Posted (Bianca Devins)
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What happened to Bianca Devins?
He picked her up at about 2.30 p.m. in our house, and that's when I last saw her. She gave me a hug and said she was going, and I told her, I love you, be safe, and she said, I love you, too. And she left.
I'm Scott Weinberger, investigative journalist and former deputy sheriff.
I'm Anna Siga-Nicolazzi, former New York City homicide prosecutor and host of Investigation Discovery's True Conviction.
And this is Anatomy of Murder. Most of us think of the internet as a place to connect, create, and find community. But for Bianca Devins, a 17-year-old girl from Utica, New York, it was a sanctuary, a space where she could express herself, share her art, and build friendships.
But that same digital world that made her feel seen would also turn against her, exploiting her in ways no one should ever have to endure. Bianca was my firstborn, and I was young. I was just a few weeks away from turning 18. She was just always happy and easygoing.
That's Bianca's mother, Kim Devins, who told us that even as a young child, her daughter was full of life, curious, and creative.
Bianca showed natural talent as an artist and loved to express herself through the visual arts. But as she entered her teenage years, she also faced challenges that would shape much of her adolescence. She was struggling with some mental health issues, some severe depression. She was eventually diagnosed with borderline personality disorder. So that, I think that her mental health struggles and the fight to find the correct and appropriate treatment for her kind of like defined her teenage years. Borderline personality disorder, or BPD, is a complex mental health condition characterized by, among other symptoms, challenges in interpersonal relationships. For many people living with BPD, the world can feel overwhelming, leading to a sense of isolation at times even among loved ones.
That disorder in her brain, it would tell her that, like, well, these people don't understand you and they just all think you're weird and they're going to judge you.
But there was one place where Bianca didn't feel so alone online. The internet became a place where she could escape judgment, express herself and connect with others who shared her interests.
I think she started off in her like preteen years. She would play Minecraft and talk to people on that. And then as she got older and became a teenager, she met more people online and just found that it was easier to talk to people. She felt that she could relate more to people in these online communities and As Bianca's online connections grew, so did her social media presence. She spent time on mainstream platforms like Snapchat and Instagram. but also engaged in less moderated spaces like Discord, a popular messaging platform for gamers. Communities that could be supportive, but also unpredictable. We always openly talked about online communities, you know, talking to people online was always constantly being instilled in them. And it was always just an open conversation in our household that, you know, you don't give away your private information. You don't tell people, you know, your location, your phone number, your address.
Kemp taught our kids about the importance of online safety, but even with the best guidance, the internet can be difficult to navigate, especially for a teenager that may be struggling with feelings of belonging and identity. A social connection or a compliment, even from a stranger, can be exhilarating, even empowering.
And so for Bianca, the online world became not just a place to escape, it was where she felt a sense of confidence and where she could more comfortably be herself. There, she expressed herself freely and she more easily found people who shared her similar interests, like her love of anime and gaming.
Bianca's talent and charisma were infectious, and her social media following grew. Friends gave way to fans, and her popularity as a so-called e-girl gave way to a kind of online celebrity.
which, as you can imagine, would be thrilling for many teens. But this online visibility was also a double-edged sword, because with new friends and fans also came unwanted attention from followers who weren't just interested in her content, but instead fixated on her and her appearance. There was even a nickname for these starstruck superfans. They were called Orbiters.
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