Aspiring Youtube star shot dead by girlfriend as video stunt goes wrong
Couple’s three-year-old son in the room when pregnant teenager fired gun through encyclopedia
A MINNESOTA teenager has been charged with manslaughter after shooting her boyfriend dead in a failed stunt they hoped would make them famous on Youtube.
With two cameras positioned to catch their antics, and with their threeyear-old son in the room, Monalisa Perez, 19, shot 22-year-old Pedro Ruiz in the chest from a foot away, while he held an encyclopedia as a shield. He died at the scene.
The sheriff ’s office received an emergency call from Perez at 6.30pm on Monday, with the teenager telling them “her and her boyfriend were making a Youtube video and she accidentally shot him in the chest,” according to court documents.
“I really have no idea what they were thinking,” said Sheriff Jeremy Thornton of Norman County. “I just don’t understand the younger generation on trying to get their 15 minutes of fame.”
Perez, who is pregnant with her second child, appeared in court on Wednesday and was released on $7,000 bail. She told police that the stunt was intended to help them get more followers on social media.
The couple launched a Youtube channel in March, posting videos of themselves pulling pranks such as eating doughnuts covered with baby powder instead of sugar.
“Welcome to our channel loves!! Our Vlogs will show you the real life of a young couple who happen to be teen parents. From highs to lows. Achievements to struggles. Join the fun, follow our journey!” they wrote in the “about” section of the channel.
In the couple’s last video, posted shortly before the shooting on Monday, Perez and Mr Ruiz, a railway engineer, considered what it would be like to be a social media “star”, defining stardom as “when we have 300,000 subscribers.”
Mr Ruiz added: “The bigger we get, I’ll be throwing parties. Why not?”
Around half an hour before the stunt, Perez tweeted: “Me and Pedro are probably going to shoot one of the most dangerous videos ever,” with two nervous-looking emojis. She added: “HIS idea not MINE,” accompanied by an image of a monkey covering its eyes.
After the shooting, she told police Mr Ruiz had been “trying to get her” to fire the gun “for a while”. He had even shown her a book used when he had previously shot himself, she told investigators. In that case, she said, the bullet had not gone all the way through.
His aunt, Claudia Ruiz, described the tragedy as “a prank gone wrong” and said she tried to dissuade her nephew. “It shouldn’t have happened like this,” she said. “It shouldn’t have happened at all. He had told me about an idea. I said, don’t do it, don’t do it. Why are you going to use a gun? Why?
“Because, we want more viewers [he said]. We want to get famous.”
Another aunt, Lisa Primeau, told the Minnesota Star Tribune that she raised her nephew after his mother died in Texas when he was five. She said her nephew was always “putting a dangerous twist on everything he did”.
Professor Kerry O’grady, a communications and PR lecturer from New York University, said the case showed the naivety of aspiring social media “stars”.
She said: “People believe there is quick money, and it’s not true. You need to have a talent, and a plan.”
If convicted of the charge, Perez faces 10 years in prison and a $20,000 fine.
‘I really have no idea what they were thinking. I just don’t understand the younger generation on trying to get their 15 minutes of fame’