In 2017, Pedro Ruiz, 22, convinced his girlfriend, 19-year-old Monalisa Pérez, to take part in a dangerous YouTube challenge: shoot him in the chest while he held a hardback encyclopedia, convinced its pages would stop the bullet.
On June 26, in front of two cameras and from just 30 centimeters away, Monalisa loaded a Desert Eagle pistol and fired. The bullet pierced the 3,8 cm-thick book and fatally struck Pedro. His 3-year-old daughter and about 30 people witnessed the scene.
Hours earlier, Monalisa had announced on Twitter that they would film “one of the most dangerous videos of all time”, clarifying that the idea had been Pedro’s.
After pleading guilty to second-degree manslaughter, she was sentenced to 180 days, 90 of which were spent in prison and 90 under house arrest, as well as 10 years of supervised release.
