A Florida teenager gained a legion of fans by posting fun videos on TikTok — but the hobby quickly turned into a nightmare when a stalker showed up at her family’s home in 2020 and fired a shotgun through their front door.
Ava Majury created a TikTok account in 2020 when she was 13 and within a year attracted more than a million followers by sharing videos of herself dancing and lip-synching to trendy music.
During the early part of the pandemic, the teen noticed she kept receiving messages from one particular fan across three of her social media platforms — Tiktok, Snapchat and Instagram.
Majury told the New York Times that early on, she responded to the user, 18-year-old Eric Rohan Justin, as she did with many fans, with general greetings.
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“I used to reply to my fans, like ‘Hey, how was your day?’’’ she told the newspaper.
But from there, unknown to Ava at the time, Justin managed to connect with some of Ava’s classmates — paying them in exchange for photos of her and her cellphone number.
Ava said she unfollowed her friends from Florida and from back in New Jersey — where the family lived before moving to Naples in 2019.
“Everyone around me was like, ‘Oh you’re going Hollywood on all of us, you don’t want to talk to us anymore.’ And I’m like, ‘You’re selling my stuff,’” she recalled.
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Ava, who rakes in thousands of dollars in sponsorship deals as an influencer, was given permission by her parents to sell Justin a few selfies that had already been shared on Snapchat.
“I wasn’t sending anything of my body,’’ Ava said. “It was just pictures of my face, which is what I assume that he was paying for. My whole thing is my pretty smile — that’s my content.”
But soon after, Justin began messaging her on Venmo, requesting “booty pics” and pictures of her feet in exchange for money.
At that point, Ava blocked Justin on all of her accounts, but he persisted, sending her three payments totaling over $600 and begging her to unblock him.
Ava’s father, Rob Majury, a retired police lieutenant, then ordered Justin via text to stop contacting his daughter.
Justin’s behavior from there took a threatening turn. He contacted one of Ava’s classmates and began plotting his attack, according to text messages provided to the Times.
Justin asked the classmate if he had access to a gun. In one text, he wrote, “i could just breach the door with a shotgun i think.”
Ava’s family learned that Justin lived hundreds of miles north, which alleviated some of their fears.
Her father at first dismissed Justin as “one of these keyboard cowboys.”
“I sort of discredited what could have been a threat,” the told the Times.
But Justin’s menacing plan turned into a horrific reality on July 10, 2020, when he barged onto their property and pumped a shotgun shell through their front door.
“All I remember was, I heard it, I felt it in my chest, and I looked up, and there was a hole in my door from the fragments,” Ava recalled.
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Her father jumped out of bed and ran to the front door, where he spotted Justin on their front lawn. Ava’s mother called 911.
The retired police lieutenant went to chase the teen gunman, but tripped and fell, at which point the suspect fled.
The father grabbed his handgun and stood guard until police arrived. But before they did, Justin returned.
Ava’s father ordered Justin to drop the shotgun, but he refused and instead pointed it at him — prompting the dad to open fire, killing the stalker.
Justin was found by police carrying two cellphones containing thousands of pictures of Ava.
“The subject was most likely a stalker that resulted from her daughter’s extensive social media involvement,” the Collier County Sheriff’s Office report read.
The investigation is ongoing. Ava’s father said police told him the shooting was justifiable under the state’s “stand your ground” law.
Despite the dramatic experience, Ava remains on TikTok and other platforms.
Ava’s mother, Kim Majury, told the Times that she didn’t want to let “sick individuals” force her daughter from social media.
“Why should we allow them to stop her? Maybe she’s meant to bring awareness to all this,” Kim Majury said.
As for Ava, she acknowledged the perks of the proceeds from her social media stardom, but said the overall experience means more to her.
“I got to go to LA, the people that I met,” she said. “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.”
