Popular YouTube Couple Is Targeted By A Crazy Fan Who Tried To Kill Them In Their Home
Daily Dot- A man drove 700 miles from New Mexico to Texas late last month to try to harm YouTube star Gavin Free, because he was infatuated with the YouTuber’s girlfriend and because he was resentful of his success, police said.
According to Austin detectives, Christopher Giles had “developed a fondness” for Meg Turney, a YouTuber who’s also Free’s girlfriend. Giles broke into their Austin home with a gun at 3:40am CT on the morning of Jan. 26, and Free and Turney hid in the bedroom closet and dialed 911.
Police said Giles shot inside the house, even though he never found the couple.
As Giles returned to his car, he was confronted by police officers, who arrived only four minutes after the 911 call had been placed. A shot was fired from inside Giles’ car, and one officer returned fire. A few minutes later, Giles was found dead.
Free is the co-owner of the Slow Mo Guys YouTube channel (10.2 million subscribers), and he’s worked with Rooster Teeth as an actor and director. Turney, also formerly associated with Rooster Teeth, has nearly 340,000 YouTube subscribers where she cosplays, vlogs about her travels, and occasionally appears with Free.
10.2 million subscribers. That’s like the population of Canada. No wonder this dude wanted to kill him. Sometimes I’ll say man, I would kill to have 10 million followers. But I don’t think about who I would kill. It’s a general acknowledgement that if the lord of social media handed me a gun and told me to shoot some random Japanese dude on the street in exchange for 10 million instagram followers, I’d take a quick look around, pull the trigger, and watch my phone explode.
How did he get all these followers? Did he develop a brilliant sketch comedy series, with new episodes each week that are eagerly anticipated by an army of loyal fans? Did he spend weeks trying to make trick shots out of airplanes like those Dude Perfect guys? Did he learn to cook? No. He filmed stuff… in slow motion. That’s the whole concept. Slow motion. Jesus Christ, should I give up? I feel like I’m discovering the polio vaccine with my content compared to this guy, and yet he’s captured the attention of the entire world. I keep trying to make the leap but it won’t happen. FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, LET ME GO VIRAL!
Anyway, glad to hear that he and his girlfriend are safe. Break-ins are scary. I know from experience. And that’s about the only thing we have in common.
PS- I watched a couple of these slow motion videos are they’re pretty awesome. What a great idea. I’m not going to post the link to his channel out of pettiness, but he’s doing good work. Keep it up man.