A dad of a 14 year old TikTok star was forced to shoot and kill his daughter’s stalker who traveled hundreds of miles to their home armed with a shotgun.
The ex-cop father, whose 14 year old daughter has over one million followers on TikTok, shot and killed the 18 year old stalker after the teenager fired a shot through the family’s front door. The dad was not charged with a crime thanks to Florida’s Stand Your Ground Law.
Stalking
Ava Majury, 14, who became famous on TikTok by making videos of herself singing, dancing, and pulling pranks, began noticing in early 2020 that one of her followers, 18 year old Eric Rohan Justin, was becoming obsessed with her.
Justin, a resident of Ellicott City, Maryland, found Ava on other platforms — Snapchat and Instagram — and began messaging her constantly. He also joined online games that she played with her brothers, according to a lengthy article on the story published by The New York Times.
Initially, Ava responded to Justin as she did with other fans. But she soon discovered that he was buying her personal information, including her cellphone number, from her friends. He then began texting and calling her.
“Ava’s parents allowed her to sell Mr. Justin a couple of selfies that she had already posted to Snapchat,” The New York Times noted.
The Times continued:
After that, Mr. Justin messaged Ava on Venmo with a breakdown of what he would pay for “booty pics” and photos of her feet, “stuff that a 14-year-old shouldn’t be sending,” she said. She blocked him on all her accounts. In Venmo messages viewed by The Times, Mr. Justin pleaded with her to unblock him, sending $159.18, then $100, and finally $368.50 with the message, “sorry this is all I have left i’m broke.” Mr. Majury said he texted Mr. Justin’s cellphone, told him that Ava was a minor, and demanded that he stop contacting her.
The Shooting
On July 10th, 2020, Justin showed up at the Majury’s home in Naples, Florida, armed with a shotgun, which he used to blow open the front door.
Luckily for the Majury family, after the first shot, the shotgun jammed. Ava’s father, retired police lieutenant Rob Majury, took that as an opportunity to chase Justin down, but he fell, gashing his knee. Justin fled the scene.
The stalker later returned, and as he aimed the gun at Majury, the ex-cop shot and killed him.
Negligent Parents
Regardless of the fact that her dad is a hero for shooting the stalker and saving his family, the fact that it got this far is just absurd. Even Ava’s brother partially understands that.
Ava has two brothers, Evan and Logan, ages 17 and 11. When her stalker returned to their home, Evan reportedly snapped at his sister, saying: “This is all your fault.”
While he’s not quite placing the blame in the right place, he understands that her social media presence and her lack of boundaries with her followers could have killed her entire family. A fourteen year old girl is not old enough or mature enough to be making those decisions, and she shouldn’t be in the position to be making them. Her parents shouldn’t have let it get this far. Yet, they did.
They were even aware of the creep ahead of time. As was mentioned earlier in a quote from the New York Times, “Ava’s parents allowed her to sell Mr. Justin a couple of selfies that she had already posted to Snapchat.”
What kind of parents allow their fourteen year old daughter to sell pictures of herself to a grown man?! That clearly escalated the situation further. According to police, Justin had two cellphones on him which contained thousands of pictures of Ava, and hundreds of hours of her videos.
Beyond that, according to the Daily Wire, “Ava later received messages on Venmo from a man that the Majurys discovered matched that of a registered sex offender.”
She was clearly in over her head, and either her parents were completely unaware, or they simply didn’t care because they were so excited that their daughter was famous. This toxic social media culture has absolutely destroyed today’s youth, and negligent parents have allowed it to happen.
What’s even worse is, Ava’s parents are perfectly content with her staying on social media after all of this. They’ve even allowed her to get a lawyer, Lanny Davis, and to be represented by his public relations firm.
Ava’s mother claims that she doesn’t want her daughter to be forced offline by “sick individuals,” saying, “Why should we allow them to stop her? Maybe she’s meant to bring awareness to all this.”
According to Ava, at night she has doubts about continuing on social media, but by the mornings, “I thought of all the benefits. … Most people would say the money. And yeah, it’s a huge benefit. But it’s the experience. I got to go to L.A., the people that I met. Just being able to make other people smile is what I like, the enjoyment of seeing the impact I made on some people’s lives. I’d post a video at night, close my eyes, and in the morning it was exciting to see how many views I got.”
Rob Majury agrees with his wife, saying: “It’s like Christmas every day, because then you see it build. I think we just had to allow her to make a decision and sort of support her. I think it’s going to help her heal. It sounds corny, but I don’t know what else you would do it for.”
I wonder how many near death experiences and stalkers it will take before today’s negligent parents realize that living vicariously off of their children’s online fame isn’t worth the risk.
