A Florida teenager gained a legion of followers by posting enjoyable movies on TikTok — however the interest shortly became a nightmare when a stalker confirmed up at her household’s house in 2020 and fired a shotgun by means of their entrance door.
Ava Majury created a TikTok account in 2020 when she was 13 and inside a yr attracted greater than one million followers by sharing movies of herself dancing and lip-synching to fashionable music.
Through the early a part of the pandemic, the teenager seen she saved receiving messages from one specific fan throughout three of her social media platforms — Tiktok, Snapchat and Instagram.
Majury instructed the New York Instances that early on, she responded to the consumer, 18-year-old Eric Rohan Justin, as she did with many followers, with common greetings.
“I used to answer to my followers, like ‘Hey, how was your day?’’’ she instructed the newspaper.
However from there, unknown to Ava on the time, Justin managed to attach with a few of Ava’s classmates — paying them in trade for images of her and her cellphone quantity.
Ava mentioned she unfollowed her associates from Florida and from again in New Jersey — the place the household lived earlier than shifting to Naples in 2019.
“Everybody round me was like, ‘Oh you’re going Hollywood on all of us, you don’t need to discuss to us anymore.’ And I’m like, ‘You’re promoting my stuff,’” she recalled.
Ava, who rakes in hundreds of dollars in sponsorship offers as an influencer, was given permission by her dad and mom to promote Justin just a few selfies that had already been shared on Snapchat.
“I wasn’t sending something of my physique,’’ Ava mentioned. “It was simply photos of my face, which is what I assume that he was paying for. My complete factor is my fairly smile — that’s my content material.”
However quickly after, Justin started messaging her on Venmo, requesting “booty pics” and photos of her ft in trade for cash.
At that time, Ava blocked Justin on all of her accounts, however he endured, sending her three funds totaling over $600 and begging her to unblock him.
Ava’s father, Rob Majury, a retired police lieutenant, then ordered Justin by way of textual content to cease contacting his daughter.
Justin’s conduct from there took a threatening flip. He contacted one in all Ava’s classmates and commenced plotting his assault, in accordance with textual content messages supplied to the Instances.
Justin requested the classmate if he had entry to a gun. In a single textual content, he wrote, “i might simply breach the door with a shotgun i believe.”
Ava’s household realized that Justin lived a whole bunch of miles north, which alleviated a few of their fears.
Her father at first dismissed Justin as “one in all these keyboard cowboys.”
“I kind of discredited what might have been a menace,” the instructed the Instances.
However Justin’s menacing plan became a horrific actuality on July 10, 2020, when he barged onto their property and pumped a shotgun shell by means of their entrance door.
“All I keep in mind was, I heard it, I felt it in my chest, and I regarded up, and there was a gap in my door from the fragments,” Ava recalled.
Her father jumped away from bed and ran to the entrance door, the place he noticed Justin on their entrance garden. Ava’s mom known as 911.
The retired police lieutenant went to chase the teenager gunman, however tripped and fell, at which level the suspect fled.
The daddy grabbed his handgun and stood guard till police arrived. However earlier than they did, Justin returned.
Ava’s father ordered Justin to drop the shotgun, however he refused and as an alternative pointed it at him — prompting the dad to open hearth, killing the stalker.
Justin was discovered by police carrying two cellphones containing hundreds of images of Ava.
“The topic was more than likely a stalker that resulted from her daughter’s in depth social media involvement,” the Collier County Sheriff’s Workplace report learn.
The investigation is ongoing. Ava’s father mentioned police instructed him the taking pictures was justifiable beneath the state’s “stand your floor” regulation.
Regardless of the dramatic expertise, Ava stays on TikTok and different platforms.
Ava’s mom, Kim Majury, instructed the Instances that she didn’t need to let “sick people” drive her daughter from social media.
“Why ought to we enable them to cease her? Perhaps she’s meant to convey consciousness to all this,” Kim Majury mentioned.
As for Ava, she acknowledged the perks of the proceeds from her social media stardom, however mentioned the general expertise means extra to her.
“I acquired to go to LA, the those that I met,” she mentioned. “Simply with the ability to make different individuals smile is what I like, the enjoyment of seeing the affect I made on some individuals’s lives.”
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