The mother of the prime suspect in the murder of Forbes 30 under 30 CEO Pava LaPere has apologized to the victim’s family – and said she doesn’t understand what could have motivated her son if he is responsible.
Crime history
Scarlett Billingsley’s son Jason Billingsley, 32, has a sordid history of sexual crimes, including strangling and raping a woman at knifepoint which landed him with a 30-year prison sentence.
The 305lbs, 6’4 ex-con who is ‘armed and dangerous’ is now being hunted by cops after being named a suspect in LaPere’s murder, and his mother begged for him to turn himself in when she last heard from him on Tuesday.
‘I told him that he needs to turn himself in, but I really don’t think he’s going to do that because he’s scared,’ she told WJZ.
‘I don’t know where he is, he don’t even call me but I’ve been trying to call him. He texted me one time to say that he’s OK.’
After seeing his face on a TV news report she said: ‘I screamed. I cried. I can’t understand what happened…that he would do something like that.
‘I am so sorry that this happened to her, and if my son did it, I really apologize because I don’t know what happened to make him do that.’
Now a free man
Shocking details of the crime which landed Billingsley with a 30-year sentence – before he was freed after just seven years for good behavior – came to light Wednesday.
Billingsley had posed as a Good Samaritan before he strangled and raped a woman in her 20s at knifepoint in 2013.
He approached her as she sat in the street in the wake of a ‘verbal argument’ with her boyfriend.
