The 26-year-old founder of a Baltimore tech startup was found dead inside her apartment complex shortly after she was reported missing Monday morning, police said.
Pava LaPere’s body showed signs of blunt-force trauma, Baltimore police disclosed in a press release.
Earlier this year, LaPere was named to Forbes’ 30 Under 30 list for social impact. Her company EcoMap uses AI to curate and assemble data into a digital “ecosystem” so that organizations can easily access their resources. Their clients include Meta, the Aspen Institute and the T. Rowe Price Foundation, according to Forbes.
On Tuesday evening, Baltimore police announced they had a suspect in LaPere’s death: Jason Dean Billingsley.
Billingsley, 32, is wanted for first-degree murder and a warrant has been issued for his arrest, police said. U.S. Marshals are actively looking for him.
Billingsley has a number of prior arrests from 2013, 2011 and 2009 for charges including sexual assault, second-degree assault and robbery. In 2015, he pleaded guilty to first-degree sex assault and was sentenced to 30 years in prison, with 16 years suspended.
He would only end up serving about seven years in prison, however, according to the Maryland sex offender registry, which shows he was released on Oct. 5, 2022 on parole.
The registry lists Billingsley as a “tier 3” sex offender, reserved for the most serious offenders who must remain on the registry for the rest of their lives.
Baltimore acting police commissioner Richard Worley asked anyone with information about Billingsley’s whereabouts to contact authorities. He said Billingsley should be considered armed and dangerous.
“This individual will kill and he will rape. He will do anything he can to cause harm,” Worley said.
Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott said Billingsley should never have been freed from prison in a Tuesday press conference.
“There is no way in hell that he should have been out on the street,” Scott said. “We are tired of talking about the same people committing the same kind of crimes over and over again.”
Scott said he had gotten to know LaPere in recent years and called the tech founder “young, talented” and “devoted” to her city. He urged the public and media to give her family privacy as they grieve.
“To have that life cut short by someone who has no care about anything other than harming people is something that should sit deep in the stomachs of all Baltimoreans tonight,” he said. “We will not rest until justice is served.”
Police did not provide details about a possible motive in LaPere’s death, and investigators are working to determine if Billingsley knew the victim.
In a statement Tuesday, colleagues described LaPere as “a deeply compassionate and dedicated leader.”
“Her untiring commitment to our company, to Baltimore, to amplifying the critical work of ecosystems across the country, and to building a deeply inclusive culture as a leader, friend and partner set a standard for leadership,” EcoMap staff wrote.
LaPere founded EcoMap as a 21-year-old college student at Johns Hopkins University.
Her alma mater released a statement Tuesday expressing condolences for the alum, who “made Baltimore home and invested her talent in our city.”
“Pava was well known and loved in the Baltimore entrepreneurship community and will be profoundly missed,” Johns Hopkins University said.
LaPere also founded a non-profit that helped support student entrepreneurs across Maryland, according to her LinkedIn page.
On her LinkedIn profile, she described herself as a tech CEO “who believes in hyperlocal, ecosystem-based economic development to create a more equitable future for all communities.” She posted on Instagram about founding the startup from her college dorm room and watching it grow into a robust, successful venture.
“To be honest, running this company has been harder than I ever imagined,” she said in a video posted to social media in April by the non-profit Baltimore Homecoming. “But it makes me feel so excited every single time we launch a new platform because we get to see the thousands of people who are using it to find the information that they need in their community.”
At Tuesday’s press conference, Worley, the police commissioner, made a plea to Billingsley to turn himself in.
“If you’re out there watching … every single police officer in Baltimore city, in the state of Maryland, as well as U.S. marshals, are looking for you,” he said.
“We will find you … and then we will turn it over to the state’s attorney to prosecute you to the fullest. So please turn yourself in.”
— With files from The Associated Press
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