Update: Tech CEO Pava LaPere was found beaten to death on the roof of her apartment
Tech CEO Pava LaPere was found beaten to death on the roof of her Swish apartment building as cops hunt for her killer
The body of a Baltimore tech entrepreneur was reportedly found beaten to death on Monday in her luxury apartment complex was discovered on the roof of the building.
Pava LaPere, the 26-year-old founder of EcoMap Technologies, was killed by ‘blunt force trauma’, police said on Tuesday, September 26.
Authorities have issued an arrest warrant for a 32-year-old local man, Jason Billingsley, who was released from prison less than a year ago after serving only seven years of a 30-year sentence.
Police sources confirmed to DailyMail.com that LaPere’s badly beaten body was found on the roof of her luxury apartment building.
Reaching the area would have potentially meant climbing a ladder or fire escape, the source explained.
The macabre twist raises the possibility that LaPere was either led up there before she was attacked or that her body was discarded on the roof afterward to try to hide the crime.
‘That’s pretty horrifying,’ said Chris McNees, a tenant of the building. He told WJZ, a media partner of The Baltimore Banner, that the apartment complex felt safe.
‘I mean, just for that to happen anywhere in the city is obviously a bad thing, but it’s hard to imagine why this would happen specifically in this building.’
Billingsley is not believed to have known LaPere, who lived on the seventh floor of the building.
Police on Tuesday would not comment on how he got into the building, other than to say it was ‘secure’.
‘It was a secure building where someone had to have allowed the individual into the building,’ said Richard Worley, acting Baltimore police commissioner.
Billingsley is now believed to have struck days earlier in a knifepoint sex assault and arson attack that left two people fighting for their lives.
He faces charges of first-degree murder, assault, and reckless endangerment in the killing of 26-year-old LaPere, a rising star in tech who made the prestigious Forbes ’30 Under 30′ list.
The 6ft 4, 305lbs suspect had been jailed for 30 years in 2015, and was set free in October 2022 – just seven years into his sentence. It is unclear why he was released so swiftly.
LaPere was found dead on Monday morning at her Baltimore apartment with blunt force injuries that one veteran officer described to DailyMail as ‘absolutely brutal – some of the worst I’ve seen.’
Announcing the warrant for Billingsley’s capture, Worley said the ‘repeat violent offender’ is a suspect in at least one other case,’ without elaborating.
‘BPD’s Special Investigations Section is working to determine potential connections to Billingsley and other cases,’ the police said.
Detectives are probing possible links to an assault and arson attack in West Baltimore on September 19 that left two people in critical condition and a child in the hospital.
The incident began when firefighters responded to smoke billowing from the basement of a townhouse at 9:24 a.m.
They rescued a man and a woman, both aged 26, who had burns and ‘multiple injuries’, along with a five-year-old child found suffering from smoke inhalation.
Police said the attacker had initially targeted the woman, sexually assaulting her and slashing at her throat with a knife.
Asked if Billingsley was considered a suspect, a spokeswoman for the Baltimore Police Department told DailyMail.com: ‘We can’t confirm that.’
She said of the arson incident: ‘Officers located a 26-year-old male and an adult female, suffering from multiple injuries. On the upper level of the home, fire personnel located a five-year-old child, unharmed.’
Medics arrived at the scene and transported the victims to area hospitals where the adult male and female were both listed in critical condition.
Billingsley was described on Tuesday as ‘a repeat violent offender’, and a suspect in at least one other case.
‘He will kill, and he will rape,’ said Richard Worley, the police commissioner, at a press conference on Tuesday afternoon.
Billingsley is ‘armed and dangerous,’ and locals should stay alert, said Worley.
‘To Jason Billingsley: I hope you are watching,’ he added.
‘Every single police officer in Baltimore and the state of Maryland is out there looking for you. We will find you, and we will prosecute you to the full extent of the law. So please turn yourself in.’
Billingsley has a long criminal history, dating back to 2009 when he was arrested for robbery and assault in the second degree.
He was arrested in 2011, and again in 2013, for multiple charges including sex offense, 2nd-degree assault charges, and robbery.
In 2015 he was given a 30-year prison sentence, with all but 14 years suspended, and served time at Maryland Correctional Institution in Hagerstown.