Tech CEO Pava LaPere Was Dead Within 36 Minutes of Arriving Home at Baltimore Apartment Building

While many of the details surrounding the murder of young Baltimore tech CEO Pava LaPere are still murky, more information has been revealed about what happened Friday evening before she was found dead on her apartment roof.

Court documents obtained by The Messenger show that Jason Billingsley, the suspect captured late Wednesday, was in LaPere's apartment building in Mount Vernon for less than 36 minutes.

The Baltimore Police Department report said that CCTV footage showed the 26-year-old tech CEO arriving at 10.32 p.m. and sitting on a couch in the lobby. Billingsley arrived shortly after and was seen waving through the glass. LaPere then let him inside.

It is not clear if they spoke, but they did enter an elevator together. As the available evidence stands, this is the last time LaPere was seen alive.

At 11.08 p.m. Billingsley reemerges into the lobby from a stairwell "with his grey hooded sweatshirt in his hand scrambling for an exit," the document said.

Billingsley then fled, leading to a manhunt by authorities. Police delayed their announcement of him as suspect when they got within feet of arresting him Tuesday. He was later arrested in Bowie, Maryland, late Wednesday night.

The documents confirm earlier reports that LaPere's body was discovered on the roof Monday morning. She had been there all weekend, found following a missing person's report.

LaPere, a Forbes 30-Under-30 recipient for her work in the tech sector, was found laying face-up, half clothed, having suffered blunt force trauma to the head, face and body.

"This crime scene consisted of a brick, blood, buttons, pants, 3 teeth, broken hair clip and a pair of red shoes believed to belong to the victim," the officer's report said.

The Chief Medical Examiner later confirmed LaPere had died by strangulation and blunt force trauma.

Documents also show that Billingsley was identified as the sole suspect on Tuesday, September 26, by a witness to be "identified at a later date."

Billingsley is charged with multiple offenses relating to LaPere's death, as well as an earlier incident on September 19, in which a woman and a man were set alight at a family home, with a five-year-old boy also needing hospital treatment as a result.

He was released early from prison in October 2022, where he was serving time for a previous serious sexual assault that resulted in a 30-year sentence in 2015, reduced by 16 years.