Ava Majury
The daughter is a TikTok star at 15. The father shoots her stalker – and remains at large
Screenshot from a video Ava Majury posted on TikTok on July 10, 2021 — the day of the attack
© Ava Majury / TikTok
At the age of 15, Ava Majury already has more than a million followers on TikTok. Among them was a young man who became her stalker. In the end, the fan was dead – shot by the influencer’s father.
Ava Majury has achieved what many girls of her age dream of: she became famous with her smartphone, reaped likes and recognition on the Internet, many users know her face and name. Majury was 13 when she uploaded her first video to the TikTok app. She is now 15 and a star on TikTok: more than a million users follow her on her main account, plus more than 300,000 on Instagram. She gets advertising contracts, earns good money with her videos, even Hollywood knocks.
But Ava Majury’s dream come true has a big catch. Eric Rohan Justin, 18, from the US state of Maryland, develops a kind of obsession with the young TikToker. In the end, the young man is dead – shot by the father of the influencer. And Ava Majury has to live with that burden in the open and at her young age.
Ava Majury makes thousands of dollars on TikTok
In conversations with the “New York Times”, the 15-year-old and her family told their view of the tragic story. The Florida teen’s TikTok career started harmlessly: a few videos early in the pandemic of her singing and dancing. The clips are well received, the number of followers is increasing by leaps and bounds. And Majury knows how to use her success: She advertises different products, opens more accounts to reach even more users, and earns thousands of dollars.
However, she does not forget to maintain personal contact with her followers – the secret of the success of many influencers. Ava Majury likes to text back a nice sentence when she receives a private message. She did so when a user named EricJustin111 contacted her. Eric Rohan Justin is behind the username. First the young man develops from an enthusiastic fan to a pushy admirer, then he becomes a real stalker. Justin tracks down friends of Majury in New Jersey, where the family previously lived, and buys personal information from them about the TikToker: her phone number, her new address, photos. In exchange, he is said to have done the math homework for a friend, for example.
Stalker tries to break into the family home with a gun
Majury is horrified by this and breaks off contact with her old friends. But she at least partially responds to Justin’s offers: for money she sends him selfies that she had previously posted online. When he wants explicit pictures, she indignantly refuses. Her father Rob Majury, a former police officer, also texted the stalker to make it absolutely clear that he should leave his underage daughter alone. But that doesn’t intimidate Eric Rohan Justin. Online, he fantasizes about breaking into the Majurys’ home with a gun. The family dismisses this as talk – also because Justin lives hundreds of kilometers away. “I didn’t take what could have been a threat seriously,” Rob Majury told the New York Times.
On July 10 of last year, it became clear how serious Justin meant his threats. At half past four in the morning, the 18-year-old stands in front of the house in Maples with a gun and shoots a hole in the front door. Ava Majury, her mother and her two brothers are hiding, her father grabs his gun and wants to confront Justin. The stalker flees and escapes as Rob Majury trips in pursuit. But Justin returned to the scene of the crime, where Ava Majury’s father was waiting for the police in front of the house.
Rob Majury told the New York Times what happened next: He asked Justin to drop the gun. Instead, the young man who was stalking his daughter pointed the gun at him. Then Majury shot. Justin was dead before the police got there. Thousands of photos of the TikTok star were found on the two phones he had with him.
No punishment for the father
Rob Avery does not have to fear legal consequences. Although he shot his daughter’s stalker, he is still at large and will probably stay that way. Florida’s stand-your-ground law allows people to use deadly force in the event of an attack.
Still, the incident haunts the family. The Majurys have moved again, Ava feels watched and followed at school – especially by a boy who was in contact with Eric Rohan Justin and from whom the attacker may have got the address. She has since left school and is homeschooled. Ava Majury is still active on TikTok and regularly posts videos. She didn’t tell her followers about the drama. “I don’t want it to end badly and people think I made eyes at him,” she says.
Swell: “New York Times” / Ava Majury on TikTok / Ava Majury on Instagram