"We chose what’s best for our family. We know there are going to be two sides, and some people won’t understand." The New York Times lays out the sides in the story of Ava Majury, a then-13-year-old who downloaded TikTok during the pandemic and quickly established a presence, racking up more than a million followers and sponsorship deals worth thousands. By July 2021, an obsessed 18-year-old fan ended up dead outside her Naples, Florida, home. As for the choice Ava's mother referred to, well, the teen is still on TikTok. In fact, the now-15-year-old has since formed AGM Creations and gotten a PR rep. "It’s like Christmas every day, because ... you see it build," father Rob Majury says of watching Ava's posts rack up views. But that day in July? Not Christmas.
Writing for the Times, Elizabeth Williamson details a chain of events that started with Eric Rohan Justin of Ellicott City, Md., reaching out to friends of Ava's in Florida and New Jersey (where her family lived until 2019) and paying them for photos and info on her, including her phone number. Ava herself, with her parents' OK, also allowed him to buy two photos of her face for $300 via Venmo. He then started requesting more salacious shots and sending her money unsolicited. Ava says she then learned that Justin was texting a classmate of hers about attacking her. After telling her parents, her father says he looked into Justin and reassured his daughter he was a "keyboard cowboy" living hundreds of miles away. Then Justin blasted open their front door with a shotgun; Rob Majury, a retired police lieutenant, ended up shooting him dead before police arrived. (Read the full story.)
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