A Baltimore apartment complex saw the fatal attack on a Forbes-honored IT CEO.

According to city police, the creator of a Baltimore digital business, whose career achievements placed her on a Forbes 30 under 30 list earlier this year, was discovered dead after being reported missing late Monday morning.

Police reported that 26-year-old Pava LaPere had experienced blunt force trauma. Her name was made public by officials in a news release on Tuesday. LaPere may have resided at the apartment building where her death was discovered, according to public records.

A suspect in the case was named by authorities at a news conference on Tuesday evening: In a previous sex assault case, 32-year-old Jason Billingsley was granted parole in October. According to court documents, he admitted to first-degree sex assault in 2015. According to officials, there is no reason to think LaPere knew Billingsley.

The public defender’s office, which previously defended Billingsley, said The Associated Press on Tuesday night that it is still too early to make any comments on this particular case.

Richard Worley, the interim police commissioner for Baltimore, urged anyone with knowledge on Billingsley’s whereabouts to get in touch with the relevant authorities. He declared that Billingsley ought to be regarded as dangerous and armed.

This person will commit both murder and rape. Worley declared that the man would do everything to hurt people.

LaPere created the start-up EcoMap Technologies after graduating from Johns Hopkins University in 2019. According to its website, the organization focuses on curating data from commercial, charitable, and educational environments and making it simpler to access and analyze. The T. Rowe Price Foundation and Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, are among their clientele.

Brandon Scott, the mayor of Baltimore, claimed to have had the honor of getting to know LaPere over the past few years.

“To have that life cut short by someone who has no care about anything other than harming people is something that should sit deeply in the stomachs of all Baltimoreans tonight,” he said.

Tuesday, LaPere’s coworkers released a statement describing him as “a deeply compassionate and dedicated leader.”

The EcoMap team commented, “Her unwavering commitment to our company, to Baltimore, to amplifying the important work of ecosystems across the country, and to building a deeply inclusive culture set a standard for leadership.”

Officials from Johns Hopkins offered their sympathies for the recent grad who “made Baltimore home and invested her talent in our city” in another statement issued on Tuesday.

In the Baltimore entrepreneurial scene, Pava was well-liked and well-known, and he will be sorely missed, they said.

According to her LinkedIn page, LaPere also established a foundation that assisted student entrepreneurs around Maryland.

For her social influence, she was included in Forbes’ 30 Under 30 list earlier this year.

She identified herself as a tech CEO on her LinkedIn profile as someone “who believes in hyperlocal, ecosystem-based economic development to create a more equitable future for all communities.” She wrote on Instagram about starting the business from her undergraduate dorm room and seeing it develop into a strong, prosperous enterprise.

In a video released to social media in April by the charity Baltimore Homecoming, she admitted, “To be honest, running this company has been harder than I ever imagined.” But every time we launch a new platform, I get incredibly enthusiastic because I get to see how many people are using it to access information.