Violent Repeat Offender Released From Prison Early Is Suspected of Murdering Young Female CEO

LinkedIn / Pava LePere

Pava LaPere was the CEO of a Baltimore AI company, EcoMap Technologies, and one of Forbes’ “30 Under 30” award recipients in 2023 in the social impact category. She was found dead in her Baltimore apartment from what authorities are calling “blunt force trauma.”

Advertisement

Police announced that 32-year-old Jason Billingsley, a convicted rapist sentenced to 30 years in prison in 2015 after pleading guilty to first-degree assault in 2009 and second-degree assault in 2011, is the suspect in LaPere’s murder. Inexplicably, he was released last October.

“This person is extremely dangerous. We will not rest until justice is served,” Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott said at a press conference. “There is no way in hell that he should have been out on the street. When the police go out and do their job, as they did in this case … and the state’s attorney goes out and does their work, gets the conviction, the conviction should be the conviction. We are tired of talking about the same people committing the same kind of crimes over and over again.”

It’s not known whether LaPere, who co-founded EcoMap Technologies, knew Billingsley or what his motive may have been. The New York Times reports that the building LaPere lived in would have required someone to “allow the (suspect) in the building,” acting Baltimore Police Commissioner Richard Worley said.

Advertisement

Worley added, “This individual will kill and he will rape. He will do anything he can to cause harm. So, please be aware of your surroundings,” he said.

And Worley added this in case Billingsley was watching.

“If you’re out there watching, hopefully you are, every single police officer in Baltimore City, the state of Maryland as well as the U.S. Marshals are looking for you. We will find you. So, I would ask you to turn yourself in to any officer, any police station, because we will take you into custody eventually, and then we will turn it over to the state’s attorney to prosecute you to the fullest. So, please turn yourself in,” he said.

Mr. Billingsley pleaded guilty to first-degree assault in 2009 and second-degree assault in 2011, according to court records. In 2015, he pleaded guilty to a sex offense and was sentenced to 30 years in prison with all but 14 years suspended. He was released in October 2022, according to the Baltimore County Department of Corrections. A spokesman for the state’s Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services said that Mr. Billingsley had not been paroled but was released “on mandatory supervision as required by statute.”

Advertisement

The New York Post says that Billingsley was released by then-District Attorney Marilyn Mosby on “good-time credits.” Mosby, an acolyte of George Soros, was indicted on perjury and fraud charges and will go on trial in the fall of 2023.

Recommended

Trending on PJ Media Videos

Join the conversation as a VIP Member

Advertisement
Advertisement