Internet Famous: How a Young Couple's Quest for Fame Turned Deadly
A young couple wanted to be famous on YouTube. They aspired to have 300,000 followers and millions of views. What kind of stunt could they do to get that much attention? So the young man, Pedro Ruiz III, got an idea. He would have his girlfriend, Monalisa Perez, fire a gun at an encyclopedia he held to his chest, convinced the bullet wouldn't go through. The gun Perez used would be a Desert Eagle .50 caliber pistol -- comparable to a .44 Magnum and can hit with the force of a .308 Winchester rifle. But Ruiz thought he was safe. He had tested the stunt on a stack of encyclopedias and it didn't even go through the first one. Perez was of course reluctant to participate, but her boyfriend talked her into it. She posted on Twitter that they were "probably going to shoot one of the most dangerous videos ever." Ruiz thought this was the ticket to becoming internet famous and he would be throwing parties. The couple resided in rural Minnesota, Perez a stay-at-home...