Crime Baltimore Police Search for Suspect in Killing of Tech C.E.O. - Pava LaPere, 26, had been heralded in the city as a rising businesswoman devoted to her community. Officials said the suspect, a sex offender released from prison last fall, was armed and dangerous.

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Baltimore Police Search for Suspect in Killing of Tech C.E.O.
The New York Times (archive.ph)
By Eduardo Medina
2023-09-27 02:46:15GMT

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Pava LaPere, 26, founder of EcoMap, a Baltimore tech start-up, was found dead on Monday.Credit...CBS

The founder and chief executive of a Baltimore tech start-up who was acclaimed as a rising entrepreneur in the city was found dead on Monday, the police said, prompting a manhunt on Tuesday for a suspect considered to be armed and dangerous.

The entrepreneur, Pava LaPere, 26, who founded EcoMap Technologies, a company that curates data for free platforms, was found dead at around 11:30 a.m. at an apartment complex in the 300 block of West Franklin Street by officers who detected “signs of blunt-force trauma,” the Baltimore Police Department said in a statement.

The authorities said that they had received a missing-person call shortly beforehand.

On Tuesday, the police said they had identified Jason Dean Billingsley, 32, of Baltimore, a sex offender who was released from prison last fall, as the suspect in Ms. LaPere’s killing, and potentially in other cases. The department did not say how it had determined Mr. Billingsley to be the suspect and did not immediately return calls seeking comment on Tuesday night.

Richard Worley, the acting police commissioner for the department, warned residents at a news conference on Tuesday that Mr. Billingsley “will kill, and he will rape. He will do anything he can to cause harm.”

The killing has rattled Baltimore, particularly its business community, which had heralded Ms. LaPere as a promising businesswoman with deep connections to the city. A graduate of Johns Hopkins University, Ms. LaPere had skipped other tech hubs like San Francisco and instead remained in Baltimore after graduation to grow her venture, raising over $4 million, building a team of about 30 people and serving clients like Meta and The Aspen Institute.

Earlier this year, she was named to the Forbes 30 Under 30 List for social impact.
Brandon Scott, the mayor of Baltimore, said at the news conference that he had known Ms. LaPere for several years and described her as a “talented, devoted Baltimorean” who would “help anybody who 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 tonight,” Mr. Scott said.

Mr. Billingsley pleaded guilty to first-degree assault in 2009 and second-degree assault in 2011, according to court records. In 2015, he pleaded guilty to a sex offense and was sentenced to 30 years in prison with all but 14 years suspended. He was released in October 2022, according to the Baltimore County Department of Corrections. A spokesman for the state’s Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services said that Mr. Billingsley had not been paroled but was released “on mandatory supervision as required by statute.”

Mr. Billingsley is listed as a registered sex offender in records with the Baltimore County Department of Corrections.

Mayor Scott said that Mr. Billingsley “shouldn’t have been out on the streets in the first place.”
EcoMap said in a statement on Facebook that news of Ms. LaPere’s death had “shaken us all deeply.”

“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 said. “Pava was not only the visionary force behind EcoMap but was also a deeply compassionate and dedicated leader.”

In a 2018 interview with Johns Hopkins University, Ms. LaPere’s pride in EcoMap was evident as she described how she had created the company as a way to centralize resources for entrepreneurs.

“If you love the problem you are solving, none of it feels like work,” she said in the interview. “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.”

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'Extremely dangerous' suspect sought in death of Baltimore tech CEO
FOX45 News (archive.ph)
By FOX45 News Staff
2023-09-27 04:11:00GMT


BALTIMORE (WBFF) — Police have issued an arrest warrant for a person that they are calling an "armed and dangerous" man for the murder of a Baltimore tech CEO.

32-year-old Jason Dean Billingsley is accused of first-degree murder, assault and reckless endangerment in the death of Pava LaPere.

LaPere, 26, was found beaten to death at her apartment building on the 300 block of West Franklin Street in the Bromo Arts District. LaPere was the founder and CEO of the tech company EcoMap.

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Acting Police Commissioner Richard Worley said residents should call 911 if they see him.

"This individual will kill, and he will rape," said Worley.

Worley said he had a message for Billingsly:
"If you're out there watching - hopefully you are - very single police officer in Baltimore City, the state of Maryland, as well as the US marshals, are looking for you. We will find you, so I would ask you to turn yourself in to any officer, any police station. Because, we will take you into custody eventually, and then we will turn it over to the state's attorney to prosecute you to the fullest. So please, turn yourself in."

According to Baltimore Police, Billingsly was previously arrested on 2013, 2011, and 2009 for multiple charges including a sex offense, second-degree assault and robbery.
 
Yeah, but normally they have to have some kind of background in their respective technology. Hell, even Elizabeth Holmes had exposure to chemical engineering concepts while at Stanford!

This bitch (RIP) had none of that! Have VCs really forfeited all of their standards? (I know the answer...)
She was probably from some elite family with a lot of connections. Plus reading about the company, it's just some bullshit data aggregation and visualization.
 
Officers responded to a call for service at an apartment complex in the 300 block of West Franklin Street at around 11:34 a.m. Monday, according to Baltimore police. Upon arriving, the officers found LaPere with severe injuries to her head. Police have not released any further information on her death.

Not even safe from joggers holed up WFH.
 
Guess you posted just after I searched her name and drafted this thread. Included a few of her tweets in that other OP, otherwise nothing new to add.
The mods should merge them together when they get around to the report. Has anyone got any background on where she grew up, etc? I haven't had any time to do any digging yet.
 
Not even safe from joggers holed up WFH.
Daily Mail says her body was discovered on the roof . The building in their photo is 306 West Franklin Street, Baltimore. Looks like an unfinished rooftop. She might've been attacked in a common area, then dragged up to the roof and dumped after. Also:

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, DailyMail.com can exclusively reveal.
 
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The mods should merge them together when they get around to the report. Has anyone got any background on where she grew up, etc? I haven't had any time to do any digging yet.

I didn't make it through much of her TED talk, but was very confused by her accent vs speech impediment.

LaPere could be French, French Canadian or Cajun.

Pava doesn't sound Francophone though.
 
Reaching the area would have potentially meant climbing a ladder or fire escape, the source explained.

Unlikely the perp dragged the body to the roof, unless there's another entrance.

Though the article also says he's 6'4", 305 lbs !!

According to investigators, there had been a missing person's call made for her a short time before her dead body was discovered. They declined to say who made the call, because the investigation is ongoing.

Another wrinkle.

Who would make a missing person's report on a Monday morning?

If you no-showed for morning meetings, you wouldn't assume the first thing your colleagues would do would be to call police.

Unless she'd already been dead for awhile over the weekend.
 
How the hell did someone with a sociology degree become the CEO of a tech startup?

I mean she has absolutely no qualifications for the role. In what way is she a subject matter expert...
Elizabeth Holmes dropped out of undergrad ChemE as a sophomore. At least this woman finished her degree.

Supposedly EcoWeb (edit: EcoMap, but really who cares) is socially-focused or whatever, so she probably functioned more as a product manager than a developer.
 
Tech is full of these cunts. Zog-puppets of the highest order. Nobody, much less a female non-developer, is a CEO at 26. They are know-nothing, do-nothing talkers who are the faces of companies that receive venture capital money to squander and ultimately never produce a real product.

They will inevitably fail upward or go the way of Theranos. The team that worked under her is either aware of the product being vaporware and getting their cut, or they'll be surprised when they're out on their asses.
Pretty much this. The failsons (daughters?) of today's elite end up creating startups to launder investor money into their pockets. There's no expectation of a profit being turned, a product produced, or even an IPO. The US tech industry is near irreparably tainted with loud mouth retard "leaders" who don't understand the product they claim to be innovating on. It's all buzzwords and conning investors. Venture capitalists don't even try to weed these fucks out anymore, somehow hoping they'll get lucky with another Tesla or SpaceX w/ some fuckhead who ends up sucking billions from the government teet.
 
Refresh the page and tell me if anything's still broken.

As much as I dislike her politics, this woman didn't deserve to go out like that. Imagine the horror and pain of her final moments. No one deserves that for dumb posts on Instagram. No one deserves that for giving a dumb TED Talk or starting a dumb business.

She was failed all down the line by her family, friends, teachers, politicians, justice officials and male authority figures. They imparted the foolish beliefs which ultimately led her down this path. They released this evil killer upon her and the rest of Baltimore. They should have taught her better, they should have kept her safe, and they failed.

She was led like a lamb to the slaughter. Now she's dead. She'll never have the chance to change her mind. Her killer still roams free and may yet kill again. That's a tragedy, a shame, and a crime. I'm not happy about it.
I used to think that way, but then I realized that these peoples ignorance is still just as likely to get me killed or affect my life as if they were consciously acting malignant. It's kinda like with that Mollie Tibbetts chick that got cornholed and killed by some illegal - it wasn't even a week till her parents were saying not to be mean to the heckin beanerinos and even fucking tried to sponsor illegals as a response to their retarded liberal daughter being raped to death by an illegal. That was the moment when I realized, these people are so retarded they don't even care when they get martyred by their pets.
 
EcoMap was founded by LaPere and Sherrod Davis while LaPere was a 21-year-old college student at Johns Hopkins, according to EcoMap’s website. With just over 30 employees, the startup is part of the artificial intelligence wave. It sells AI tools, including a customizable chatbot, that aim to make clients’ information easier to access and customer communications more seamless, the company says.
She made it her life's work to replace help desk personnel, accessible documentation, and email contacts with insipid chatbots. Not defending her murderer, who should be hastily dispatched, but the world might be a little better off.

"HI! I NOTICED YOU SEARCHED FOR 'CANCEL MY ACCOUNT.' CAN I EXTEND YOUR SUBSCRIPTION ANOTHER 24 MONTHS?"

As for Baltimore, the cult around Charm City is very amusing. I'd settle in Detroit before Baltimore.
 
Refresh the page and tell me if anything's still broken.

As much as I dislike her politics, this woman didn't deserve to go out like that. Imagine the horror and pain of her final moments. No one deserves that for dumb posts on Instagram. No one deserves that for giving a dumb TED Talk or starting a dumb business.

She was failed all down the line by her family, friends, teachers, politicians, justice officials and male authority figures. They imparted the foolish beliefs which ultimately led her down this path. They released this evil killer upon her and the rest of Baltimore. They should have taught her better, they should have kept her safe, and they failed.

She was led like a lamb to the slaughter. Now she's dead. She'll never have the chance to change her mind. Her killer still roams free and may yet kill again. That's a tragedy, a shame, and a crime. I'm not happy about it.
I'm not gonna celebrate her death either. But goddamn you make it sound like this grown woman had no agency at all.

"They should have taught her better" Sure, but this wasn't some naïve schoolgirl. This was an adult of 26. By that stage she might have at least questioned her teachings. She didn't and this is the result.
 
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