Dion said.
The killer was eventually indicted on 22 capital murder charges, but the path to justice was anything but straightforward. The first trial in November 2021, marked by the lead defense attorney’s arrest for solicitation just before jury selection, ended in a mistrial when one juror refused to deliberate.
“We were devastated,” Dion recalled. “We thought we had this, but one person stopped the whole process.”
In April 2022, however, a second trial ended with Chemirmir’s first conviction, one that the families got to witness from the courtroom.
“And even though it wasn’t our mother’s cases, he was convicted and he was not going to be free,” Dion said.
The third trial in October 2022 resulted in the second guilty verdict, with Dion, Smith and the others relieved and thankful that it was over.
Chemirmir was sentenced to life without parole for two capital murders in Dallas County, but the remaining cases in Dallas were dismissed. After 10 months, Dion said Collin County District Attorney Greg Willis decided to deny the capital murder cases in his jurisdiction, a decision that left many families disheartened.
“Those families had been hoping for a death penalty trial,” she said.
The story took a final twist in September 2023, when 50-year-old Chemirmir was found dead in his prison cell, murdered by his cellmate.
Connection paves way for advocacy
In 2018, Detective Tabor, who handled all 13 of the Dallas cases, including Dion’s mother’s, recognized the deep emotions she shared with Smith. With their permission, Tabor introduced them, saying, “I think y’all need to talk.”
From that moment, the women formed a strong bond, becoming each other’s first SOSS sisters.
“We shared tears, memories, and a determination that something had to change,” Dion said. “We don’t want others to endure what we have, and this crime will not define our loved ones’ legacy.”
As time passed, more families of victims came forward and the group grew. As Smith pointed out, “There aren’t many people who can say their mother was murdered by a serial killer.” Their support network now includes the families of over 20 victims.
In July 2019, four daughters—Smith, Dion, Ellen House and Mary Joe Jennings—met with State Senator Nathan Johnson and State Representative Julie Johnson to share their stories and advocate for change. Their collective goal was twofold: pass legislation to improve senior security and educate the public on selecting safe residential communities and recognizing crimes against seniors.
To advance their legislative efforts, they first established a 501(c)(4) organization and then added a 501(c)(3) to focus on raising funds for public education.
They have seven board members, said Smith, who all wear many hats, pitching in to help with legislation and education and “doing whatever we can.”
In January 2021, amid COVID-19 and then the power grid failure, the group headed to Austin for the 87th Legislative Session.
“We were told coming to Austin with four bills wasn’t typical,” Dion said. “But we knew four things needed fixing, so what else were we going to do?”
One of their successes was House Bill 723, also known as Marilyn’s Law, which mandates that families be notified when a death certificate is amended. The law, sponsored by Senator Angela Paxton and Representative Jared Patterson, was named after Marilyn Bixler, another victim whose death had gone unreported as a homicide.
Dion said Cheryl Pangburn, Marilyn’s daughter, had gone through what she had — an unattended death with a robbery and knowing there was more to it.
But nobody ever said anything or proved anything, said Dion, until one day in 2018 when Pangburn was at her hair salon and read a Facebook message from Karen, a high school friend who she had not been in touch with for years.
Karen wrote, “Cheryl, I saw your mom’s name on a victim list of Billy Shamirmir. My mom was a victim also. Let me know if you want to talk,’” Dion said.
In Pangburn’s case, the Collin County Medical Examiner thought that the Frisco police had notified her, and the Frisco police thought the medical examiner had.
In 2021, the group also celebrated the passage of Senate Bill 1132, which tightened regulations on precious metal dealers. The legislation aimed to deter the sale of stolen goods, such as the $90,000 worth of jewelry Chemirmir had sold—often for as little as 10 cents on the dollar. Dion hopes that increased spot checks and stricter rules will make it harder for criminals to profit from stolen items.
In 2023, the group returned to Austin with five objectives. It came together as HB1100, guests and visitors sign into a property and have a name tag, criminal activity at properties shared with residents, background checks on workers at establishments, law enforcement guaranteed access to residents when investigating and forced arbitration clauses removed in leases for personal injury cases.
Dion said they brought the Dallas County prosecutor that had tried all the cases to testify for them in the House Committee who confirmed the proposed measures “would save lives.”
“To pass out of the House Committee, we had to compromise,” she said. “We deleted the sign in identification and the forced arbitration measure.”
On May 4, 2023, HB 1100 passed with bipartisan support in the House, 99 to 43 and moved to the Senate. Pangburn testified on behalf of SOSS.
However, the Senate Health and Human Services committee chairperson didn’t schedule a hearing, despite numerous requests from constituents and fellow legislators. The bill died at the end of the session.
The group’s determination, however, remains steadfast and Dion encourages individuals to contact the 43 representatives “who voted against our bill.”
And in 2025, SOSS plans to revisit Austin for the next legislative session, with hopes of pushing HB 1100 through to law in a state that “doesn’t like regulations,” said Dion.
“We know we can’t prevent crime, but we are determined to do all we can to deter it,” she added.
Concluding her presentation to Rotarians, Dion called on her listeners to act as catalysts for change, emphasizing the importance of vigilance and legislative engagement in protecting the vulnerable.
“I have come to think of myself as a rock thrown in a pond making ripples,” she said. “Please go out and make more ripples. Share this information. Then contact your legislators.”
For more on Secure Our Seniors Safety, visit secureourseniorssafety.org.