An Albuquerque man was shot dead late last month after breaking into the house of a YouTube celebrity couple Megan Turney and Gavin Free. On January 26, one Christopher Giles drove eleven hours from New Mexico to Austin, Texas, in order to break into the couple’s house around 3:40 a.m. The intruder was armed and presumed to have broken into the house with the intention of killing Mr. Free and possibly Ms. Turney. He “developed a fondness of Turney yet resented Free,” one detective wrote in an affidavit describing the case. The couple hid and called 911 after being woken up by the sound of breaking glass, with local police first reporting they shot Giles on the driveway of the couple’s house after hearing a gunshot from his car and returning fire. The initial coroner examination suggested the perpetrator shot himself after encountering the police and succumbed to his wounds shortly after.
Following a search of the dead man’s Albuquerque home, authorities believe Giles planned at least one homicide and was mentally “disturbed.” Giles wasn’t able to find the couple in hiding after searching the house and is understood to have fired at least one shot inside their home for unknown reasons. He was pronounced dead on the scene in his Lincoln sedan, with a .45 caliber handgun being found near his hand. The entire episode reportedly played out in approximately ten minutes. The investigation into the matter is still ongoing and Giles’s possible suicide hasn’t been confirmed. The couple wasn’t physically harmed during the ordeal, local police verified. Based on the home security footage of the break-in, the authorities in charge of the case concluded Giles’s only intent was “to cause harm” to one or more residents, Albuquerque Journal reports. The perpetrator’s dislike of Mr. Free was documented on his smartphone, based on what are said to be numerous comments and “thousands” of notes.
Ms. Turney mostly posts YouTube vlogs that talk about her life and deal with relationship advice and anime, whereas Mr. Free hosts a slow-motion video series on the same platform. The couple attracts millions of viewers every month and deals in relatively mild topics detached from the controversies that have recently been engulfing YouTube due to the questionable content some of its stars have been publishing.