Reporting and analysis may discuss allegations and online theories. Allegations are not findings of guilt. Verify important details in the cited public record.
The Case File
On September 25, 2023, Baltimore police responded to 306 West Franklin Street for what first came in as a missing-person call. The missing person was Pava Marie LaPere, a 26-year-old tech founder whose company, EcoMap Technologies, had grown out of her time at Johns Hopkins University and placed her on Forbes’ 30 Under 30 list for social impact. She had not shown up for an 8:00 a.m. work meeting that Monday, and the people around her knew immediately that something was wrong. Prosecutors later said co-workers reported that she had last been seen near the Artscape festival around 10:00 p.m. on Friday, September 22, when she parted ways with them and began walking home.
The missing-person call did not stay a missing-person call for long. A short time later, officers were called back to the same building after a deceased woman was found on the roof. She was identified as Pava LaPere. The medical examiner ruled her death a homicide by strangulation and blunt force trauma.
The first layer of the case was the rooftop. The second layer was the lobby camera. The third was the man investigators said had already been tied to another violent case six days earlier.
The Last Confirmed Night
The official timeline begins on Friday night, September 22, 2023. Prosecutors said Pava was last seen around 10:00 p.m. near Artscape before walking home. By 10:32 p.m., surveillance from her apartment building showed her in the lobby, getting up from a couch after a man approached the glass door and waved to her. Investigators later identified that man as Jason Dean Billingsley.
The footage became one of the most important pieces of evidence in the case. According to prosecutors, Pava let him inside after he waved through the glass. The two spoke briefly, then entered the next elevator together. That sequence placed Billingsley inside the building with Pava during the final confirmed window before her death.
At 11:08 p.m., surveillance showed Billingsley again. This time, prosecutors said he was scrambling for an exit and wiping his right hand on his shorts before leaving the building. Between the lobby entry and the exit footage, about 36 minutes passed. The court record later tied that window to the rooftop discovery, the physical evidence recovered near Pava, and the medical examiner’s ruling.
The Rooftop Crime Scene
Charging documents reported that Pava was found on the roof of her apartment building on the 300 block of West Franklin Street. FOX Baltimore, citing those documents, reported that the scene included a brick, blood, buttons, pants, three teeth, a broken hair clip, and a pair of red shoes believed to belong to Pava near her body.
That detail changed the case from a simple missing-person timeline into a physical evidence file. The brick mattered because prosecutors later said her body was found near one, and the medical examiner ruled the death a homicide by both strangulation and blunt force trauma. The scattered personal items mattered because they showed the violence did not end in the lobby or elevator; the final scene was on the roof.
Police said there was no known reason to believe Pava knew Billingsley. That detail became central to the public fear around the case, because the footage did not show a forced entry at the front door. It showed a short interaction through glass, a door opening, and two people entering an elevator together.
The Man Already On Police Radar
Before Pava’s body was found, Jason Billingsley was already wanted in connection with a separate attack from September 19, 2023, on the 800 block of Edmondson Avenue. Prosecutors said April Hurley was asleep in a basement apartment during the early morning hours when a man identifying himself as maintenance knocked at her door. The man, later identified as Billingsley, kicked in the door, held Hurley and a male friend at gunpoint, restrained them, sexually assaulted Hurley, cut her throat, poured accelerant on the couple and the apartment, and set the apartment on fire. Both victims suffered serious burns and were taken to the hospital.
That attack became inseparable from the Pava LaPere case because of timing. Edmondson Avenue happened on September 19. Pava was killed on September 22. Her body was discovered on September 25. By the time police announced Billingsley as the suspect in Pava’s killing, they were already facing questions over why the public had not been warned sooner after the earlier case.
Baltimore Acting Police Commissioner Richard Worley later said investigators had quickly identified Billingsley as a suspect in the September 19 case, but officials did not immediately alert the public because they did not believe he was committing random acts of violence. In the LaPere case, police said there was no known prior connection between Pava and Billingsley.
The Prior Conviction And Release
The case pulled attention beyond the two September attacks because Billingsley had already served time for a prior sex offense. AP reported that he had been released from prison in October 2022 after serving a shortened sentence for a 2013 rape because he earned good-behavior credits while incarcerated.
During a later push for legal reform, AP reported that Pava’s parents urged Maryland lawmakers to change the law around good-behavior credits for people convicted of rape. The proposed legislation was named the Pava Marie LaPere Act and focused on preventing automatic early release credits for first-degree rape offenders.
That legal aftermath became one of the case’s lasting consequences. The homicide was not only prosecuted as a murder case. It also became part of a broader fight over how Maryland handled diminution credits for violent sex offenders.
The Manhunt And Arrest
After Pava was found dead, police publicly identified Jason Dean Billingsley as the suspect and described him as extremely dangerous. On September 28, 2023, officials announced he had been arrested at the MARC train station in Bowie. FOX Baltimore reported he was taken into custody without incident and was facing charges tied to multiple cases, including Pava’s murder.
At a bail review hearing, a judge ordered Billingsley held without bail. AP reported that Judge Tameika Lunn cited his criminal history, the number of violent charges, and public safety concerns, telling him she believed he was a flight risk and an extreme danger to public safety.
The hearing also revealed another key statement from prosecutors. Assistant State’s Attorney Robin Wherley said Billingsley had admitted assaulting Pava, telling the court he gave a statement indicating that he beat her with a brick and his hands.
The Court Outcome
On August 30, 2024, the Baltimore City State’s Attorney’s Office announced that Jason Billingsley had pleaded guilty and received three life sentences. He was sentenced for one count of first-degree murder in Pava LaPere’s case and two counts of attempted murder tied to the Edmondson Avenue attack. Two life sentences were ordered to run concurrently, with an additional life sentence to run consecutive to the first two.
State’s Attorney Ivan Bates said Billingsley should never have been released into the community after a first-degree sex offense conviction and said the cases inspired legislation aimed at eliminating diminution credits for first-degree sex offenders.
The plea avoided a trial, but it did not erase the record. The official case file now had the final sequence: the September 19 Edmondson Avenue attack, the September 22 entry into 306 West Franklin Street, the September 25 rooftop discovery, the September 28 arrest, and the August 2024 guilty plea.
The Civil Case Connected To Edmondson Avenue
The Edmondson Avenue survivors later pursued a civil lawsuit against the landlord and property management company tied to the earlier attack. AP reported that the lawsuit accused Property Pals LLC and Eden’s Homes LLC of failing to properly vet Billingsley before he worked in a maintenance role at the property. The lawsuit alleged that he used that position to gain access before attacking April Hurley and Jonte Gilmore.
In November 2025, The Washington Post reported that a Baltimore jury held the landlord and property management company liable for $21.5 million in damages. The lawsuit accused them of hiring Billingsley without checking his background, and the Post reported that the companies planned to appeal the verdict.
That civil verdict did not change the murder conviction, but it added another layer to the public record. The criminal court established Billingsley’s guilt. The civil case focused on access, hiring, background checks, and whether the September 19 attack could have been prevented before Pava was killed three days later.
Official Facts Versus Public Questions
The official record confirms that Pava LaPere was last seen by co-workers near Artscape around 10:00 p.m. on September 22, 2023, that surveillance showed her letting Jason Billingsley into 306 West Franklin Street at 10:32 p.m., that they entered an elevator together, and that he was seen leaving at 11:08 p.m. The official record also confirms that her body was found on the roof on September 25, and that her death was ruled a homicide by strangulation and blunt force trauma.
The official record does not confirm that Pava knew Billingsley. Police publicly said they had no reason to believe she did. That matters because the lobby footage appears to show a brief interaction before entry, but the confirmed evidence does not establish a prior relationship, planned meeting, or known connection.
The biggest public question centered on the gap between the September 19 Edmondson Avenue attack and the September 22 killing. Police had identified Billingsley as a suspect in the earlier case, but the public was not immediately warned. Worley said at the time that police did not believe Billingsley was committing random acts. After Pava was killed, that explanation became one of the most scrutinized parts of the case.
The Final Breakdown
Pava LaPere’s murder file is not built around a long unknown suspect list. It is built around a short, documented sequence inside one building: a woman comes home, sits in the lobby, opens the door after a man waves through the glass, enters an elevator with him, and is later found dead on the roof.
The case widened because that man was not unknown to law enforcement. Jason Billingsley had a prior sex offense conviction, had been released in 2022 after earning good-behavior credits, and had already been identified as a suspect in the September 19 Edmondson Avenue attack before Pava’s body was discovered. By the time he was arrested in Bowie on September 28, the investigation was no longer only about one homicide. It had become a timeline of release, access, missed warning, violent escalation, and two connected criminal cases moving toward the same defendant.
In August 2024, Billingsley pleaded guilty and received three life sentences. Pava’s name remained attached to more than the court file. It became attached to a Maryland law aimed at changing early-release rules for first-degree rape offenders, and to a broader record of what happened during the six days between Edmondson Avenue and West Franklin Street.
