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A woman who identified herself as the sister of Jason Billingsley talked about her brother and their family on a podcast she posted Friday on Spotify.
In the 55-minute recording, Jasmine Billingsley makes clear that she believes her brother committed all the crimes he has been convicted of and the crimes he is currently accused of. Through several statements, she disavowed him and made clear they have not had a relationship in years.
Jason Dean Billingsley, 32, is charged with first-degree murder and related offenses in the death of Pava LaPere, the founder and CEO of EcoMap Technologies. He is also accused of attempted first- and second-degree murder and related offenses in an attack on two people in a rooming house in West Baltimore, during which he is accused of holding them captive and setting them on fire.
In 2015, Jason Billingsley pleaded guilty to a sex offense, admitting he threatened and assaulted a woman. He was sentenced to 30 years for that crime, with 16 years suspended. He served less than 10 years because of credits he received for good behavior and was released in October 2022.
Jasmine Billingsley, 33, apologized to all of his victims, alleged and otherwise. She has communicated by email with The Banner since her brother’s arrest, and has previously declined interview requests from The Banner.
“I cannot express in words what it feels like for the monster to be related to you,” she said in the podcast, which she hosts with her partner Tashauna, sharing their “experiences from being a lesbian couple, to motherhood.” The podcast has only five episodes. The episode about her brother was hosted by her alone.
“Again, again, again, I express my deepest, deepest, deepest condolences to the family who lost their loved ones, to the victims that were violated.”
During the podcast, she talked about her childhood and that of her siblings — all of them were put into foster care when Jasmine was 5 years old, she said.
Foster care, she said, “saved me.” She considered herself luckier than her brothers, placed with foster parents in Prince George’s County.
“I was well taken care of,” she said. “I was exposed to things. I didn’t lack a lot of things.”
She was the second youngest of four siblings. Jason was the youngest. She had an older sister and an older brother, Joshua, who was fatally shot in Harlem Park in 2013. They were raised in different foster homes, Jasmine said, but were allowed to visit one another periodically. Jason, she said, was sexually abused by some of his foster parents.
While Jasmine Billingsley maintains a relationship with her sister, she said she broke ties with her mother, whom she believes will support her brother “to her dying breath.”
She briefly lived with her family in Baltimore as an adult while she worked as a nurse, she said. Her only good memories of Jason come from that time (shortly before he was arrested for sexual assault in 2013). He had a job with a moving company and often walked her home from her bus stop when she finished work, she said.
“The way they lived was very surreal to me,” she said. “But they protected me.”
Shortly thereafter, she said, “Jason sort of took a turn.” She described an argument related to a girlfriend of his and seeing him “differently” after that.
She said her brother was “very handsome. Women gravitated towards him. He was a magnet for women. Instead of keeping focus on the job, he started to focus on this woman and that woman, and they started taking care of him.”
She said she believes Jason played a role in the death of their oldest brother, Joshua. Jason Billingsley has not been charged in connection with his brother’s shooting.
“I do not know that he was ever loved properly,” she said, “and I cannot attest that he was ever taught properly. That will never be a reason to justify his choices. ... You can tell there is some deep-seated trauma that sits at the seat of his heart that he has not dealt with.”
She talked about the traumatic experience of being connected to the news of her brother’s manhunt and the crimes he was accused of, calling it “beyond embarrassing. But outside of it being embarrassing, I wish that it would have never happened, and that young lady was still here.”
Jasmine Billingsley said her brother reached out to her, through another person, to “say his goodbyes and that he loved me.” She declined to have that conversation.
She ended the podcast with a message to her brother:
“You have caused this family greater pain that I have wished to endure throughout my life. ... I know that there is something in you that only God can heal and can cure. I pray now that there’s never a chance you will ever see the light of day again, that you get the healing that you so desperately need before you leave this earth.”
hugo.kugiya@thebaltimorebanner.com
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Hugo Kugiya is a reporter for the Express Desk and has formerly reported for the Associated Press, Newsday, and the Seattle Times.
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