TikTok star Ava Majury and her parents have defended selling her selfies to the stalker who tried to kill her and was shot dead by her father last July, and revealed she will stay on the site where she makes $1,700-a-video despite safety risks
Ava Majury, her retired cop father Rob and her mother Kimberly appeared on Good Morning America on Friday to share more details about the shooting at their home in Naples, Florida, last July, after telling their story first to The New York Times.
Last July, 18-year-old Eric Rohan Justin traveled from Ellicott City, Maryland, to Naples with a gun, intent on killing Ava. At 4.30am, he blasted open the front door of the family home.
He had been vying for her attention on TikTok for months, bought her phone number from her friends and had paid them for pictures of her that were not on the internet.
Ava also had direct contact with him and sold him two selfies for $300 which he paid her for via Venmo.
'After talking to both my parents, I thought it would be mutual if I got in contact with him directly. I said, "hey, can you stop going through my friends and stop contacting people for information about me just come straight to me and you can purchase it all from me."'
He then started asking for more explicit content, and that is when Rob - her father - became involved. Rob told Eric to remember that Ava was a minor, and to stop contacting her.
She blocked him but he continued sending her money - $159.18, then $100, and then $368.50. It's unclear how much time passed between then and Eric showing up at the family home.
Ava Majury, her retired cop father Rob and her mother Kimberly appeared on Good Morning America on Friday to share more details about the shooting at their home in Naples, Florida, last July, after telling their story first to The New York Times
Ava defended selling her selfies to her stalker. She sold him two photos of her face for a total of $300 after she told him to 'purchase directly' from her rather than going to her friends
When Eric showed up at the house in the middle of the night and shot open the door, Ava, her mother and her two brothers ran to a bedroom but her father Rob, a retired Jersey City police officer, grabbed his gun and went to the front of the home where he shot Justin. The teenager - who has never been pictured - died in the hospital.
Eric then started demanding more explicit content and Ava blocked him. Rob said that the stalker 'seemed apologetic' when he contacted him.
A friend of Ava's at school then revealed that Eric had contacted him and warned him that he planned to hurt her, but the family shrugged it off.
'I negated it and said, "the person we suspect is the author of any of these, he lives in Maryland he is young, probably doesn't have the means to act on any of these things,"" said Rob.
Robert Majury, Ava's father, is a retired Jersey City cop. He shot dead her stalker at their home in Naples on July 10 but won't be charged because of Florida's Stand Your Ground Law
Ava's father Rob shot the stalker dead after he blasted off the door to the home in Florida (pictured). The family no longer lives at the home
Kimberly, Ava's mother, said of the shooting: 'When that sound went off we knew what it was, boom. I actually thought my daughter was dead. He was just standing there, looking at us for a few minutes. I think he thought maybe for a second I was my daughter in the doorway.'
Eric had a shotgun and was wearing a vest that contained multiple rounds of ammunition. He was also carrying two phones, that contained hundreds of photos of Ava and some of her TikTok videos.
Rob ran for his own gun and shot the teenager dead outside the house before police arrived. He has never been charged, and says he has been told by police that he is protected under Florida's Stand Your Ground laws.
'There was no second guessing, there was no time to rethink my actions. I reacted. I acted as best as I could under the duress and stress I was put under,' he said.
Earlier in the interview he said angrily: 'Someone came to kill me. I had to do what I had to do to protect my family and I made sure of it.'
His wife Kimberly said he reacted 'perfectly'.
The family has moved home and Ava is now being homeschooled. She recently told her parents that she was being followed by another kid from school.
Despite her persistent fears, the family is allowing her to stay on TiKTok - where she can earn more than $1,700 for a single video.
Ava told the Times in her initial interview: 'I have three TikTok accounts, so I could have one brand come to me and be like, ‘Oh, I’ll do $1,000 for one video on your main account,’ and I’ll be like, ‘Oh great, I have two other accounts that are different types of people on there."'
'So altogether, I’m making $1,700 off just my name, because I opened up three accounts rather than just building off one.'
Ava Majury, 14, joined TikTok in 2020 when she was 13. She now has more than one million followers spread over three accounts that she runs
Ava is shown with her retired cop father, Rob, in one of her popular TikTok videos. Stalker Eric Justin showed up at the family's home in Naples, Florida, last July with a gun at 4.30am
The family has moved but still live in Florida. Ava is now homeschooled
The Majury family moved from New Jersey, where Robert was a cop in Jersey City, to Florida for a quieter life after he retired.
That is where Ava started her TikTok career and attracted Justin.
He commented on her pages under the username EricJustin111, bombarded her with messages and contacted her old friends in New Jersey.
They sold him photos of her that weren't online and also gave him her phone number. It's not clear how much he paid for her phone number.
Ava's parents then allowed her to directly sell selfies to him. She said they were innocent, showing only her smile which is what her TikTok account shows too.
When he started asking her for more explicit content, Robert contacted him and reminded him that Ava was a minor.
He asked him to stop contacting her and he became angry. He started texting friends of Ava's, threatening her.
On July 10, 2021, Justin showed up at the family's home at 4.30am and fired a shot through the front door.
Ava is shown as a child with her brothers and parents, Kimberly and Rob. They hid in their parents' bedroom while Rob killed her stalker last July
Ava learned that her old friends had sold her phone number to the stalker, along with photos of her that were not on the internet
Ava's parents allowed her to directly sell selfies to him. She said they were innocent, showing only her smile which is what her TikTok and Instagram accounts shows too
But when Eric Justin started asking Ava for more explicit content, her father contacted him and reminded him that Ava was a minor
The family has now moved but are still living in Florida and Ava continues to sell videos on TikTok to brands, and post videos of herself dancing and photos like the one pictured
Ava, her mother and her two brothers ran to the back of the house and Robert ran for his weapon.
Eric then retreated, his gun jammed, giving Robert time to get to the front of the house.
When he got there, Eric reappeared and he shot and killed him before police had arrived.
Justin's father, named by The Times as Justin Dominic, a software engineer who is divorced from Justin's mother, told the paper that his son chose to stay in America rather than move to India with him in 2015 after his parents divorced, and that he had no idea he was stalking Ava.
'He was a nice kid. I’m at a loss for words. I don’t know what went bad with him. He made a bad choice,' he said, adding that his son was a good student who did well in math at Mount Hebron High School in Ellicott City.
Police found two cell phones that belonged to him and contained hundreds of photographs of Ava and some of her TikTok videos.
It's unclear how he found her address. She says there is a boy at her school who was following her in December, and who had communicated with Eric Justin over text.
Ava is now being homeschooled.
Police at the time described it as a home invasion. They did not name any of the parties involved.
The teenager, shown in a recent Instagram image, says she can command over $1,500 from companies for her videos
Ava's family say they do not want her to stop TikToking now because every day is like 'Christmas Day' seeing how many views her videos get
Ava posts to her TikTok and Instagram accounts daily
The police report however says: 'The subject was most likely a stalker that resulted from her daughter’s extensive social media involvement.'
The Times reported that in August, months after the shooting, Ava received messages on Venmo from a different man who offered her $1,000 for her phone number.
The man, who called her 'baby girl,' was discovered by her parents to have the same name of a registered sex offender who was previously arrested for soliciting a 14-year-old girl, The Times reported.
It didn't end there.
The family told The Times that the boy who had communicated with Eric Justin and attended high school with Ava began following her around, and watching her every move. Another classmate sent her a video the boy had made of himself firing a gun at a shooting range.
Ava and her family have since moved and she is now homeschooled, but to be safe, her father's lawyer, James Scarmozzino filed a petition in Collier County Circuit Court seeking an injunction for protection against stalking. A hearing is set for Feb. 28, and Ava will testify.
The family is still living in Florida and Ava continues to sell videos on TikTok to brands, and post videos of herself dancing.
On the day of the shooting, Ava posted a TikTok where she lip-synced to a remix of the French Montana song Unforgettable.
'Goodnight. You are loved,' she captioned the image.
Her father said that it would have been too difficult to take her off the platform now, and that she shouldn't have to give it up.
'It’s like Christmas every day, because then you see it build. I think we just had to allow her to make a decision and sort of support her. I think it’s going to help her heal. It sounds corny, but I don’t know what else you would do it for.'
'Why should we allow them to stop her? Maybe she’s meant to bring awareness to all this,' her mother said.
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