BOWIE, MARYLAND: Jonte Gilmore, an arson attack survivor, recalled the horrifying moment when he was forced to watch his girlfriend being choked and raped at gunpoint by the violent felon accused of murdering Pava LaPere before she was also set ablaze. She fortunately survived the ordeal.
32-year-old Jason Dean Billingsley was apprehended by authorities in Bowie, Maryland, late Wednesday, September 27, after he was named as the main suspect in the 26-year-old tech CEO’s murder.
However, when he was captured, the accused, released on mandatory supervision after completing a rape sentence from a 2013 case, was already wanted over the rape of a woman who was set on fire on September 19, along with a man she was dating.
Survivor Jonte Gilmore recalls the harrowing attack
In an interview with The Baltimore Banner, Jonte Gilmore, 26, provided details of the dreadful event and how he managed to escape from it. Gilmore, understandably, was in tears when he learned that the same person was suspected of killing LaPere.
“This shouldn’t have happened to her,” he said of the brutal murder while the authorities were already tracking down Billingsley. “She didn’t deserve this,” Gilmore added, as he recalled the incident from his hospital bed.
He stated that he and his deceased partner, who was not named for obvious reasons, dozed off after they listened to music in the basement bedroom of her West Baltimore rooming house.
Gilmore then added that his girlfriend heard someone knocking on the bedroom door, but found no one outside when she opened it. He said that he was still asleep but that she later told him she heard someone outside shout, “Maintenance! You have a flood in the kitchen.”
When the victim went upstairs to see the man, with Gilmore still asleep, she was grabbed by her hair and thrown to the floor. The accused then hit her in the face with a firearm and shouted, "Where that money at?”
He also reportedly asked her who else was with her. Gilmore added that the suspect then wrapped her head and ankles in tape after forcing her to her knees.
Jonte Gilmore woke up at gunpoint
The survivor then recalled the bone-chilling moment when he woke up. He claimed that he felt like his partner was touching his back, but then realized a gun was pointed at his forehead.
“Where that money at?” he said the intruder snapped. “If you try anything stupid, Imma rape your bitch upstairs!” the man said, according to Gilmore, whose hands were then handcuffed behind his back as he was forced to kneel on the floor.
The suspect, Jason Billingsley, apparently forced victim to drink alcohol before raping her
Gilmore said that his face and ankles were then duct-taped by Billingsley before he put on loud music and started raping the woman as he forced her to drink alcohol, he recounted. Gilmore claimed that at one point, she said she needed to pee but the attacker forced her to urinate near Gilmore before he left the room.
He said she told him, “It’s the maintenance man, the maintenance man,” as they tried to remove their restraints, but the man soon returned and continued his animalism. The survivor said he saw him raping the woman again and then slashing her throat when she fought his efforts to strangle her with a cord and with his hands.
“I thought I was just by myself,” he told the outlet, as he recalled the traumatic moment he saw the man dropping his partner’s lifeless body, but he later realized she was only pretending to be dead.
Jonte Gilmore recalls the fire that killed his partner
Gilmore recounted the attacker wiping a rag containing a flammable liquid, gasoline, on his face. “I’m about to be dead, to burn up in this closet,” he said he thought.
It took only a few seconds before the place erupted in flames and he heard his partner yelling that she was burning, Gilmore said, adding that he instructed her to stop, drop, and roll.
Jonte Gilmore's girlfriend managed to escape and call for help
While Gilmore remained trapped, the woman managed to call for help by getting out through the window. She soon returned with another man and pulled him to safety while he was trying to escape, he said.
Gilmore underwent surgery to graft skin from his thighs to other parts of his body on Wednesday, September 27, his mother told the outlet. His partner also was treated for burns and has been released.
A 5-year-old was treated for smoke inhalation, but Gilmore said he had no connection to the child and didn’t know the minor was in the building at the time of the terrifying incident.
