In this crazy world we're living in, vlogging has become one of the most profitable and commercial business around. It seems like everyone under the age of 25 has a vlog and, while the majority of them prove to be unsuccessful and are rendered pointless, some of them do take off. Although, to people of a certain age, vlogging may seem like a strange new phenomenon, it's important to remember that is exactly what it is: a phenomenon.
Unsurprisingly, given the growing number of people creating vlogs, vloggers are now looking for new and exciting ways to get their channels noticed. Whether it's Logan Paul going into a "Japanese Suicide Forest" to film a dead body, or two YouTubers going head-to-head in a sold-out boxing match, Vlogging is a big deal.
However, these quests for original and exciting content can have devastating consequences - something which Monalisa Perez found out. Perez, 20, from Halstad Minnesota, accidentally shot her boyfriend dead while filming a stunt for her YouTube channel. The girl fired a gun into an encyclopedia that Pedro Ruiz III was holding to his chest from just a foot away.
Instead of the bullet just lodging into the encyclopedia as they had originally planned, it passed through and killed 22-year-old Ruiz in front of their three-year-old child and 30 onlookers who had visited their Halstad home.
Perez pled guilty to second-degree manslaughter last December and had she been convicted at trial, she would've been facing up to 10 years in prison.
But, yesterday, a Minnesota judge sentenced Perez to 180 days in prison and 10 years of supervised probation, as was agreed per the terms of her plea agreement.
In a bizarre twist, Perez has been told that she can serve the sentenced over multiple 10-day increments over a period of three years. She has also been banned from owning a firearm for the rest of her life.
It's not the first stunt that the pair has played, with there being videos on her channel of her jumping out of trees and Perez serving Ruiz a doughnut covered in baby powder. Just hours before the fatal prank, Perez tweeted that they were set to film "one of the most dangerous videos ever," saying it was Ruiz's ideas and not hers.
According to Perez, Ruiz had convinced her to do the stunt by showing her other books that he had shot where the bullet hadn't passed through. And, despite her calling the emergency services as soon as she realised that the prank had gone wrong, the young father was sadly pronounced dead at the scene.
At the time of the shooting, Perez was pregnant with their second child.
While the circumstances of the death were largely avoidable, it's a tragedy to hear of someone dying at such a young age - especially as they leave two children behind. Not that you need me to tell you this, but don't mess about with guns.
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