The Maryland felon linked to the murder of 26-year-old tech CEO Pava LaPere was arrested overnight at a train station following a citywide manhunt, the Baltimore Police Department announced Thursday.
Jason Dean Billingsley, a career criminal with a long history of violent crimes against women, had been on the run since Monday. Authorities caught up to Billingsley at a train station in Bowie, Maryland, around 11 p.m. Wednesday night with the help of other agencies brought in to help track him down.
CALIFORNIA SCHOOL DISTRICT WRITES BLUEPRINT FOR NATIONWIDE TEACHER HOUSING
“We are going to put this violent individual, this repeat offender, back in jail where he belongs,” Acting Police Commissioner Richard Worley said Thursday.
Baltimore State Attorney Ivan Bates added that he would assign two of his best prosecutors to handle the case and that they would seek life in prison without the possibility of parole.
Billingsley’s mother, Scarlett Billingsley, told NBC News a day earlier that she sent a text to her son urging him to turn himself in. She last saw him at her home on Monday, where he had a gun, though she told the news outlet she didn’t think he’d tell her his location.
On Wednesday, WJZ Baltimore cited sources close to the LaPere investigation who also linked Billingsley to a Sept. 19 arson at a three-story house in West Baltimore, where a man and woman were critically injured. A 5-year-old was found on a different floor of the home and also taken to the hospital. They have also connected him to another rape in the area.
Outrage had grown across the city and country as to why Billingsley, a dangerous 32-year-old repeat offender, who had been sentenced to 30 years in prison in 2015, was back on the streets in October 2022, just a few short years after he was sentenced.
GOVERNMENT SHUTDOWN: WHAT WILL BE OPEN AND WHAT WILL BE CLOSED
“There is no way in hell he should have been out on the street,” Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott, a Democrat, said earlier this week. “When the police go out and do their job, as they did in this case … and the state’s attorney goes out and does their work, gets the conviction, the conviction should be the conviction. We are tired of talking about the same people committing the same kind of crimes over and over again.”
While his juvenile records are sealed, Billingsley’s adult court records reveal a pattern of lawlessness. He pleaded guilty to first-degree assault in 2009. He was given two years of supervised probation but violated the terms of his release. He was convicted in a second-degree assault case in 2011 when he served a two-year prison sentence. In 2013, Billingsley was convicted of a rape attempt. Two years later, he pleaded guilty to a first-degree sex offense and was sentenced to 30 years. He was released seven years later.
CLICK HERE FOR MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
The Maryland Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services did not respond to a request for comment by the Washington Examiner on Wednesday but told the New York Times that Billingsley, who is listed as a registered sex offender, was not paroled in October 2022 but was released “on mandatory supervision as required by the state.”
LaPere co-founded EcoMap Technologies, a company that curates data for free platforms. She was featured in Forbes‘s “30 Under 30” feature for 2023 and was heralded as an up-and-coming visionary. She was found dead at her apartment building on Monday.
