Pedro Ruiz, 22, was shot and killed by his 19-year-old girlfriend Monalisa Perez in what the family is calling a YouTube stunt gone horribly wrong. The couple posted prank videos, like eating a donut topped with baby powder, in the past, but in an attempt to get famous, Ruiz wanted to take it to the next level by having Perez shoot a .50 caliber Desert Eagle pistol at a book he was holding to his chest.
"He had told me about an idea. I said, don't do it, don't do it. Why are you going to use a gun? Why? Because, we want more viewers," Ruiz's aunt Claudia said, perValley News Live. "I don't know why they thought the book was supposed to stop the bullet." Before going through with the stunt, Perez claims Ruiz showed her another book that he had shot where the bullet didn't go all the way through. Monalisa teased the attempt in a tweet, calling it "HIS idea not MINE."
At around 6:30 p.m. on Monday, authorities were called in reponse to a shooting outside a home in Halstad, Minnesota. Ruiz was pronounced dead at the scene. Perez, who is seven months pregnant, has been charged with charged with second-degree manslaughter and could face 10 years in prison, a $20,000 fine, or both. The couple also has a three-year-old daughter named Aaliyah.
According to Claudia, the plan is to name the unborn child after his father. “The fact that she has got to live with this for the rest of her life, that alone, is a charge to me,” she said.
