381: The Case That Broke the Internet: Inside the Viral Murder of Bianca Devins

Seventeen-year-old Bianca Devins was supposed to be having the night of her life, attending her first concert, experiencing a new sense of independence, and stepping into everything her future could hold. But by morning, she never made it home, and instead, a horrifying image posted online sent shockwaves across the country. What began as a fun night in New York City quickly turned into something far darker, revealing a chilling obsession and a brutal act of violence.... If you’re new here, don’t forget to follow the show for weekly deep dives into the darkest true crime cases! To watch the video version of this episode, head over to youtube.com/@annieelise. .🔎Join Our True Crime Club & Get Exclusive Content & Perks..🎧 Need More to Binge? Listen to both of my weekly true crime series 10 to Life & Serialously with Annie Elise wherever you get your podcasts on the Annie Elise Channel!🍎 Apple Podcasts | Where you can also unlock access to 100+ and growing extra exclusive deep dives.💚 Spotify🔴 YouTube🎙️ All Other Platforms.📸 Follow Annie on Socials Instagram: @_annieeliseTikTok: @_annieeliseSubstack: @annieeliseFacebook: @10toLife.👗 Shop Annie’s Must-Haves! ShopMY: bit.ly/AnnieElise_ShopMy Amazon: bit.ly/AnnieElise_Amazon.🫵🏻 Get Involved or Recommend a CaseAbout Annie: www.annieelise.comFor Business Inquiries: [email protected].📚 Episode Sources ABC News | BBC News | CNN | Dark Case Documentaries | 48 Hours | Full Mind Learning | HuffPost | Law & Crime | New York Post | Rolling Stone | Spectrum News | Syracuse.com | The Independent | Wikipedia | WKTV••••••••••••••••••🚨Disclaimers1️⃣ Some links may be affiliate links, they do not cost you anything, but I make a small percentage from the sale. Thank you so much for watching and supporting me. 2️⃣ Sources used to collect this information include various public news sites, interviews, court documents, FB groups dedicated to the case, and various news channel segments. When quoting statements made by others, they are strictly alleged until confirmed otherwise. Please remember my videos are my independent opinion and to always do your own research. 3️⃣ The views and opinions expressed in this video are personal and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of any other agency, organization, employer, or company. Assumptions made in the analysis are not reflective of the position of any entity other than the creator(s). These views are subject to change, revision, and rethinking at any time and are not to be held in perpetuity. We make no representations as to the accuracy, completeness, correctness, suitability, or validity of any information on this video and will not be liable for any errors, omissions, or delays in this information or any losses, injuries, or damages arising from its display or use. All information is provided on an as-is basis. It is the reader’s responsibility to verify their own facts.

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• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 1:16Speaker 03

  I woke up, picked up my phone, and noticed that my group chat was buzzing about something. And I looked at it, and it was a photo of my friend. And it looked like she was dead. Damped up my stairs, saying, "It's not her. It can't be. It's not her. It's not my baby."

• 1:31Speaker 04

  People didn't know if it was real or not.

• 1:33Speaker 05

  I think, I just can't believe that something like that would happen over here.

• 1:41Annie Elise?

  Hey, true crime besties. Welcome back to an all-new episode of Serial Inslee.

• 2:04Annie Elise?

  Hello, hello, hello, and welcome back to an all new episode of Seriallessly. With me, your host, Annie E. Lys, your true crime bestie, here to break down another true crime case for you today. And I want to just warn you, first of all, today's case happened relatively recently, and it's one of those cases where you're kind of like, what the heck is wrong with like, the youth in America these days? Honestly, I swear to God, I don't know what it is, but I feel like more and more, we are hearing about the younger generations getting infatuated and obsessive with blood, gore, murder, going

• 2:44Annie Elise?

  viral, getting attention for their crimes, so much so that it drives them to literally murder. I just don't understand it. And look, I know that social media is not healthy for any of us, but I really do think there's something to, what, where is it, Australia, I believe, who like banned social media until people are 16 years old, I think it is? It's like, there's something to it, because these kids, if their full frontal lobe isn't even like fully developed yet, and they can't entirely discern from, not right from wrong, because I believe they can, but like, the importance of going viral, isn't worth murdering somebody over, it's like, then maybe, social media is too big of a weapon and a tool in your hands to where you shouldn't be using it. You shouldn't be using it if you think

• 3:29Annie Elise?

  that that trumps somebody's life, honestly. And it's one of these cases, guys, it just kind of pisses me off, honestly, and you'll understand why as we go through, because it's just infuriating, the level of entitlement, the level of just pure selfishness.

• 3:48Annie Elise?

  And it's, oh God, I don't even have the word for it. It's like, oh, makes me want to vomit. So like I said, this happened relatively recently, 2019, to be specific, and it was July 2019. And it was a month that was full of very new and very exciting things for a young woman named Bianca Devins. She was just 17 years old and she had recently graduated from high school and was enjoying her last summer before going off to college. Now, she wasn't a huge partier. She was actively planning her future. She was looking forward to starting school in the fall. She was enjoying those last few weeks of summer before, you know, catapulting into adulthood.

• 4:29Annie Elise?

  And on July 13th specifically, Bianca was beyond excited to attend a concert of one of her favorite songwriters, singers, artists, named Nicole Dollenganger. Now, if you haven't heard of her, don't worry, you're not alone. I hadn't either. Through my research, I realized that she's a Canadian singer and songwriter and has a pretty big following, I will say. So this was a big deal for Bianca. And according to her mother, Kim, this was Bianca's very first, you know, adult type concert where she wasn't going with parental supervision. She was going to be on her own. She was going to be returning late night. It was a pretty big milestone. Now, the concert itself was being held in a pretty small venue, about 250 people

• 5:12Annie Elise?

  in this venue that was, you know, very eclectic, very, you know, tight knit on the border of Queens and Brooklyn in New York City. So it was definitely going to be more of this like low key kind of vibe rather than a big stadium concert. But nevertheless, extremely exciting for Bianca. And what made it even more exciting for her was that the concert was going to be in the city, which was a very big difference from her normal everyday life in Utica, New York. So as I said, the plan was that Bianca was going to go to this concert. She'd return home relatively late, maybe even into the early morning hours. And she would have had just this amazing time watching her favorite artist. However, that's not what happened in the early morning hours of July 14th, 2019.

• 5:58Annie Elise?

  Because Bianca never came home that night. In fact, the only trace of her was a post to her Discord server at 6:03 a.m. Now, for those who are unfamiliar with Discord, don't worry. If you're like me or even older than me, you're probably like, what the heck is Discord? I could totally be wrong, but from what I know about Discord, from the very few times that I've used it, it's an app on your phone that kind of acts almost like a chat room. Think back to the AOL days, if you will. And you can have all of these different chat threads. You can live stream on there. You can play video games, I believe, and live stream with people. And it's basically just like, not a message board type app, but another form of social media, but on a different server.

• 6:42Annie Elise?

  So a lot of the young kids are on Discord, but I also will say this, I have covered a lot of cases with Discord at the center of it. So if your children are on it, even if you don't know that they're on it, maybe do a quick check on their phone and then monitor what they're doing on Discord, because a lot of nefarious shit goes down over there. So anyway, there wasn't any trace of her, but there was a post on her Discord at 6:03 a.m. And this post, it wasn't her at the concert, it wasn't her walking in, it wasn't her vibing out, it wasn't photos of the merch or the outfit that she was wearing that night. But the reality of it is this photo was so much worse. Now, this post had a single photo attached to it, and the person in this photo was undoubtedly Bianca.

• 7:26Annie Elise?

  In it, she had on a black tank top, her dark hair, her usual winged out eyeliner, except it was clear that Bianca hadn't taken these photos of her herself. This wasn't a selfie, which, okay, not the worst thing. Maybe somebody took this photo of Bianca, maybe she met up with somebody there, maybe had a friend there. But here's where it does become very evil. Bianca had blood splattered all over her face. She also had a very big gash across her throat. Additionally to that, her eyes were open, they were glazed over, and it was very clear in this photo Bianca was no longer alive. The look in her eyes was something that her friends on Discord said that they will never be

• 8:08Annie Elise?

  Able to get out of their minds. That image is just etched into their memory. And then attached to this photo in the actual post that went out on Discord, it was a really weird cryptic caption that read, "Sorry fuckers, you're gonna have to find somebody else to orbit." Which let me just say that again, because again, there is a crypticness to it, which I'm gonna get to in a little bit. But it said, "Sorry fuckers, you're gonna have to find somebody else to orbit." Now, just hours before this post and photo went up, Bianca was supposed to be having the time of her life, at her first adult concert, again, on the cusp of going into college, just having fun. Yet, what should have been a very fun night out for her, ended in her death.

• 8:52Annie Elise?

  Now, before the investigation even started, Bianca's death went completely viral online. Because these horrific photos of her death, they were already circulating on social media and in different chat forums. They were just getting flooded everywhere, people sharing them, passing them, posting them. It was awful. And what's so, so interesting about these photos, the photos that people were sharing, is that everybody in the Discord said that they looked very real. That the way her eyes looked was something that you just couldn't fake. This wasn't staged, this wasn't pretend. Yet, everyone who saw these photos, believing that they were real, also had like, a moment of where they wanted to be in denial and not believe that it was real.

• 9:34Annie Elise?

  It was almost like their brains were trying to protect themselves from what they knew was true. And in the meantime, everybody was sharing them. And so it just kept gaining more and more traction. Now Bianca's close friends, their first reactions were to question these photos. I mean, could this have been some type of gory cosplay moment? Could this be special effects makeup? Had it been edited after the fact to add this blood to what was actually a normal photo? And these are just photoshopped layers on top of it. One of Bianca's online friends even explained that when it came to Discord, a lot of the people on there weren't exactly people who had these like booming social lives. They turned to online communities to make friends, to impress each other, to one-up each other, and to express themselves.

• 10:18Annie Elise?

  In ways that they felt like they couldn't in real life. So could this have just been very dramatic cosplay? They even added that it wasn't very uncommon for people to fake their death online just in exchange for some sort of attention and validation. But most of the time, the fake deaths were all just rumors that were spread. People, you know, word of mouth, things like that. None of those rumors ever were containing photos or photos this graphic and realistic. Now, some of Bianca's friends on the chat even had claimed to reverse image search the photo online, which if you're not familiar with what that is, basically you can easily check to see if a picture had been taken from somewhere else. If it was originally posted elsewhere or sourced elsewhere.

• 11:02Annie Elise?

  For example, let's say today I posted this like beautiful picture of this Hawaiian beach. And I'm like, oh, on vacation, living the life. And then somebody reverse image searches and they're like, uh, actually this is from a brochure for a sandals resort. Annie, why are you pretending you're on vacation when really you're just ripping this from the sandals website? It's something that people, it's a way to just trace back an original photo. Sometimes I actually will use it when I'm looking for clothing that I see somebody wear on TV. I'll take a picture of the person who's on the TV or on the movie. And then I search that, I reverse image search that. And like the article of clothing will come up on whatever website it's being sold on. Just little pro tip for anybody out there. So anyway, basically Bianca's friends were fully convincing themselves

• 11:47Annie Elise?

  that this was just some picture from Google and that it was just edited with Bianca's face on it. They did not believe that this was reality. They didn't want to believe that it was Bianca. But the truth was this Discord server was full of people who had been chatting back and forth for months and months with one another. Bianca wasn't a total stranger to them. She was a friend. So a lot of her friends had already known that she went to the concert that night. Or I mean, technically, I guess the night before at this point. And that's when the gears in their heads really started to turn. Because could something have happened to her at the concert? Maybe even after the concert? Needless to say, they started getting very concerned. And I think that that's when they truly began letting themselves believe. That these photos could be real after all. So, within an hour of these pictures being posted,

• 12:33Annie Elise?

  the Utica Police Department was being flooded with phone calls reporting the very same incident. These calls were, at this point, coming in from all over the country, but they were all reporting the exact same thing, that their online friend, Bianca Devins, might be in trouble. Even worse, she might be dead.

• 12:50Speaker 07

  Utica Police.

• 12:51Speaker 05

  Uh, good morning. I, uh, believe someone may have been murdered.

• 12:56Speaker 07

  Okay, where?

• 12:57Speaker 05

  Okay, so, uh, I'm on an online group, and somebody posted a picture of, uh, uh, someone getting murdered, and I believe it to be a, uh, Miss Bianca Michelle Devins.

• 13:07Annie Elise?

  Now, at the same time that all of these phone calls were coming in, you know, people saying that they were concerned about Bianca's safety, her family had no idea. They had no clue what was unfolding online. As far as they were concerned, Bianca was just out. She went to this concert. She hadn't returned yet. It was a late night, and I don't know exactly what time she was expected home that night, but I would imagine that they probably just assumed that she was out enjoying herself, enjoying her freedom, that she would maybe walk through the door a little bit later than planned, but certainly, I don't think that their mind would ever wander to a place like this. So, when the doorbell did finally ring at the house, no one inside could have imagined the nightmare that was waiting for them on the other side. You see, when the police had heard

• 13:50Annie Elise?

  from multiple different people about a potential homicide, they knew that they needed to go and perform a welfare check on Bianca. They needed to make sure that she was safe, that this could, was just all fake. It was cosplay. It was a Photoshop trick gone bad. And that's how they ended up at her mother, Kim's, front door. Now, Bianca's younger sister, Olivia, was actually the one who answered the door. And, as you can imagine, a young girl opening the door and seeing the police asking for her mom or her sister, that's probably a very frightening moment. And the police didn't tell Kim about the photo right away. All they told her was that Bianca could potentially be in danger, and they wanted Kim to try and get ahold of her daughter as fast as possible. Which, I don't know if that's the right way to go about it, or...

• 14:35Annie Elise?

  You know, an irresponsible way to go about it. But I know for me, speaking, my personal take, if the police arrived at my front door and they were asking me about my daughter, saying, "We think she's in trouble. We can't tell you anymore. Just try to get a hold of her." I think that the suspense and the panic and the fear would consume me so much that I would feel paralyzed. And so I know that they didn't want to freak her out by showing her the photo yet because maybe it was all just a prank or whatever. But I just really feel for her mom in those moments. I can't imagine what that felt like. So Kim tried calling Bianca, and I'm sure that she was hoping and praying that Bianca would answer the phone, that she would hear her voice so she could explain to the police, "My daughter's fine. She's on the other end of the line. She's on her way home from the concert. This is all just one big misunderstanding."

• 15:19Annie Elise?

  But Bianca didn't answer her phone. She also didn't answer any of Kim's text messages either. Now, of course, you can put yourself in Kim's shoes, right? I mean, she was confused, she was terrified. But what the police didn't know was that Kim had even more reason to be worried. You see, Bianca is somebody who had struggled quite a bit in just her short 17 years. Even though she was only 17, she had been through a lot with her mental health. Kim explained that Bianca first started displaying mental health problems as early as nine years old. She had very bad separation anxiety whenever she was away from Kim, and she just was having difficulty expressing herself.

• 16:00Annie Elise?

  Now, this was around the time that Kim separated for the first time from Bianca's dad, Mike. And it was one of those situations where a separation truly was the best option. I mean, Kim says that Mike was emotionally abusive toward her, and she even filed many reports to the Utica Police Department regarding Mike and domestic violence. So as you can imagine, that chaos ended up rubbing off on Bianca. Kim did say that Mike was actually a good dad whenever he was around Bianca, but that he was a terrible dad whenever he wasn't. Basically, he just stopped being present in her life after the separation. So because of that, Bianca felt extremely betrayed and very abandoned. She didn't want to go to school. She didn't want to play at her friends' houses anymore.

• 16:44Annie Elise?

  She didn't even want Kim to go to work without her. So Kim ended up getting her into therapy, someone she could talk to, someone she could, you know, speak freely with and openly with about these things. And for a while, it really did help. They got to a place where Bianca wasn't as anxious to be away from Kim, where it seemed like she was building some social relationships and becoming a bit more independent. And Kim said that over the next few years, Bianca really came out of her shell. She became more outgoing, more social, even popular. So it seemed like the therapy had truly been a turning point for her. However, by middle school, it was like a flip switched. She began having more issues.

• 17:26Annie Elise?

  She went from extroverted to just extremely incredibly shy. She went from popular to not wanting to talk or hang out with anyone. So to Kim, it seemed very sudden and she just didn't understand it. How did she regress so rapidly, just, you know, at the flip of a switch? On top of all of that, Bianca lost interest in everything. She had no motivation, no drive. It was like she just became a shell of herself. And some parents might think that it was just part of being a teenager. But to Kim and Bianca's family, they knew that it was something different and they caught on and they intervened very quickly. Now unfortunately, Bianca's therapy journey during her teenage years, it wasn't as successful as it had been before while she was younger.

• 18:10Annie Elise?

  Kim took her to therapist after therapist, but she just said that none of them were able to help her. Now that could mean a lot of different things, right? I'm not sure if they meant that they just couldn't get her with a solid diagnosis, or if maybe they had been trying different medications and they didn't react well with her, or maybe if she just wasn't meshing well with her other therapists. I'm not entirely sure. But in the ninth grade, Bianca ended up transferring from the private school that she attended to a public school. And that transition was rough. It wasn't something that Kim had wanted to do, but she just couldn't afford the tuition at the private school anymore. Now throughout her high school years, Bianca was able to make some friends and the few that she had all spoke pretty highly of her. They said that she was very

• 18:54Annie Elise?

  Friendly and supportive. She even got a boyfriend and he really cared about her. But the reality of it was, is that Bianca was still struggling. She was still incredibly shy and anxious. She didn't like going to school. She didn't like going out for any type of social interactions. And her friends and even her boyfriend at the time said that she would be okay one day. But then the next, she would just be completely isolated. Cut contact with them, ghost them, ghost school for weeks on end. So in 2017, Kim enrolled Bianca in what was called a homebound tutoring program. Now, from my understanding, it was essentially a program that allows a student to work from home for a certain amount of time due to physical or mental health issues.

• 19:38Annie Elise?

  So it was supposed to be something positive, something to hopefully get Bianca back on the right track. But unfortunately, she just kept regressing. And at this point, she also got into a different relationship with a new guy who was just completely bad news. They met online when she was 15 years old and he was 18 years old. And apparently, this guy who will remain unnamed, he lived on Long Island, so about four and a half hours away from Utica, give or take. And this relationship was apparently very, very toxic. They were constantly breaking up, together one week, separated the next. But then Bianca started running away from home. And where did she run away to? This guy's house.

• 20:27Annie Elise?

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• 21:12Annie Elise?

  And when I tell you, not only was it the best decision of my life, I now have like service in places my husband doesn't even have service. But it was so easy. It took me 15 minutes, kept my phone, kept my phone number. It was the best. So for a new wireless plan, starting at 15 bucks a month, go to mintmobile.com/ae. That's mintmobile.com/ae. $45 upfront payment required, equivalent to $15 per month. New customers on first three-month plan only. Taxes and fees extra. See Mint Mobile for details.

• 21:49Annie Elise?

  Kim has stated that from August 2017 to June 2018, she had to file three different missing person reports on Bianca. And one of the times that she had run away, after the police had gotten involved, Bianca even tried to jump in front of a moving car as an attempt to take her own life. In the aftermath of that, she ended up being sent to a mental health facility. But she was only there for five days. And, look, just being honest, what good can five days do? Especially when you compare that with years of struggling with mental health issues. By 2018, Bianca was diagnosed with borderline personality disorder and PTSD.

• 22:29Annie Elise?

  And it was kind of a catch 22 because at this point, it did feel like she and her family finally did have some answers. However, we know that a diagnosis is not a cure, so it didn't suddenly make everything easier. Bianca was still expressing some really concerning thoughts to her therapist as well. She even told one of them that she had fantasized about going to a parking garage and jumping off the roof. On top of that, she continued running away. Kim was defeated. She just felt like she was at a total loss. And it's not that she didn't love and care about Bianca, of course she did. But she also had other children and a job. So it was incredibly difficult for her to keep an eye on Bianca while also taking care of everything else on her plate. So because of that, she put Bianca on something called

• 23:14Annie Elise?

  Persons in need of supervision hold. And essentially, it's a judge signing off that a specific individual needs to wear an ankle monitor and be put on house arrest. And I know that that might be a very controversial topic because it essentially is tracking your child, caging your child in a way. We typically also associate house arrest and ankle monitors with people who are actual criminals and have done something wrong legally. But Bianca wasn't a criminal. She was just a very troubled young girl. However, it had come to a point where this felt like it was the best option for her and her family, so that they could track her movements, make sure that she didn't continue to run away. Not to mention, it was a way to make sure that she stayed safe and out of harms way.

• 23:57Annie Elise?

  But even the ankle monitor and that house arrest? It didn't last long. Bianca actually cut off the monitor and ran away again. She was found safe and okay, but by cutting off the ankle monitor, she had violated the judge's order. So it wasn't just disobeying her mom, Kim, anymore. There now actually was going to be legal ramifications involved. By October 2018, Bianca was placed in a residential placement facility, and this actually ended up being really good for her. She got a new therapist, one that she really liked with, somebody that she meshed well with, and she was doing a very specific kind of therapy called cognitive behavioral therapy. She was working on some of those darker thoughts that she had been having about taking her own life.

• 24:41Annie Elise?

  And it was also helping with the self-destructive and impulsive behaviors that her borderline personality disorder had been causing for quite some time. So it was almost like a miracle for Bianca and her health. She ended up getting out of the facility in February of 2019, and from there, she seemed to only be doing better. Now, I know that that was a lot of backstory and a lot of buildup to where Bianca is today, but I promise, all of this is for a very specific reason. I mean, really, for two big reasons. The first being that Bianca's mental health is a huge part of her story, and it's important that you have all of that context. I mean, you can't get into what happened to Bianca without knowing what led her to that day in July that we're talking about now.

• 25:25Annie Elise?

  Because it's why Kim was even more worried about Bianca that day when the police arrived at the door and said that they were concerned for her daughter's safety. She had no idea if maybe Bianca had been in a really bad car wreck, or if maybe she had harmed herself after all. I mean, either one of them would have been believable. Now, Kim had thought that Bianca was doing better. She thought that everything that they had gone through together was in the past. But when the police arrived at her doorstep that day, she genuinely wasn't so sure. She started second guessing herself. And the second reason that Bianca's history is so important, to have the full context of everything, is because Bianca's mental health journey is also how she got involved in that Discord chat. The same chat where that graphic picture of her was ultimately

• 26:08Annie Elise?

  posted. She didn't have a whole lot of social interactions in the real world because of those mental health struggles. She was very, very shy, so making friends online, it was just way less scary and, you know, less difficult to overcome. And she had pretty much always been on social media. She had multiple different accounts, too. Some of these accounts also had a pretty significant following. One of her accounts on Instagram had about 160,000 followers. So, I mean, we're talking pretty significant numbers. And I also saw that there was some back and forth about her social media following. Some sources say that her being, quote, "social media famous" was a myth, that she only had around 2,000 followers, which I will say was true for one of her accounts. But like I said, she had multiple

• 26:53Annie Elise?

  accounts. Between her Instagram following and her presence on Discord, Bianca talked to a lot of different people online. And like I said earlier, a lot of them were people who became good friends to her, even ones who she hadn't met in person. However, some people she had met in person. In fact, one of the friends that she had met online was actually with her at the concert the night before. Kim, her mom, had explained to the police that Bianca hadn't gone to New York City on her own that night. She was accompanied by a friend of hers named Brandon Clark. Now Brandon was a few years older than Bianca. He was 21, she was 17, which that in and of itself can be pretty problematic.

• 27:35Annie Elise?

  Although for the most part, Brandon's age isn't really a main point of discussion in this case. Still, we can all have our own thoughts on it and, you know, have that in the back of our minds. But like I said, Brandon and Bianca had met online and they very quickly learned that they actually lived pretty close to one another. Bianca was in Utica and Brandon was in Syracuse, so only about an hour away from each other. So being that they were so close geographically, they decided to meet up in person one day. Understandably, because of everything that Bianca had been through, Kim also wanted to meet Brandon. She wanted to see who this guy was. Because even though Bianca had seemed to be doing better, the truth was she had just recently gotten out of that residential facility in February.

• 28:18Annie Elise?

  And it was the spring of 2019 that she began chatting with Brandon. So I mean, Kim, as a loving parent and a protective mother, she had every reason to want to monitor Bianca's whereabouts and know who she was with, who she was talking to, because one wrong person in her life and she could really regress. That's the last thing that anybody wanted. Not to mention, Kim had always been very big on internet safety when it came to her daughters. She was aware of everything that could go wrong online and all of the creepy people who are out there. So if Bianca was ever FaceTiming with an internet friend, Kim would just, you know, pop her head in just to see who she was talking to, to check in, to monitor, to make sure they were who they said they were. They weren't some creepy 50-year-old in a basement. So when it came to scoping out red flags and taking all of the proper precautions as

• 29:01Annie Elise?

  a parent, Kim tried to do everything right. You could tell that she really tried her best and was a good mom to Bianca. So Kim ended up meeting Brandon. And after meeting him for the first time, she only had positive things to say. He seemed like a very nice guy. The exact words that Kim had even used to describe Brandon were, quote, "charming and polite." Brandon even was pretty vulnerable and opened up to Kim about his not-so-great Great upbringing. It turns out he had a very rough time in the foster system as a kid. And when he was only 12 years old, he watched his dad hold his mom at knife point. His dad was arrested after the incident, but not too long after, his mom was also arrested for something unrelated.

• 29:44Annie Elise?

  Which like Kim, I think any mother hearing a story like that just would automatically make you feel awful. Not to mention that Brandon really seemed like a sweet and genuine guy. So it makes sense that Kim felt this almost like motherly sadness and protectiveness over him or toward him. She felt bad for him. She knew he had a tough life and she just felt, you know, almost like could see a relation with her own daughter and her struggles, like another kid who struggled growing up and she thought he was nice and she wanted to be there for him. Now, what's really important to note about Brandon and Bianca's relationship was that from Bianca's point of view, she thought of Brandon as a friend and only a friend. She didn't have any romantic feelings toward him whatsoever.

• 30:27Annie Elise?

  And this was something that she made known to both her family and to Brandon directly. And I talked about how Bianca was planning for her future at the top of this episode, but after getting out of that residential facility just a few months prior, Bianca really truly was planning for her future, something that she had never really done. She was going to go to Mohawk Valley Community College that fall. She was very excited to study psychology so that she could one day help people and other kids who had gone through the same struggles she had and she was optimistic about the future. So because of that, she didn't want to get into a relationship. Bianca was ready to focus on herself, meaning no boyfriend, no relationship, no drama to worry about, which totally normal, right?

• 31:10Annie Elise?

  However, Brandon seemed to feel a little differently. Kim noted that on multiple different occasions, she heard Brandon refer to himself as Bianca's boyfriend. Which to her was pretty weird because anytime she asked Bianca if they were dating, Bianca would say no. But I guess you also, sometimes people know how teenagers can be. I mean, maybe Bianca had feelings for him. She was in denial. She wanted to play it cool. She wanted to act, you know, more like aloof and hard to get like, oh, it's He wants me more than I want him. Or maybe she just didn't want to tell Kim her business until she knew for sure what she wanted Brandon to be in her life. I mean, there could have been a number of reasons for any of that. So Kim didn't think a whole lot of it. She didn't find it too weird or suspicious, more just a little bit odd.

• 31:55Annie Elise?

  So Bianca and Brandon had been hanging out in person and talking back and forth for quite a few months when then July rolled around. Kim said that when Bianca asked her if she could go to New York City with Brandon, she didn't see why not. She had vetted him, she knew him, she thought it would be fine. Go ahead, have a great time. Bianca had been doing so much better. And by this point, Kim had not only met Brandon, as I said, but she had been around him multiple times. So it wasn't like Bianca was going to be going into the city with a complete stranger. In fact, she was kind of comforted that Brandon was going to be with Bianca. Because New York City, like any other big city, it can be a pretty scary place. So more than anything else, Kim trusted him with Bianca.

• 32:36Annie Elise?

  So Kim explained all of this to the officers and they were making note of everything. But before they could even really start with an investigation or do anything further, another call came into 911. And this time, it was someone with a very familiar name. The caller was Brandon. And what he had to share was far from what anybody was expecting.

• 33:00Speaker 07

  911, what is your emergency? Uh, my name is Brandon. Um, the victim is Bianca Michelle Devens. I'm going to kill myself. It's just stay on the line with me, okay? No, I'm not gonna stay on the line with you. I'm going to be dead on the ground.

• 33:20Annie Elise?

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• 34:05Annie Elise?

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• 34:25Annie Elise?

  Just like that, the investigation had been flipped on its head. For one thing, Brandon's call had confirmed that those pictures of Bianca likely were not fake. I'm not sure if the investigators ever believed that they were fake. Truly, I don't. But regardless, I mean, this call really was the nail in the coffin. This was real. The 911 operator was trying to get Brandon to stay on the line for as long as possible so that they could trace the call. But Brandon was not being too cooperative. He wasn't interested in talking. But before he hung up, he did do one thing. He told the operator where the police could find him. Now, to make matters worse, someone from Brandon's family had also called 911 around this same time.

• 35:06Annie Elise?

  They claimed that they found a note from Brandon, a goodbye note that he had written with the intention to take his own life and that it was at his aunt's house. Brandon's mom also had received a Facebook message saying, quote, "I'm so sorry, Mom. I love you." So it did seem like he was covering all of his bases, so to speak. Now, it turns out that Brandon was at a dead-end road, kind of in this secluded area surrounded by trees, an area called Poe Street. It was in Utica, about a mile away from Bianca's old high school. Now, this is kind of a side note here, but I do want to mention it. On this specific day, Utica was having something called the Boiler Makers Race, which is their biggest day of tourism every year.

• 35:49Annie Elise?

  So most, if not all, of the officers were at this race for different road closures and for street security. So this case was definitely not what any of them thought that they would be getting into that day. I mean, that's for sure. So the officers rushed over to where Brandon said that they would find him, hoping that it wouldn't be too late. And luckily, when they arrived at the scene, Brandon was still alive. But the situation was very tense and it was escalating by the second. Brandon was lying on top of a green tarp that was laid out on the ground. There was also a small fire nearby, but it wasn't to keep warm. It wasn't because it was cold out and dark out because it turns out that the quote unquote

• 36:28Annie Elise?

  "firewood" that was being used was actually Brandon's laptop and hard drives, clearly trying to destroy them, right? And on the ground next to the tarp in wet spray paint were the words, "May you never forget me." In Brandon's car nearby, he also had a Bluetooth speaker that was playing the song "Test Drive" by Joji. Now, you might be wondering why the police wouldn't just arrest him at this point, right? I mean, why weren't they running up to him, pinning him on the ground, cuffing him, taking him into custody? Well, the reason is because Brandon had a knife. The officers were yelling at Brandon to drop the weapon, but he was completely ignoring them. It was almost like he didn't want to hear anything that they were saying. So they were also trying to scream to him, like,

• 37:13Annie Elise?

  "Tell us where Bianca is before it's too late, before he does something to himself." Like, "We want answers one way or another if you're not going to drop this weapon." But Brandon wasn't talking. And the truth was, he hadn't called 911 with the intention of the police finding him and stopping him from taking his own life because he had told the 911 operator that he needed to keep his end of the pact. Now, what's even crazier about this entire situation was that Brandon's phone was nearby and it was completely propped up, live streaming on Instagram, which it really makes you think about what livestream you might click into and tap into, right? Because you truly never know what you are going to see in real time. Now, what was reported next is a little bit confusing.

• 37:56Annie Elise?

  Brandon did take the knife that he was holding and cut his throat with it. That part is clear. However, many sources noted that after he cut his throat, he took a selfie and he posted it to his Instagram story. Along with the photo, he put- The caption ashes to ashes. Now, what's confusing about this to me is I don't know how he was able to do that. Post a selfie, get it on Instagram, type the caption before the officers like jumped and got involved, right? If I were to imagine the scene going down in my head, I would have thought that as soon as he took that weapon to himself, that he was essentially either unconscious or the officers would blitz attack him or do something to try and intervene.

• 38:38Annie Elise?

  But in fact, it turns out that that cut to his throat was very shallow and insignificant. So he probably was still conscious. It might have just been, I don't want to say a vanity mark, but for show, if that makes sense, meaning that he probably very much still was holding on to the knife and the officers wouldn't have likely wanted to get very close to him. So the officers were still yelling at Brandon, saying, where's Bianca? Tell us where she is. And his response was, quote, where the fuck do you think she is? And actually, the officers had a pretty good idea. That green tarp that was on the ground that Brandon was laying on, it wasn't flush to the ground. It seemed like the tarp was hiding something, concealing something.

• 39:23Annie Elise?

  And one of the officers claimed that he thought he saw a piece of dark hair peeking out from under the edge of the tarp. Now, eventually Brandon did drop the knife and the officers were able to grab him and arrest him. He was rushed to a local hospital where, according to one source, they quote raced to save his life. But the truth of the matter was Brandon hadn't even cut deep enough to do himself any real harm. So now with Brandon out of the way and being treated at the hospital, the officers were able to focus on what mattered the most, finding Bianca. And it turns out that that officer who thought that he saw some hair peeking out from under the tarp was right. Bianca had been there at the scene the entire time.

• 40:05Annie Elise?

  And even though the investigators knew that they likely would not be finding Bianca alive, seeing her that way, it was like a gut punch. She was so young, so innocent in so many ways. And when the officers looked at the person that they saw under the tarp, all they could see was a kid because that's truly who she still was. Now unfortunately, this story only gets more upsetting, especially when I talk to you about the why, the how, and what transpired. So Brandon had been arrested and was at the hospital, and Bianca's body had been found, we know that. But before officers could even go back to Kim's house to break the news to her, two more horrific things happened. Her mom, Kim, along with Bianca's younger sister, Olivia,

• 40:50Annie Elise?

  were sitting together in their kitchen waiting for an update, and the radio was on. And I'm not sure if they had turned it on waiting for some kind of media update, or if maybe it was already on. But what I do know is that a news anchor came over the radio, speaking in a very stern voice, saying that a girl's body had been found nearby. And in that moment, they automatically knew. I mean, even without the confirmation from the authorities, they knew that it had to be Bianca. Then, not too long after that, Olivia's phone started ringing. And one of her friends sent her a text message with a picture of something, asking if she knew what the picture was. And that picture was the one that Brandon had posted of Bianca's dead body.

• 41:40Speaker 02

  Oh, look. You just got added to a meeting about coordinating another meeting to prepare for the pre-meeting ahead of the follow-up meeting, which will, of course, require a recap meeting. And then, another meeting. Hit your booking point? Book with Southwest and enter airplane mode.

• 42:15Annie Elise?

  So that moment was how Bianca's family learned about the photo. Because remember, at this point, the investigators had decided to leave them in the dark about the photo until they had learned more. Which, to be fair, the investigators had learned more. They just hadn't had the time to update anybody yet. But can you imagine? And just what a terrible way that would have been to find out the news. It's awful. And just because Brandon had been arrested, that didn't mean that this case was solved. There were still so many questions. I mean, the biggest one was, of course, why? Now, Brandon's goodbye note hadn't really explained too much, only that he was going to take his own life. However, before making that 911 call and putting up this whole, you know, packed plan together, live into action, he had made a call to his grandma.

• 43:00Annie Elise?

  Apparently, she didn't answer her phone, so he decided to leave a voicemail. And that voicemail was where the investigators were finally able to start getting some solid answers.

• 43:10Speaker 07

  Hey, Grandma, it's Brandon. I, uh, hope I would be able to reach you, but I guess I'm not able to. So, uh, I know this is going to come as kind of a surprise, at least to you it isn't to me, but, uh, I, uh, I killed someone today. I killed my, uh, my girlfriend. Well, she's supposed to be my girlfriend, but she cheated on me.

• 43:28Annie Elise?

  The voicemail painted Bianca and Brandon's relationship in a very different picture than what anyone in Bianca's family had known or realized. And just to be clear, what we know now is very one-sided. Bianca isn't here to explain it herself or give her opinion, so we have to take everything with a grain of salt. But earlier, I had mentioned that Kim had heard Brandon refer to himself as Bianca's boyfriend. Now, as far as Kim or even Bianca's other internet friends knew, Bianca was single. She wasn't with Brandon. Despite not being together, though, their relationship was pretty complicated. I mentioned earlier that Bianca had a pretty significant following on one of her social media accounts on Instagram, right?

• 44:08Annie Elise?

  And on her Instagram page, the persona that she presented herself as was an "e-girl", the letter "e" dash "girl". Now, I'll be honest, I've heard of "e-girls", "soft girls", I think there's another one, but I think I'm a little too old to, like, be in the know of all of that, so I'm going to just pull this up here to let you know. So, it's basically slang that started on the internet, and it's short for "electronic girl", which it refers more to, like, a look and a personality style. So, it says here, "The e-girl aesthetic is dark and edgy makeup, chains, chokers..." White hair, layered necklaces, oversized band tees. It kind of pulls inspiration from like the emo days if you're an elder millennial like me. And that whole look.

• 44:53Annie Elise?

  Now, on online forums and social media, there's now this term nowadays called an orbiter. And I had never heard of this before, truly hadn't, so I had no idea what it meant. But apparently, an orbiter is someone who almost becomes obsessed with young girls that they see online. Specifically, girls like Bianca, who were very active on social media and presented this e-girl aesthetic. And I guess that makes sense when you think about the literal definition of orbiting. Like you're just swarming these girls that you're becoming obsessed with online, which is so freaking creepy. But one source describes an orbiter by saying this. Quote, "They idolize them and they become obsessed with them."

• 45:34Annie Elise?

  Often, orbiters will send girls gifts, money, or drugs, usually expecting some form of attention or at the very least nude photos of them in return. Now, I know that this is very different territory for me, but bear with me. Because of Bianca's large following, she attracted a lot of orbiters. One of her close friends even said that she was too nice of a person and that she would give these guys more attention than they deserved. Which again, I could be totally wrong here, but it almost kind of sounds like not a sugar daddy situation or a sugar baby situation, but maybe where it's like these guys are circling you on the internet. They're Venmoing you, they're cash apping you, they're buying you things.

• 46:18Annie Elise?

  So you string them along, you talk to them, maybe you send a photo here or there. And I want to be clear, I don't know if Bianca was sending anything, I truly don't. But what I'm saying and trying to illustrate is that it's one of those, not a relationship, it's one of those dynamics where you have to set boundaries, make intentions very clear. Keep things almost like transactional, work/business type relationship rather than a personal relationship. But sometimes, I guess this made Bianca feel bad just ignoring them. So she would respond and she would strike up a conversation. And apparently to Bianca... At the end of the day, Brandon was just another orbiter. Her friends said that he would often send Bianca what they described as very creepy and obsessive

• 47:01Annie Elise?

  messages, though they didn't go into detail about what exactly these messages said. So that's why I say that their relationship was complicated. It's not as straightforward as it might have seemed. I mean, Bianca thought of Brandon as another orbiter, but the lines kind of got blurred when I guess they started meeting in person and developed more of a in-person, you know, relationship with one another, a friendship, whatever you want to call it. And the investigators later noted that on both Brandon and Bianca's phones, there was some information and evidence that showed they did, at the very least, have an intimate relationship. I'm not sure if these were photos sent back and forth, if it was sexting, if there was a video, maybe a combination of everything. I don't know.

• 47:43Annie Elise?

  And if I'm way off the mark here when it comes to e-girls and orbiters, I mean, that's how I'm interpreting it, so feel free to school me in the comments if you're more well-versed on the subject, but that's what I was able to gather from my research. But what I do want to make very, very clear here is that nothing that Bianca did, said, wore, posted, none of it would ever warrant what happened to her. Never. So all of that to say, Brandon was likely a lot more invested in Bianca than she was in him. And on the night of the concert, Bianca showed just how little she was interested in Brandon. You see, it wasn't just Bianca and Brandon that went to that show in New York that night.

• 48:27Annie Elise?

  Another guy from the Discord chat also met up with them. His name was Alex. Now Alex was well-known in the Discord chats, and he and Bianca had talked back and forth a bunch before, but up until the night of the concert, they hadn't actually ever met in person. Right away, though, Bianca was crushing on him. It was clear that she didn't think of Alex the same way she thought of Brandon, and it was in a good way for her, right? He wasn't just this random orbiter to her. He was someone that Bianca could actually picture being with. She was direct messaging some of her other friends on Discord. Updating them about meeting Alex for the first time and she was so excited about it.

• 49:07Annie Elise?

  She was sending updates to her friends saying, "He smells so nice lol," or "He's perfect, I'm in love." And apparently, the two of them were flirting back and forth all night. However, nothing happened because Brandon was still around and, well, it was kind of awkward. That is, of course, up until one moment when Brandon left the two of them alone so that he could go get rolling papers. Because at that time, the two of them ended up kissing. Now, the only problem was, they kissed right as Brandon was walking back up and he saw everything. Now, to be fair, Bianca hadn't done anything wrong. It's not like they were dating and she was cheating on Brandon.

• 49:46Annie Elise?

  But in his head, she was. He was pissed, he felt disrespected, and he was angry enough to kill. Now, the investigators were able to reach out to Alex, who filled in all of the blanks about what had happened that night, or at least what he saw and what he experienced. And he claimed that even before he showed up to the concert that night, Bianca was messaging him and confiding in him, saying she was worried Brandon might be jealous. But Alex, like any normal person, kind of just brushed it off. He told the investigators that it was pretty clear that Brandon wasn't happy that he was there that night, before and after the kiss, and that Brandon wasn't really talking to him, he wasn't trying to get to know him, and just overall seemed to be in a very bad mood.

• 50:28Annie Elise?

  Which I think you can totally catch that vibe when somebody doesn't like you or doesn't like the fact that you're at the same place as them, right? Now, at first, Alex said that he and Bianca both thought that Brandon didn't see them kiss, so they thought that they were in the clear. However, later that night, after Alex left, Bianca apparently messaged Alex saying, "I think he saw me kiss you." Now, most people in that situation, if you received that message, you'd probably think like, "Oh, damn, that sucks." Like, "That was probably an awkward ride home. Really sorry. Are you guys cool? Like, what happened?" Nobody would ever imagine that a simple kiss would lead to an intense crime of passion, right? Now, I will say this, one thing about Brandon, he liked to leave a trail behind.

• 51:12Annie Elise?

  Instagram posts, it really seemed like Bianca's death was premeditated. Not like he had planned every little thing before the concert, but that after seeing her kiss Alex, it was all downhill from there. And I say that because on the way home from the concert, Brandon posted a picture of the road back to Utica, and he posted it with the caption, "Here comes hell. It's redemption, right?" And there Bianca was, sitting right next to him, having no idea that the hell that Brandon was referring to was heading straight for her. And from there, it was a complete nightmare. Brandon pulled the car over. I'm not sure if this was somewhere random on the drive home, or if this was where he later told the investigators to come find him.

• 51:58Annie Elise?

  But he pulled over, and then he set up his phone on his dashboard. Once it was set up, he hit record. In this video, Bianca was asleep. We don't know the exact time, but it was in the early morning hours after midnight. And while Bianca was asleep, Brandon was seen grabbing a knife from the backseat. Now, to me, this detail means one of two things. One, he regularly traveled with a knife, which is possible. Or two, he brought the knife specifically to kill Bianca, which would mean that he had been planning to murder her all along, even before he saw the kiss with Alex. And you know what? I guess you could throw a third option in there, just for good measure.

• 52:42Annie Elise?

  Maybe he brought the knife with him because he was planning on pursuing Bianca and wanted the knife. Maybe he was gonna sexually assault her. We don't know. But the point is, he grabbed this knife from the backseat, and then he carefully moved the knife to his side, not wanting Bianca to wake up and see what was in his hands. Not before he could interrogate her and get some answers from her. And then, once the knife was hidden on his side, farthest away from Bianca, he woke her up. She looked around. She was very confused because they weren't at her house. They had just pulled over on the side of the road. They weren't even driving at this point, right? And that's when Brandon confronted her. The investigators noted that Brandon began asking her about the kiss, stating he saw her and Alex kissing. And

• 53:27Annie Elise?

  apparently, in this video, Bianca didn't really seem phased. She apologized, but reminded him they weren't together. They definitely weren't exclusive, which was very valid, but it infuriated Brandon. The investigators claimed that Brandon told her that "sorry" wasn't good enough. So that's when Brandon quickly grabbed the knife and he started attacking Bianca. Now, I'm not sure if her actual death was quick, although I do hope that it was for her sake. But the investigator said that from the looks of the video, Bianca did not see the knife coming at all. It all happened very quickly. Apparently, she did try to fight him, though, even as her life was draining out of her by the second. And

• 54:11Annie Elise?

  I just hope that her final moments weren't too full of fear or confusion, and that she passed not knowing or even understanding what had happened. And just as importantly, when the investigators dug deeper into Brandon's personal life and his personal items, like his cellphone, they realized that Bianca and Alex's kiss, it wasn't Brandon's breaking point. It wasn't the reason that he had decided to kill her. In fact, it was something that he had been planning all along. Hence why he had that murder weapon just ready to go. Get this: two days before Bianca's murder, Brandon made a very weird checklist in his Notes app on his phone. This was of everything that he needed to stage the perfect

• 54:55Annie Elise?

  murder-suicide-type plan. Some of the notes included setting up his Bluetooth speaker, going live on Instagram, and also picking out what the last song would be. I mean, this is some seriously sick and twisted stuff. The only problem was that the day before Bianca's murder, Brandon was still Googling. Ways to Kill. He had all of the cinematic bits and pieces planned out for what he was going to do after he did the deed, but I guess he just couldn't commit to the actual murder part. He was still searching different methods, different ways to, you know, take it over the finish line, if you will. So the investigators believed that Brandon's plan all along was that one day he was going to have to kill Bianca. They believed that he knew that Bianca

• 55:40Annie Elise?

  wasn't into him, and that whenever the time came that she was finally really ready to set the boundaries, or even worse, cut things off completely, then that would be the day that he would kill her, which that day came much sooner rather than later. Now, like I mentioned earlier, Brandon survived his self-inflicted wounds, which surviving really is almost too dramatic of a word. I mean, to put it into perspective of how non-life-threatening the cut to his throat had been, he was cleared the day after to go talk to police. And we all know you can't be out of your mind, high off pain meds, being interrogated by police. So he was fine. All he had was a scar on a portion of his neck. So he ended up being charged with second-degree murder, and the district attorney was firm on the decision

• 56:25Annie Elise?

  to not offer Brandon a plea deal. So they were ready to take his case to trial. And I mean, the video footage of the murder itself was pretty significant evidence. It doesn't get much more damning than that, not to mention all of the evidence that showed that he had planned everything out. But the problem was Brandon's case, it never went to trial, because he ended up pleading guilty. Two years after Bianca's murder, in 2021, Brandon was sentenced to 25 years to life. He seemed somewhat apologetic at his sentencing, but, I mean, don't most people who get caught? It's never been enough. It's never been adequate. I felt to really convey my emotions and...

• 57:07Speaker 07

  To apologize, how do you meaningfully apologize for doing something so horrible and so irreversible?

• 57:15Speaker 07

  That's the worst part is that I can't take it back. I want to, I wish I could. I would give my life in a heartbeat to Bianca if I could. And I can't.

• 57:27Speaker 07

  Every day I wake up and I wonder how she would have spent that day if she were still here.

• 57:33Annie Elise?

  Bianca's mom, Kim, also spoke at Brandon's sentencing.

• 57:36Speaker 03

  July 14, 2019, life that I knew it ended, when my daughter's life was violently cut short. Bianca was not only my daughter, but my best friend. I used to say that no matter what life throws at me, as long as I have my children and they are happy and healthy, I will be okay. I no longer have that sense of security. Bianca, her sister Olivia, and I did everything together. We were always a team. Olivia and I had lost our irreplaceable teammate. In everything we do, there was always a sense of something missing. Bianca should be with us.

• 58:13Speaker 03

  With the death of your child comes the most unimaginable, indescribable pain. A pain that time cannot heal and only seems to worsen. Life without Bianca will never be the same. Olivia, Madison, Dustin, Jordan, Dakota no longer have their big sister and protect her to guide them through life. Bianca will not experience the joy of watching her siblings grow up and growing alongside them. There are no more trips to the park and swinging with Bianca. No more late night talks and big sister advice. No more car rides laughing as Bianca sings at the top of her lungs. All these joys and more have been stolen from us. Worst of all, there are no more hugs, kisses, and "I love yous" and sweet sound of Bianca's voice.

• 58:59Speaker 03

  I'm now left to have to answer questions from Bianca's younger siblings that I don't have the answer to. Why didn't Bianca come home? She told us she would see us tomorrow. When is BB coming home?

• 59:13Speaker 03

  Brandon Clark has shown that he has no regard for human life. He stole my daughter's life from her and her family for his own selfish reasons that I will never understand.

• 59:23Annie Elise?

  Now, more recently, in 2025, Brandon appealed his sentence, making some bullshit claim that his attorney had actually pressured him into pleading guilty, which, I mean, I guess it's possible, but let's be real, it's probably not likely. And thankfully, the appeal was denied and his conviction was ultimately upheld. So Brandon, get comfy, in jail, you're not going anywhere for a while. In the end, Bianca got justice, at least when it came to her killer. But even after Brandon was locked up and sentenced to life in prison, there was still one thing that just did not sit right with her mom, Kim. Bianca's death had been brutal, horrific, and honestly, there aren't even enough words to describe it.

• 1:00:04Annie Elise?

  But what was just as awful as her death was the fact that the picture of her body had gone viral. It wasn't just in Discord, it was everywhere. I mean, you name the social media platform and Bianca's picture probably had been posted on there. And this is when Kim realized that there was a huge problem with social media. I mean, there are a lot of problems, don't get me wrong, but in this case specifically, it has to do with graphic images like the one of Bianca being shared. Kim said that time and time again, she would report the photos of Bianca and sometimes, more often than not, her report would come back that it did not violate the app's guidelines. She even tried reaching out to Instagram directly multiple times, trying to advocate

• 1:00:45Annie Elise?

  for Bianca and many other people just like her, whose graphic photos get posted online daily, but they weren't hearing her. They just ignored her. They completely ignored her, as a matter of fact, until she got a local congressman to back her up, which, that is so freaking pathetic. Like, why are you allowing that material to be shared? And then when a victim's family member comes forward requesting that you take it down, you say, "Oh, can't, it doesn't violate our terms of service"? Like, what? So after years of campaigning for a change, in 2022, Bianca's law was signed by the governor of New York. And this law specifically- makes it a crime to post graphic images online of people in traumatic situations.

• 1:01:27Annie Elise?

  But what was so frustrating about this complete invasion of privacy was that it wasn't just the social media apps that had gone too far. Kim also ended up filing a lawsuit against the district attorney and his office after they allegedly shared videos of Brandon having sex with Bianca before killing her. They had shared these videos to multiple different news outlets. The lawsuit noted that that action was, quote, "unconscionable dissemination of snuff and child material of a 17-year-old murder victim." Unfortunately, though, the lawsuit was later dismissed by a judge. So, time and time again, Bianca was just failed by these people, and her death was used as just shock factor in the media. There was no empathy whatsoever.

• 1:02:12Annie Elise?

  And look, I want to wrap this episode up by saying, I know I'll probably sound like a broken record here, but if you have young kids, please be aware of the horrific things that can happen online. Be the helicopter parent, be the nosy parent, be the uncool parent, because you truly can never be too safe. Social media is a weapon. It really is. It can be used by people who do not have good intentions. And even now, there are so many loopholes where truly evil people can seemingly just do whatever the heck they want online. So, please, protect your loved ones and watch over your kids if they are online in any sort of capacity. Thank you so much for hearing Bianca's story today.

• 1:02:54Annie Elise?

  I appreciate it, and please protect your children. Until the next one, guys. Be nice, don't kill people, don't join any cults, don't go on Discord, please, or Roblox or any of those things, and just stay safe. Bye.