Your mom always told you not to do anything stupid on the Internet, right? Well, Monalisa Perez of Halstad, Minn., proved that the quest for likes can have much more devastating effects than simply coughing up cinnamon.
According to the New York Times, in June, Perez had her boyfriend, Pedro Ruiz III, hold a thick encyclopedia in front of his chest for a YouTube video. She stood about a foot away and shot the book with the apparent belief that the bullet would not make it through. Unfortunately, the book did not prove to be the shield she believed it would be, and the bullet fatally wounded 22-year-old Ruiz.
Perez pled guilty to second-degree manslaughter on Friday. Some media reports claim that the plea agreement calls for her to serve 180 years in jail and spend 10 years on supervised probation, while other reports state that a judge will determine her sentence.
Monalisa Perez, who fatally shot boyfriend Pedro Ruiz III in Youtube stunt gone wrong, pleads guilty https://t.co/LJJsQqVFIw pic.twitter.com/7ZAARE7oMO
— The Straits Times (@STcom) December 20, 2017
StarTribune reports that the plea deal also prevents Perez from “making any financial compensation” off of the video of Ruiz’s death, and that she is “banned from possessing firearms for the rest of her life.”
Perez and Ruiz had been posting YouTube videos for several weeks beforehand. The videos were fairly innocent, and showed pranks and stunts intended to make their audience laugh.
Prior to the shooting, Perez tweeted, “Me and Pedro are probably going to shoot one of the most dangerous videos ever. HIS idea not MINE.” The New York Times states that Ruiz had wanted to film this stunt for a long time, and had even shot himself with a book in front of his chest to prove that it works. At the time of the shooting, Perez and Ruiz had a three-year-old daughter and were pregnant with their second child. Perez has since given birth to the second child.
This heartbreaking story is in line with several other stories in which someone lost everything in order to gain a few likes.