BALTIMORE — About a dozen of Pava LaPere's friends and family filed into the courthouse in downtown Baltimore on Friday morning, where they'd learn the fate of the man who murdered her in September 2023.
Jason Billingsley pled guilty to first-degree murder and was sentenced to life behind bars.
"I try not to judge people by their worst acts but nobody in any community will be safe while you are free," Judge Robert Taylor told Billingsley.
"Acceptable justice may have been served today, but it will never fill the void, erase the grief, or replace the impact that Pava would have had, given the full life that she so deserved,” Frank LaPere told reporters during a press conference held after the hearing.
On September 25, Pava was found on the roof of her Mount Vernon apartment building less than two hours after her co-workers reported her missing. The medical examiner ruled her death was caused by strangulation and blunt force trauma to the head.
Less than a year later, both of LaPere’s parents, Frank and Caroline, and her best friend, Shrenik Jaim, read victim impact statements in the courtroom, addressing both the judge and at times, Billingsley directly.
Her father listed all the big life moments of Pava’s that they’ll both miss, like walking her down the aisle or being with her kids on Christmas morning.
Her mother recalled the shock she felt when she heard the news, and shared how Pava had recently fallen in love, possibly with her soulmate.
Jaim, who referred to Pava as his family, said Pava didn't "have a hateful bone in her body," and told Billingsley: "I know her only thought as you laid your hands on her, was how she could've helped you."
He shared how she wanted to make Baltimore a better place, starting a tech company called EcoMap that was all about increasing access to resources for entrepreneurs. Even though she didn’t grow up here, she considered Baltimore her adopted home. "She could've taken her talents anywhere," Jaim said.
Jason Rodriguez, Billingsley’s defense attorney, told the judge, “I imagine this sounds hollow but I can tell the court this was an important day for him […] From day one he’s been truly remorseful for his actions. It was important for him to stand here and accept responsibility for his actions.”
Billingsley also took his opportunity to address the judge himself, telling him he was remorseful. “I hold myself full accountable,” he said. “I sincerely, deeply apologize. Nothing I say could make her family feel better.”
When asked about his apology after the hearing, Frank LaPere told WMAR-2 News, “I have a difficult time accepting that statement, knowing that this is not a one-time crime […] I don’t think this is a person who can understand remorse, or who really feels it.”
During his victim impact statement, LaPere told Billingsley he was sorry that he had a difficult life, but that doesn’t give him the right to take away someone else’s.
Elaborating to reporters afterwards, he said: “I know that he did not have a good life. There are five siblings. I know they were all given up, and they grew up separately and independently in foster care. I was sorry that what possibly could have been a prosperous life of his, was taken from him at an early age, and created unfortunately the monster that attacked April, and Jonte, and murdered our daughter. I pray for his mother, and that she may find peace. Other than that, I don’t have any other feelings towards Mr. Billingsley.”
Earlier this week, Billingsley was also handed two life sentences for an attempted murder that took place just a few days before LaPere's murder. One of the two victims in that case, April Hurley, shared during Friday’s press conference how she now lives in constant fear, the scar on her neck from where Billingsley slashed her throat, still visible.
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“Every day I have flashbacks and triggers that cause terrible anxiety, pain, and stress. I will never be the same again. […] Every day, my daughter tells me she loves me and that I’m the best mommy ever. And I cry at the thought that Jason Billingsley tried to take me from her.”
When Billingsley committed these two crimes last year, he was on parole, and had just been released from prison less than a year earlier. He was convicted in 2015 for a violent sexual assault, a crime he committed while still on parole for a 2009 assault. He was let out of prison early in 2022 after earning enough "good time," or diminution, credits. LaPere's death inspired Baltimore City State's Attorney Ivan Bates and state legislators to pass a law eliminating diminution credits for violent sex offenders, called the Pava Marie LaPere Act.
Bates isn't worried about Billingsley getting paroled again.
“Let me be clear: Mr. Billingsley should never see the light of day again,” he told reporters. “I do not suspect he will even be able to see the twinkle of light until he's done at least 60 years, which would put him at 93 years of age."
Even with Billingsley behind bars, attorneys for Hurley say they're not finished pursuing justice in her case. They're suing her landlord for not properly vetting Billingsley before hiring him as a maintenance worker at the property. On September 19, Billingsley broke into Hurley’s home after telling her the upstairs kitchen was flooding, bound her and Jonte Williams up while holding them at gunpoint, raped Hurley, and tried to strangle her before cutting her throat with a knife. He then doused both victims in gasoline and set the apartment on fire before fleeing. Both victims were able to make it out alive.
“What happened to April was an act of unspeakable evil, unspeakable violence,” Billy Murphy, one of Hurley’s lawyers, told reporters on Friday. “Jason Billingsley did not just attack her. He tortured her, raped her, slit her throat, and left her for dead. This unspeakable cruelty shocked Baltimore and the world, by the hands of a man with a known history of predatory behavior, and to worsen the matter, was preventable and enabled by the negligence of Eden’s Homes and Property Pals.”
“Initially, April’s story was not properly conveyed to the public. And I think we as a community suffered because of that," Malcom Ruff, another of Hurley's attorneys, said.
Baltimore Police were criticized last year for their initial response to the crime on Edmondson Avenue. Police say they had a warrant for Billingsley after that incident, and began tracking him the day after it happened, but didn't alert the public about him until after he murdered LaPere. The public never saw his face or heard his name until six days later, 24 hours after he was announced as a suspect in LaPere's homicide case.
Commissioner Richard Worley defended the decision when pressed last year, after announcing Billingsley’s arrest. “The first incident Edmondson Avenue was not a random act. Had it been a random act, we would have put out a flyer right away saying that this individual was on the loose, committing random acts. We know pretty much why he went to that house on Edmondson Avenue and why he committed those acts. He worked at that building, he was familiar with the victims. […] Hindsight is always 2020. If I would have known that he was going to go and kill someone we would have put the flyer up, but we had no indication that he was committing random acts.”
