Crime Stories with Nancy Grace - Stalker Perv Shoots in Door of Teen Girl TikToker Family Home

Episode Date: February 23, 2022

A Maryland teen shows up at the door of TikTok star Ava Majury with a loaded shotgun and the intent to use it. 18-year-old Eric Rohan Justin of Maryland arrives at the Majury home at 4 am and blasts a hole through the front door. Justin has been following 15-year-old Majury for months, hounding her for pictures, even paying friends for info. As the weeks progress, the requests for "explicit content" grow. Majury blocks Justin. When he arrives at her doorstep, Ava's father, a retired policeman, shoots and kills the stalker.Joining Nancy Grace Today: Dan Ellis - Attorney, Herman Law (New York and Florida) Specializing in victims sexual abuse and harassment, Hermanlaw.com, Instagram: @Dan_Ellis_Esq, Dr. Mindy B. Mechanic- Professor of Psychology (Emeritus) at California State University Fullerton, Forensic Psychologist Focusing on Trauma/victimization, Intimate Partner Violence, Sexual Assault and Stalking Joe Scott Morgan - Professor of Forensics: Jacksonville State University, Author, "Blood Beneath My Feet", Host: "Body Bags with Joseph Scott Morgan" Charlie Lankston - FeMail Editor, DailyMail.com, Twitter/Instagram:@charlielanks Titania Jordan - Chief Parent Officer, Bark Parental Controls, Author: "Parenting In A Tech World", www.Bark.us, Instagram/Twitter: @TitaniaJordan Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an iHeart Podcast. is using TikTok, including the Chinese, but they're not why I'm here right now. I'm Nancy Grace. This is Crime Stories. Thank you for being with us here at Fox Nation and SiriusXM 111. You know, you can shoot to stardom on TikTok. Some people making around $2,000 per posting. That's a lot of money for a little girl.

Take a listen to this. Hi guys. I don't really know how to start this, so we're just going to go along with this one. This is my first vlog or YouTube video. Give me all ideas in the comments because I actually want to start doing this, but I'm not so good with filming. I'm out of breath. I just ran all the way from over there. commons because i like actually want to start doing this but i'm not so good with filming i'm out of breath i just ran all the way from over there you can't really see it but it's really pretty here um yeah i'm kind of taking you along with the journey right now we're everglades something city something it's like where like all the gators are and stuff it's cool

didn't think i was coming here that's why I'm dressed like this. Yeah, I'm going to go take fire Instagram pictures and you guys will see that. You're hearing the voice of a then little girl, Ava Majorey, and she is posting her very first TikTok video. How did she, this gorgeous little girl, end up on Crime Stories with Nancy Grace? Well, I'll tell you. Take a listen to our cut A4 GMA. Ava says in early 2020, she noticed one follower trying to get her attention, commenting on her TikTok videos and reaching out to her through other social media apps, asking for photos, even paying kids she thought were friends for information about her. Was there a point, Ava, where you started

selling pictures of yourself to him? After talking to both my parents, I thought it would be mutual if I got in contact with him directly. And I said, hey, like, please stop going through my friends and please stop contacting people for information about me. Like, just come straight to me and you could purchase it off of me. She says that his requests escalated and became inappropriate. So she blocked him on all of our accounts. And that's when her father Rob says he intervened contacted him directly uh when Ava received a message told him that she's a minor he needs to you know stop pursuing anything and that you know he should just not contact her anymore talk about a Hydra every time you chop off one head, 10 more appear, snapping and biting at you.

This little girl making TikTok videos like millions of other little girls and boys are doing every single day. Have you seen them? How could it go so wrong? Again, I'm Nancy Grace. This is Crime Stories. Thanks for being with us. And if you are a parent, an aunt, an uncle, a grandparent, you need to hear this. With me, an all-star panel to make sense of what we know right now, Dan Ellis, high-profile lawyer with the Herman Law Group in New York and Florida. You can find him at at Dan underscore Ellis underscore Esquire and at HermanLaw.com. Dr. Mindy B. Mechanic, Professor of Psychology, California State University, Fullerton, Forensic Psychologist, and boy do we need a shrink today. Joseph Scott Morgan, Professor of Forensics,

Jacksonville State University, author of Blood Beneath My Feet on Amazon and star of a brand new hit series, Body Bags with Joseph Scott Morgan on iHeart. To Tanya Jordan, another special guest joining us, and you're going to want to hear what she has to say. Chief Parent Officer, Bark Parental Controls, author of Parenting in a Tech World. I've got Bark, and it's no secret. My children know I've got Bark. I love Bark. It tells me even when some other little kid writes a curse word in a text chain. And I want to know. You can find her at Titania Jordan and at Bark.us.

But first, I want to go to a friend and colleague who's been on the story from the very beginning, our friend at dailymail.com, Charlie Langston. Charlie, thank you for being with us. So tell me about this little girl, Ava Majury. Who is she? Where is she? What was she posting on TikTok that arouses the attention? Let me just put it euphemistically of Eric Justin. Well, Ava is much like the majority of other teenage girls out there. She started posting on TikTok when she was just 13 years old back in 2020. After her family moved to Florida from New Jersey. Her dad is a retired cop. And from everything that the family has said,

they thought the TikTok was just an innocent old time. Okay, wait, wait, wait, Charlie. As usual, talking to you is like drinking out of a fire hydrant. Too much, too fast. Okay. I remember when John, Dave, they'll kill me. Don't tell them I told you this. When they came in at the supper table and turn on their phones which i gave them

way too early to old town road remember billy ray cyrus and somebody else did that old town road blah blah blah blah okay yeah that and they were doing a tiktok acting and more john John David, more Lucy than John David. He was just kind of in the background lost. But I said, what are you doing? Is that making a TikTok? And I said, well, what? And first of all, hold on, Charlie, to Tanya Jordan.

What is a, wait, what is quote a TikTok? Well, a TikTok is a short form video, whether it's 15 seconds up to three minutes, that is usually very entertaining, also highly addictive. And as we can see from these stories, can lead to dangerous people and content. Well, you know, Charlie Langston, Charlie, do you have children? I don't have children. I do have a TikTok account, but I don't have children. Do you know my son, John David, and I nearly broke out into a physical brawl at a restaurant yesterday because he did not put his phone down the first three times I said, put your phone down, son.

You're eating. That's rude. I had to grab it from him. We nearly knocked the table over he was watching like a frog doing something on tiktok he goes but this is important mom do you see this frog I'm like sadly yes I see the frog while I'm trying to eat put the frog away so it is addictive and in their cases because you know I've snooped, it seems pretty innocent. But okay, start at the beginning again,

Charlie Langston joining me from dailymail.com and slowly. Okay, so Ava joined TikTok like a lot of people did. During 2020, we were in lockdown, we were in quarantine and people were looking for things to keep them entertained. She started posting very innocent videos. She would film dances with her friends and her family. She would film prank videos. And, you know, for whatever reason, the TikTok algorithm, which is the program that

decides what videos you see and how often you see them. The TikTok algorithm took a liking to her video content. She very quickly started gaining thousands and thousands of followers, thousands and thousands of views on her videos and became within months of joining the app, she became what we know as an influencer, which meant that she was starting to earn money from the content that she was posting on TikTok. No, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. How old was she at that time? She joined TikTok when she was 13, 14 is when she kind of hit TikTok fame, as it were. I mean, when you say a dance, a lot of people to you, Dan Ellis, a high profile lawyer, both in New York and Florida with the Herman Law Firm. Dan, a lot of people, to you, Dan Ellis, a high-profile lawyer, both in New York and Florida with

the Herman Law Firm. Dan, a lot of people would think that's something sexy and provocative. It's not. I've looked at Ava Majorey's TikToks. They're just like, they're not just like all the ones the other little girls do. They kind of like do their arms and they do something over their head. They kind of like dance over here. Then they dance over here. Then they try to shake their 12 year old hips and that's it. That's the end of

the TikTok. That's the whole thing. They're not sexy. They're not provocative. They're little girls dancing around. They're usually a fleet of them. There's like one in front. I guess that would be the Beyonce. And then there's the backups. So I don't like that people suggest this little girl was doing anything wrong. I don't like that. What about it, Dan Ellis? Well, that's right. As you said, Nancy, nothing in the videos themselves were sexualized or, you know, crossed into the grounds of child pornography, anything along those lines. But in our experience and my practice, we strictly represent victims of child sexual abuse and harassment. And what we found in cases involving the Catholic Church, Boy Scouts

of America, or preschools is that where children are, predators go. So parents need to be vigilant in monitoring what their children are doing on social media to protect them from predators. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. So, Charlie Langston from DailyMail.com, you're telling me she would have prank videos, which my son does all the time. He tries to video pranks on me, but typically on hismail.com you're telling me she would have prank videos which my son does all the time he tries to video pranks on me but typically on his father sometimes the dog lucy does you know uh skin care that's her thing her skin is flawless i guess because of her skin care and and um dances dances, things like that. But Charlie, how did that go to getting like $2,000 a hit? Well, the way that TikTok works is the more people who engage with your content, the more people they show it to. And it really is, for some people, just luck of the draw. If one of the first videos that you post happens to get a lot of views, it means that the next videos that you start posting will get a lot

of views. You know, and there's a, for example, there's another teenage girl called Charlie D'Amelio, who is the most followed TikTok creator out there. She's a 16 year old girl from Connecticut who much like Ava was just posting innocent, funny videos from her home, nothing sexual, nothing over the top, nothing particularly brilliant in terms of that, you know, creativity. It just so happens that the algorithm picked up on her videos as it did with Ava. But how do you get the money? Do you get advertisers? So you can go through something that is called the TikTok creator fund. That is something that any TikTok user has the ability to join. And it means that TikTok will pay you money for the videos that you are posting.

Additionally, when you gain enough followers, brands will start to approach you and ask you to feature products in your videos. They will ask you to talk about different, you know, discount codes and things like that. And Ava had reached that level where she was considered an influencer who was popular enough that brands wanted her to start,

you know, featuring their products in her videos. Like what kind of brands? It can really be anything. Beauty brands are a huge, huge contender. Because I would say, Lucy, where did you find out about this new face cream? That must be where she's finding out about it. Yeah, I've looked at her videos.

I love the one where she and her dad are doing some kind of a little dance. And they're all really innocent. She's really, really pretty. She's super cute. Everything about her. She's kind of like an all-American looking girl. She's not some provocateur. But then suddenly it gets weird.

Take a listen to our friends at Inside Edition. This teen soared to fame lip syncing and dancing on TikTok. Her upbeat message, hey, I love you. Ava Majuri has 1.2 million followers. In our generation, everything nowadays is all about social media and having clout or the numbers behind your name. But her fame on social media turned into terror when she drew the attraction of an 18-year-old fan. It got to the point where it was kind of taking a bad turn

that just got creepier and creepier as time went on. You sold him selfies showing off your smile, thinking that this would take care of the problem and he would go away. I sold him two or three pictures of me smiling. But within a week, she says he started asking for more provocative pics. He started asking for booty pics and feet pics. Ava quickly became concerned. Ava says she blocked him on social media when he started relentlessly badgering her. To Dr. Mindy Mechanic, Professor of Psychology, California State University, Fullerton. Thank you for being with us, Dr. Mindy.

Doctor, even this teen girl knew something was horribly wrong. When some guy she's never met starts asking for shots of her rear end and shots of her feet. Then she finds out he is somehow researching her online and finding out who her friends are and trying to get information about her. How would you classify that, Dr. Mechanic? Well, it definitely sounds like it has both an intrusive and obsessional quality to it that she was picking up on. So kudos to her for recognizing pretty quickly that this was escalating and that this individual was becoming obsessed with her, not just generally, but also seeking to move that obsession into some kind of day-to-day or in real life contact by seeking out her personal contact information.

You know, how is it to Tanya Jordan, Chief Parent Officer at BARC, BARC Parental Controls, how did he reportedly go online and research Ava to find out who her friends were? How do you do that? Oh gosh, Nancy. It is so easy to find people online these days. And that's why we have to stress to parents who are raising children that are younger than Ava to not share PII online. That's personally identifiable information. So our kids should not use their

real names as their usernames. They should not put their graduation year in their Instagram bio. They shouldn't take pictures in front of their house that show what the front of the house looks like. They shouldn't use Snapchat unless they're on ghost mode, well, I shouldn't use Snapchat at all, but that's a different episode, that shows their location in real time. You know, it's so easy to join TikTok or any other social media platform, create a fake profile so that you look like one of these influencers' peers, right? You just grab an image from the internet, you create some content, you you steal content you start sending friend requests to mutual friends and once you have enough of those she'll look at this profile and accept incoming messages from them so it's a matter of friending ava or someone that you want to find

out about online getting them to friend you then you're kind of in their social media sphere. Then you begin friending their friends. And suddenly you have access to them. Is that how it works? That's one way to go about it. Yes. You know, as these influencers rise, which happens very quickly, people start writing about them, publishing content about them. They have stalkers that gain their own notoriety on these platforms,

much like, you know, celebrity house tours before the Internet, where people could go see where celebrities live. That's kind of like what's happening, but now online. I don't understand how it turned so dark so quickly. Let me understand. Charlie Langston joining us with DailyMail.com. She's the editor at Female. Charlie, she finds out that he has contacted her friends.

Wow. With friends like these who needs enemies and is actually buying photos from them or getting photos of her from friends. Tell me about that. So she discovered that he was contacting friends, as you said, and that they were selling him photos of her that could not be found online. So private images that they had taken. Now, we do not believe that any of these images were in any way sexual in content. They were not explicit. However, he was so desperate for content that he was buying, you know, selfies, photos of her that were kind of taken by her friends, candid images. She then decided to reach out to him personally in an attempt to

regain some kind of control over the situation, I believe. And she offered to sell him images of herself personally so that he would stop contacting her friends and getting images of her in that way. To Dr. Mindy McCann, a professor of psychology, is that kind of like negotiating with a terrorist? Yeah, one general rule of thumb is to not engage with the person who is stalking you. So, you know, if anything, that might have been a misstep and a very understandable misstep. I mean, she's a very young girl and she's just trying to appropriately set a boundary. But with stalkers, any little bit of attention, even if it's negative attention, can be interpreted as some kind of sign that she wants to connect or engage. So no contact with a stalker. To Dan Ellis, high profile lawyer joining us,

practicing in New York and Florida. Dan, I've handled so many stalking cases, some of them relatively harmless, some of them taking a very, very criminal twist and the victim ends up dead or disfigured. Very often, stalking victims don't even realize they're a victim of crime. They're being stalked, and they try to settle it themselves, work it out. They don't understand that communicating with your stalker in any way is really pouring gas on the fire. I didn't get it either at the beginning. But trying to reason with a stalker is impossible because they're already in a very irrational and illogical place. And they'll probably think your attempt to get them to go away is some sort of attention. Yeah, that's absolutely right. And what families should know is there are many legal

options available to victims of stalking. First of all, it's a crime to stalk someone. And there are, so if someone is a victim of stalking, they should contact the police or a lawyer. They might not even know they're a stalking victim though, Dan. They might just think, oh, he's a pest. That's right. No, that's absolutely right. And there is a gray area between, you know, someone who's persistent and someone who's stalking. But that's why families and parents especially need to be actively involved in who their children are communicating with on social media. And in the state of Florida, as in many states, there are civil options available for victims

of stalking. For example, in Florida, a victim of stalking can file a petition for an injunction for protection against stalking, which would be, you know, an order from a judge that would prohibit contact with the victim of stalking and prohibit that person from contacting the victim through email, through telephone, and in person, and order them to stay away. And through friends. You're absolutely right, Dan Ellis. You know, Joe Scott Morgan, professor of forensics, he's not just about blood evidence and mitochondrial DNA and fingerprints. Let's talk about the forensics in this case. It's computer forensics., is social media forensics. It's not just computer forensics anymore. It's social media forensics.

So in my book, Don't Be a Victim, I warn people how to avoid anybody online finding you. Joe Scott Morgan, explain how dangerous geotags can be and positioning yourself in the wrong spot in a photo. Yeah, when you have somebody that has this kind of, well, mental illness, psychopathology. Don't start. That is your way, way out of your lane. Okay. Last time I looked at a professor of forensics. Don't start about mental illness with me because this guy ain't mentally ill. With geotags, you're putting blood in the water.

You're calling sharks at this point in time. And that's why it's so very dangerous, Nancy, because these people will go to great lengths, as we see demonstrated in this particular case. You have specific markers and identifiers that can draw these individuals in because, you know, look, this guy was reaching out to her friends. He's seeking information at this point in time. He's actually playing the role of a junior detective, if you will. He's trying to track down, narrow down the scope. Think about it. Think about it, Joe Scott and Charlie Langston. Him sitting up at night looking at her TikToks over and over and over, hunched over his computer screen.

He's a freak. There's really no other way to put it. And he's dangerous, Joe Scott. So how did he manage to find out where she lived? Well, it's a process of elimination, Nancy. If you're taking these specific identifiers, it's kind of easy to narrow things down. I'll give you an example. I was looking at an image of their home just a moment ago. I was. And, you know, there's palm trees in the front yard. They're supported. You've got a house that's obviously newly moved into. It's freshly landscaped. You've got these palm trees in the front yard. They're supported. You've got a house that's obviously newly moved into. It's freshly landscaped.

You've got these palm trees that are out there. Well, I've already automatically narrowed this down. He says supported. There's palm trees around the house. And they're being supported by boards until they take root and start growing on their own, which is newly landscaped. You can obviously see it's a subdivision because you can see a house similar in style to the right and the left. Brand new yard, brand new everything. It screams, I'm new.

Go ahead. Yeah, and I deduced that. I literally deduced that within 30 seconds. Now, obviously, I had the framework, you know, but if I was just looking at that image, you know, one of the first things I would say is tropical environment, that they're in this environment that could support that kind of vegetation. If you've got somebody that is really on to the scent, if you will, let's, you know, take that example where this individual is being a junior detective on their own, then that's only the beginning. You're pulling that string on the sweater that they tell you never to pull, and the whole thing's going to come unraveled. And for her and for this family, that's absolutely what happened.

This thing turned into a damn nightmare, Nancy. You can also look, Charlie Langston, for instance, the time of the posting. Exactly. If you look at it consistently and you see her posting in daylight hours and you're getting the post in daylight hours, that tells you whether it's California or whether it's Florida. And you start narrowing it down, narrowing it down. If there's a picture of her in front of her middle school, you can narrow it down, even if the name's not there, Charlie.

So, Charlie, take a listen now to our cut 61 WBBH TV. Just before 4 30 early Saturday morning, residents inside this gated community were fast asleep. Well, deputies say that's when one man thought it'd be a good time to put on a Walmart employee vest, put in earplugs and safety goggles and shoot through someone's front door. Moments later, he was laying face down on the ground, lifeless, one bullet in his lower back, the other lodged into his lower stomach, a shotgun in the bushes next to him and a gun bag left on the sidewalk.

Tonight, the Collier County Sheriff's Office tells us it was the homeowner who fired those bullets at him. The resident sharing with investigators, he came outside with a shotgun after the intruder's bullet flew through the door, missing his family inside the home. The resident storming over to the suspect. Deputies say then it quickly became a fight to stay alive. The homeowner firing his gun at the intruder, who dropped to the ground. He was transported to the hospital, later dying. Now, two days later, CCSO says no one has been arrested. Charlie Langston joining us from DailyMail.com. What happened? Well, Ava Stalker arrived at the house very early in the morning and effectively tried to blow open the front door with a handgun.

He then hid while Ava and her two brothers ran to their parents' room. Her dad grabbed his gun. Her dad is a retired cop, so he knows what he's doing when it comes to using a weapon. And her dad then went outside to find out what had happened, came across Justin and shot him dead. And all of this happened within a matter of minutes. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. crime stories with nancy grace why was he there charlie did he want to take her kidnap her rape her kill her why was he there he had started reaching out to ava after she sold him those few photos. He began reaching out to Ava asking for much more explicit content. We understand that he got very angry when she said no and blocked him on all of her social media accounts. He then obtained her

phone number after buying it from her friends. When he continued to harass her and continued to ask for explicit content, her dad stepped in and messaged and reminded him that Ava is a minor. And he became very angry. And we believe that he effectively went to the house in order to express this anger. Now, whether or not he meant to kill Ava, whether or not he meant to threaten the family, that is not exactly known. Good Lord, woman. He broke in the door with a handgun. Explain what that means, Joe Scott Morgan. Has anybody seen Arnold Schwarzenegger

movies or let's see Bruce Willis? I mean basically any movie where they blow up the handle to the door with a gun? Yeah, yeah. And this is kind of telling Nancy, this goes to preparation. Remember, he's put on this gear. He's got a bag

with him of supplies. Wait, gear. Let's, you know, put on this gear. He's got a bag with him of supplies. Wait, gear, gear. Let's break it down, Charlie. Charlie Langston with me from Daily Mail. First of all, where did he come from? He flew to Florida in order to, you know, exact this revenge on Ava and her family. Is he from Maryland? He's from Maryland. He flew from Maryland to Florida

in order to confront and, you know, potentially kill Ava and her family. And he had on safety goggles, a Walmart employee vest, earplugs, and was basically army crawling along and shoots the door open. Do I have that right, Charlie Langston? You do. Yes.

Yeah, Nancy, I got to say. Yeah. Yeah, this guy showed up. It wasn't a handgun he showed up with. He showed up with a shotgun. And from a forensic standpoint, well, from a law enforcement standpoint, this guy was prepped because you know what we use, what law enforcement uses shotguns for when they're going in to serve warrants? It's called a breaching weapon, which means that they can, like you stated, they can blow the handles off, they can blow the hinges off to gain access. And a shotgun is something that you're going to go into and just wreak bloody havoc with, you know, when they enter into. So I have no doubt in my mind that the intent was there to wreak havoc and to kill.

He shows up completely prepped in this particular case. I can tell you this. There's one thing that they're not going to feature on their TikTok account, and that's the holes blown through the door that this guy created. This is an incredible level of violence here. And I think that it's certainly a warning. Take a listen to our cut 66, our friends at Inside Edition. He discovered where she lived and to her horror, she says showed up at her house in Florida with a shotgun at 430 in the morning and fired through her front door. We thought that

both of our parents were dead. Mom Kim is brought to tears thinking about that awful morning. I didn't think we were making it out of it after seeing that blast. The whole thing is just a nightmare. Ava's father, Rob Majorey is a retired police lieutenant from New Jersey. He sprang into action. I flew through the door as quickly as I could and gave chase screaming out of him as he ran away with the gun in hand. He ran back to his home and the shooter returned. I was able to neutralize the threat at that point. He shot the assailant dead, whom the sheriff's department called most likely a stalker. And I was going round and round with Charlie Langston, our friend from dailymail.com, talking about why he was there. Well,

you know what? His vest contained multiple shells. And as Joe Scott and Jackie over here frantically correcting me, it wasn't a handgun. It was a shotgun. That's a whole nother animal, Charlie Langston. Why do you think he was there, Charlie? I mean, you know, I certainly can't put myself into the mind of a killer or a stalker. I'm fortunate enough to say, however, I think honestly, at the age of 18, I think he probably just wanted to go and unleash this anger, whether or not he purposely in his mind went with the intention of murdering them, I couldn't say. I think he certainly wanted to get out whatever pain and anger and frustration he was feeling. Why didn't he just go see a therapist?

Why didn't he go talk to Dr. Mindy B. Mechanic from California State University in Fullerton? Why not? You know, it was something much more than that. I'm going to go to Dan Ellis and Dr. Mindy Mechanic. Dan Ellis, the law says you can display intent. It can either be specific intent or we can assume intent by your actions. And I love to tell a jury, what about this? If I hold up a piece of fine china, the kind you can see your hand through, and I sling it to the cement floor,

the law will presume I intend the natural consequence of my act. I meant to break it. He shows up with a shotgun and blasts the door in? I think he meant to either rape or kill. Yeah, there's no question, Nancy. I mean, it's proven by fact he shot through the door that what his intentions are. And the family could rightfully presume that they meant that he meant to kill them. I just can't believe people are suggesting that this dad be prosecuted.

That is insane. Dr. Mindy Mechanic, how often do we see stalkers suddenly manifest their deepest, darkest thoughts through violent behavior? Yeah, so the upside of this is that we tend to hear in the media when there's been a case of serious or lethal violence. But I'll share with you the results of what's called a meta-analysis. And a meta-analysis is a study of studies. So these researchers compiled 25 different research articles or data sets looking at the risk of violence in the context of stalking. And they found 35% of the cases involved violence by stalkers

and almost 29% of the stalking victims of sustained injury. Another researcher looked at homicide and found that in the context of stalking, homicide rate is about 2%. You know, but the thing that's been going through my mind that we haven't really talked about is the notion of gender-based violence and that this is a form of gender-based violence and that these types of violence tend to be committed by men or boys against girls or women. And this sounds to me like an example of if I can't have you, nobody will.

And a boundary was set by Ava and her father. And this individual doesn't accept that a boundary was set and it made him rageful. And he decides that he's going to to engage in some sort of violence. We don't know towards whom or exactly what, but it sounds like he was very prepared and had taken steps to move from some fantasy or fixation to action and violence. Titania Jordan, CPO at BART Parental Controls. Way in, Titania. You know, what parents don't realize is that their biggest fears in their mind

are happening to their children outside the home. They're so worried about children getting kidnapped and worse, right? But our children now are being violated, abused, groomed within their bedrooms, within the walls of the same house that you're in, and you're their parent. And it is your job to make sure they're safe, not only in real life, but also in their digital lives, where they're spending upwards of eight hours a day online, connected to problematic content and problematic people. And what we are discussing today is the result of that happening online, where online dangers

become real life dangers. And seemingly this little girl did everything right. She tried to block him. She had her father contact him to ward him off. It didn't work. Take a listen to our cut A3, our friends at GMA. She's a 15-year-old social media sensation. Ava Majuri amassing a loyal following on TikTok. But now the Majuri family

opening up about the danger that came with their daughter's online fame after Ava's father shot and killed the man they say showed up to their front door with a gun last July. Someone came to kill me. I was in fear for my family's life and I had to do what I had to do to protect my family and I made sure of it. Ava says what started as a pandemic hobby when she was just 13 years old turned into a lucrative business. Her TikTok account garnering 1.2 million followers. This is such a dream for multiple kids. Everyone in our generation now wants clout or wants numbers behind their name.

And we realized that we were given the opportunity to do it freely without having to post provocative stuff. How do you follow his trail, Joe Scott Morgan? How do you build a forensic case and figure out how this happened? Well, you know, I think, you know, going back to this digital print that we were talking about, where he's tracking her through all of these social media platforms and, you know, going out and kind of spider webbing out to all of her friends. I think that that's one point along the way. But one interesting point along here that I kind of found, you know, that we would follow from an investigative standpoint leading up to this event was the fact that you're tracking this guy that's literally flying

down from the southeast, Nancy, I think from Maryland, if I'm not mistaken. That was a point of origin. So, you know, you begin to think about purchasing tickets and all of this sort of thing and the communications that would have to take place relative to that. And also keep in mind, this guy wouldn't have flown. He would not have flown with a weapon. So the next stop along the way is that he's rolled into, and I find it interesting that you mentioned Walmart.

He would have rolled into Walmart, perhaps, picked up a vest. Maybe he brought that with him. Hell, I don't know. But I do know this. He didn't bring a shotgun onto the plane. So he picked it up somewhere along the way, and there will be paperwork relative to that. You know, you can't just walk in and purchase a handgun. There's kind of a delayed moment. You know, they give a pause before you can purchase a handgun. You can walk in a lot of places and you can buy a shotgun and you can certainly buy ammunition and walk out of

the door with it. So we've got breadcrumbs here, Nancy. Well, that's one way of putting it. This is not the first time a stalking event has claimed life. It really all came to the forefront of the public consciousness. Do you remember the name Rebecca Schaefer? Take a listen to our friends at ABC News Cut 23. She was the fresh-faced girl next door who skyrocketed to fame on the hit show My Sister Sam in the 1980s. Life isn't this good. I must be dreaming. Rebecca Schaefer, the down-to-earth Hollywood star who answered her own fan mail. I'm a letter from... I went, wait a minute, you're answering them back? You can't do that. And she's, oh no, but I love it. They want to be friends. And I went, wait, they're not them back. You can't do that. And she's, oh, no, but I love it. They want to be friends.

And I went, wait, they're not your friends. One of those fans, Robert Bardo, a mentally ill young man from Arizona. Bardo grew obsessed, showing up at her studio, then becoming enraged when he saw Schaefer acting in a love scene. It was the stalking case that turned deadly and sparked new laws in the U.S. All those rageful feelings. How dare she? That gets converted into a plan of cold-blooded revenge. One day, 21-year-old Schaefer was expecting a knock at the door. The script for Godfather Part 3. Instead, it was Robert Bardo waiting at her door. And take a listen to Cut 26, Your Biggest Fan from ABC.

So Bardo shows up early in the morning. He rings the buzzer. She was expecting a script to be delivered. Rebecca is awaiting a copy of the script of Godfather Part Three in anticipation of her meeting later that day. The intercom in her building was broken. Instead of being able to talk to somebody over the intercom, she had to broken instead of being able to talk to

somebody over the intercom she had to come down and open the door Rebecca's was the kind of person who she wouldn't think twice about going out she didn't think there were people out there who would want to harm her and when she came down and opened the door it was robert john bardo to his surprise she answers the door he didn't think he was going to have that kind of access i mean he came here with a purpose but until you actually see this person who's been on this pedestal then it becomes very real. You see a freaky mix being starstruck and stalking, surprised to find out that she, quote, wasn't dressed glamorously. She was a regular person and he was talking to her. It was beyond anything he could have imagined. And then he murdered her.

He murdered her. How did he find her place? Through the DMV, Department of Motor Vehicles. Straight out to Dan Ellis, high profile lawyer joining us from that jurisdiction in Florida. How does that work? How did he find out Rebecca's address through the DMV? He hired a private investigator and they just asked and the DMV gave him that information. And one of the outcomes of this tragic case were laws put in place so that DMV can no longer share that information with individuals. So what's happening now amidst calls for the father to be prosecuted, which is completely

ridiculous. Take a listen to our cut A5 GMA. Rob Majuri says he grabbed his own gun and shot the intruder. According to the police report, the shooter was found unresponsive, wearing a vest containing multiple shotgun shells. Majorey says authorities have told him that he's protected by Florida's stand your ground law and he's not been charged with any crime. There was no second guessing. There was no time to rethink my actions. I reacted and I reacted perfectly as best as I could under the under the duress and the extreme condition that I was put under. Since the shooting, Ava's now homeschooled and still remains on social media, a decision her parents support. She worked really hard at getting the crowd that she has. As bad as this situation is with TikTok, it's actually a really great forum.

It was a very positive, healthy environment for her to be in, especially after what we just went through. And I asked Ava why she even wants to stay on social media despite everything that's happened. She says she loves this space, what she can do there, and she hopes to fund her college education with it one day. And bottom line, Ava says she doesn't want to let one bad person take away something she loves. We are on high alert to protect our children. Nancy Grace Crumstory signing off. Goodbye, friend. This is an iHeart Podcast.