A Kenyan man accused of murdering 22 women in the US has died in a Texas prison.

Billy Chemirmir, 50, was allegedly killed on Tuesday morning by a fellow inmate who was serving a sentence for murder.

Chemirmir was found dead in his cell, according to Hannah Haney, a spokeswoman for the Texas Department of Criminal Justice.

The spokeswoman said she could not reveal the roommate's identity or how Chemirmir was killed, according to the Associated Press.

Chemirmir, who moved to Texas in the 1990s after marrying an American citizen, is originally from Eldama Ravine, Kenya.  He was charged with murder for the deaths of 14 people, while civil suits accused him of killing eight others.

He was arrested by detectives while trying to dispose of a gold necklace he had stolen from a house after suffocating its elderly owner with a pillow.

Homicide detectives, based on information, found the 91-year-old victim lying in bed, dead. A pillow containing her lipstick lay nearby.

Many of the victims were confirmed to have died of natural causes, but after their arrests, police examined hundreds of deaths for potential links to the Kenyans. Chemirmir allegedly posed as a maintenance worker to enter the house before suffocating the victim with a pillow.