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After the chief executive of a Baltimore tech start-up was found dead in her apartment with signs of blunt-force trauma to her head, police announced Tuesday that there’s a citywide manhunt for a suspect who is considered armed and “extremely dangerous.”
Pava LaPere, 26, who founded EcoMap Technologies and was on this year’s Forbes 30 Under 30 list for social impact, was found dead about 11:30 a.m. Monday, according to Baltimore police. Officers had responded to a missing-person call made shortly beforehand, and discovered that LaPere had suffered severe injuries to her head.
City officials announced Tuesday that an arrest warrant had been issued for Jason Dean Billingsley, 32, who is charged with first-degree murder in LaPere’s death. Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott (D) said Billingsley, a registered sex offender who was released from prison last fall, is armed and “extremely dangerous.”
“We implore residents to be aware of your surroundings at all times,” acting Baltimore police commissioner Richard Worley said at a news conference. “This individual will kill, and he will rape. He will do anything he can to cause harm.”
Police said they believe LaPere and Billingsley did not know each other, but it’s unclear how authorities were able to determine that Billingsley is a suspect. Worley said LaPere’s apartment complex had security measures that would have required someone to “allow the [suspect] in the building.”
A Baltimore police spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment Wednesday morning.
Billingsley, who also faces charges such as assault and reckless endangerment in the killing, was convicted of violent crimes in 2009, 2011 and 2015, including a sex offense, city officials said. After pleading guilty to a first-degree sex offense in 2015, he was sentenced to 30 years in prison with all but 14 years suspended, records show. But Billingsley was released from prison last October.
A spokesperson for the Maryland Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services did not respond to a request for comment Tuesday morning. The agency told the New York Times that Billingsley was released “on mandatory supervision as required by statute” and not on parole.
Scott told reporters Tuesday that Billingsley should never have been released.
“The conviction should be the conviction,” Scott said.
LaPere’s death was met with “profound sadness and shock” by EcoMap Technologies, the Baltimore start-up she co-founded to improve accessibility of information by mapping it and putting it on an accessible platform.
“The circumstances surrounding Pava’s death are deeply distressing, and our deepest condolences are with her family, friends, and loved ones during this incredibly devastating time,” the company wrote on Facebook. “Pava was not only the visionary force behind EcoMap but was also a deeply compassionate and dedicated leader.”
A vigil is planned Wednesday in memory of LaPere. Her father, Frank, remembered her as “an inspiration to so many people.”
“She was driven, creative, hard-working and relentless in her efforts, with her wonderful team at EcoMap Technologies,” he wrote on Facebook. “Pava made an impact in every endeavor she undertook and on every life she touched. She will be forever missed as a daughter, sister, granddaughter, niece, cousin and loyal friend.”
LaPere was considered an innovative leader. She founded EcoMap with chief operating officer Sherrod Davis when she was 21 and in school at Johns Hopkins University, according to the company’s website. In a 2018 interview with the university, LaPere, who grew up in Tucson, emphasized how excited she was to centralize resources for entrepreneurs.
“If you love the problem you are solving, none of it feels like work,” she said. “I know it’s cliché, but it’s the truth. If you love the problem, you can throw your heart and energy into your venture without a second thought, and that’s what makes the ordeal of entrepreneurship worth it.”
Forbes wrote of LaPere in its 30 Under 30 list that her company had raised more than $4 million and had clients such as the Aspen Institute, Meta, the WXR Fund and the T. Rowe Price Foundation. After the company closed on a successful funding round in June, LaPere said she was “particularly proud of the number of investors from our hometown of Baltimore.”
“We are passionately committed to making an impact on the city, and we are proud to be part of its growing tech ecosystem,” she said in a news release.
Baltimore police are asking anyone with information on Billingsley’s whereabouts to call 911.
Mayor Scott told reporters he was proud to get to know LaPere, whom he described as “a very young, talented, devoted Baltimorean . . . who would help anybody that she would see.”
“To have that light 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,” the mayor said.