An aspiring YouTube star has killed her boyfriend after shooting him in a video blog gone wrong.
Monalisa Perez, a 19-year od aspiring YouTube star from Minnesota, has been arrested after shooting her boyfriend, Pedro Ruiz III in a YouTube stunt gone wrong. In the planned stunt, Ruiz held a hardcover encyclopedia in front of his chest while Perez leveled a .50 caliber gold-plated Desert Eagle pistol at him and pulled the trigger, believing that the encyclopedia would stop the bullet. Of course, the hardcover book did not provide protection, and Ruiz was killed.
The couple regularly made YouTube vlogs on a YouTube channel titled La MonaLisa, where they made videos of pranks, fails, stunts, and challenges. The couple arranged a GoPro camera on the trunk of a car in their front yard on Monday evening and then performed the stunt which led to the death of Ruiz. Perez called emergency services at 6:30 PM to report the shooting, Ruiz was pronounced dead at the scene.
“The case remains under investigation by the Norman County Sheriff’s Office and the Minnesota BCA,” said Norman County Sheriff Jeremy Thornton in a statement. According to YouTube videos posted by the couple, they have a 3-year-old daughter together, and Perez is pregnant with their second child. Perez told Ruiz in the couples last YouTube video, “Imagine when we have 300,000 subscribers. They’ll be like, ‘Oh my god, hi!’” Ruiz responded, “I told them the bigger we get, I’ll be throwing parties. It’s a small town, why not?”
Police officials said the video of the shooting will not be publicly released.