Rylee Goodrich, 18, was shot dead while watching The Forever Purge with friend Anthony Barajas, 19, in California. Photo / Instagram
Rylee Goodrich, 18, was shot dead while watching The Forever Purge with friend Anthony Barajas, 19, in California. Photo / Instagram
A teenager was killed and her TikTok star friend was critically injured while watching the newest instalment of The Purge in a California movie theatre Monday night, police said.
The New York Post reports that Rylee Goodrich, 18, was found dead and Anthony Barajas, 19, was gravely wounded during a 9.30pm screening of The Forever Purge, a horror movie about a dystopian America where murder is legal once a year for 12 hours, according to the Corona Police Department.
Only six tickets were sold to the movie.
It is unclear if the other four people who attended the screening realised what had happened, or if those moviegoers were involved in the shooting.
Staff at the Regal Edwards Corona Crossings movie theatre discovered both victims while cleaning up after the movie ended.
Anthony Barajas, 19, has been gravely wounded after being shot while watching The Forever Purge at a cinema. Photo / Supplied
"During the actual movie time, no one apparently heard the gunshot," employee Kailyn Dillon told KCAL. "I know that we do have security bag checks that we do on the daily and, unfortunately, I'm not sure if it just was missed or if it was in a holster on their belt."
Goodrich was pronounced dead on the scene from a gunshot to the back of the head, with Barajas rushed to a nearby hospital for treatment.
Investigators are trying to figure out if a random shooter escaped the theatre, or if the man or woman was responsible for the gunfire in a murder-suicide.
"They're still going through the theatre and looking for evidence that would send us in one direction or another," Corona police Cpl. Tobias Kouroubacalis told the paper. "We're working in the blind."
Goodrich's cousin, Ashley Cole, told CBS that the family is having trouble believing that the shooting was a random attack.
"When there's only six people in a movie theatre, to me, that's not what I imagine someone that's not going with intentions to kill someone to do," he said.
Police did not recover a firearm at the scene.
"Detectives are conducting follow-up on all investigative leads with hopes of identifying the person(s) responsible for this heinous crime," police said.
The Forever Purge tells the story of Mexican migrants targeted by vigilantes during an annual US government 'purge', during which all crime is legal for 12 hours.
The shooting came just one week after the ninth anniversary of the 2012 shooting at the Century 16 movie theatre in Aurora, Colorado during a screening of The Dark Knight Rises.
Aurora movie theatre shooter James Holmes. Photo / Twitter
During that shooting, James Holmes set off tear gas grenades and shot into the crowd of hundreds – killing 12 people and injuring 70 others.
