Murder Gone Viral

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Seventeen year old Bianca Devns and twenty
one year old Brandon Clark viewed their relationship

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very differently. In early twenty nineteen, the two of them first connected on

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Instagram when Brandon saw Bianca's profile and
sent her a follow request. Despite their

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age gap, the two started talking
and before long they started spending time together

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irl that means in real life in
case she didn't know, Brandon met Beyanca's

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family, who later described him as
a trusted family friend. From early on,

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Brandon made it clear that he was
sexually and romantically interested in Bianca.

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However, she did not feel the
same way about him. During a conversation

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with her mother, Bianca confessed that
she had turned Brandon down and told him

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that she did not want to be
in a romantic relationship. Despite this,

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when Beyonca's mother looked at the way
Brandon interacted with her daughter, she believed

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that he hadn't quite gotten the message. Some of Bianca's friends were deeply concerned

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by Brandon's behavior. They believed that
Brandon would give Bianca drugs, and when

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she was under the influence, he
would take advantage of her. He also

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allegedly offered her drugs as a way
of convincing her to hang out with him

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more often. Bianca had her share
of mental health struggles, which might have

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made her an easy target for this
type of manipulation. For most of her

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teenage years, she had been receiving
treatment for anxiety and depression, and she

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was also diagnosed with PTSD and borderline
personality disorder. On multiple occasions, her

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symptoms had been so severe that she
had spent time in a hospital. Bianca

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found a lot of comfort in spending
time on the Internet, but she received

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a lot of online harassment, mostly
by men who identified as being in cells,

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a term that is short for involuntary
celibate. I've done episodes in the

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past on in cells that turned out
to be killers, and the in cell

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community are bonded together by the belief
that they are unable to get a romantic

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sexual partner, often leading to a
deep hatred for women who they believe are

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rejecting them. For in cells,
a conventionally attractive teenage girl such as Bianca

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was the perfect target. On the
thirteenth of July twenty nineteen, Bianca and

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Brandon went into New York City to
attend on Nicold Doling Angered concert, along

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with one of their other friends,
a young man named Alex. At some

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point during the night, Alex and
Bianca allegedly kissed, and Brandon saw the

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whole thing. He didn't say anything
about it at the time, but when

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he and Bianca were alone in his
car, he brought it up and they

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started fighting. Brandon reached down beside
a seat where he'd hidden a knife earlier.

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He then used that knife to repeatedly
cut Bianca's neck, severing her carotid

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artery and slicing it so deeply that
he almost completely removed her head. Bianca

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Devins died at the age of seventeen
in the early hours of July fourteenth.

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Brandon left her corpse sitting in the
passenger seat while he got out, played

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some music, and started to build
a fire. Shortly afterwards, he placed

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several calls to members of his family, implying that he was about to take

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his own life. Immediately, his
family called the police. Meanwhile, Brandon

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got busy taking pictures of Bianca's nearly
decapitated body and posting them online. He

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posted photos from multiple angles in one
of the discord servers that Bianca had spent

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time in captioning one of them with
a message telling them that he's sorry.

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They're going to have to find someone
else to orbit. He also had a

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video of himself murdering Bianca, but
decided not to post that one. Some

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of the discord users initially believed that
the photos were a bad joke or some

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kind of prank, but eventually they
came to the conclusion that they were real,

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and several of them called the police. By now, the local police

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were well aware that a situation was
unfolding, and Brandon decided to call them

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himself. He had a brief conversation
with a dispatcher where he stated, my

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name is Brandon, the victim is
Bianca Michelle Devins. I'm not going to

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stay on the phone for long because
I still need to do the suicide part

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of the murder. Suicide, Brandon
used a piece of tarp to cover Bianca's

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body and then attempted to follow through
with his plan. He had written out

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a suicide note as well as a
shorter message that simply said may you never

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forget me, and as soon as
the police arrived at the scene of the

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crime, he used the knife to
stab himself in the throat, lying down

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on top of Bianca's body. On
the fifteenth of July, law enforcement confirmed

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that Bianca was the victim. Brandon
had survived his suicide attempt, and he

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was charged with second degree murder,
implying that there had not been any kind

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of planning or premeditation. This might
have been true if Bianca had been killed

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in a crime of passion, but
several investigators believed that Brandon had planned out

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the whole crime. Several pieces of
evidence supported this theory, in particular the

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fact that he had thought to hide
a knife in the car and that he

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had brought the equipment that he needed
to take a video of the murder.

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Before the crime, Brandon also made
several inc criminating Google searches, including looking

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up how to kill someone and where
to find the carotid artery. The same

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day that Brandon was being charged with
the murder, a community vigil was held

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in Beyonca's memory. But while Beyonca's
family and friends were mourning her sudden,

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violent death, the photos that Brandon
posted of her corpse were going viral online.

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Within hours of the murder, the
photos had been reshared on Facebook,

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Twitter, and Instagram, including another
site called four Chan. Some of the

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in cell communities that had harassed Bianca
when she was alive, praised Brandon for

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killing her, believing that she deserved
it for rejecting him. Unfortunately, Beyanca's

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family also saw the photos. Her
sister stated that when she tried to fall

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asleep at night, she couldn't stop
thinking about them. Beyonca's stepfather also started

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experiencing traumatic flashbacks, and her mother
became increasingly concerned about the effect that those

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pictures would have on random Internet users
who had never even known Bianca. So

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many people have been affected by the
pictures, she said, their scarred for

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life and suffering from PTSD, Unable
to erase the images from their mind.

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Facebook and Instagram both deleted Brandon's account
from their platforms in an attempt to stop

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the photos from circulating further. Facebook
went a step further, placing the images

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in a digital fingerprint database and banning
hashtags that were being used to share the

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photos. Meanwhile, Instagram had a
much more casual response. On multiple occasions,

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Instagram users who found the photos claimed
that they'd tried to report them.

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However, they received responses from Instagram
claiming that the images did not violate the

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app's guidelines. For at least four
days after Bianca's death, pictures of her

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body could still be easily found on
Instagram. On the twenty ninth of April,

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Brandon Clark made the decision to plead
not guilty to the second degree murder

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charge. At around the same time, he allegedly wrote a letter to a

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friend where he boasted about what it
felt like to take life. In the

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same letter, he also finally stated
his motive for the murder. He couldn't

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handle the thought of Bianca walking out
of his life. Shortly before his trial

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was set to begin, Brandon changed
his mind. He pleaded guilty. The

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COVID nineteen pandemic delayed the start date
of his sentencing, and when it was

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rescheduled, he claimed that his lawyer
had failed him and he asked to take

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back the guilty plea. However,
at this point he'd already admitted that he

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was guilty, so the request was
denied. Finally, in March of twenty

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twenty one, Brandon received his sentence
twenty five years to life. In late

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twenty twenty, Bianca's family attempted to
introduce Bianca's Law, which would require all

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high earning social media platforms to have
a dedicated office for locating and taking down

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violent content that had been posted.
An additional law was introduced that would make

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it illegal for people to circulate pictures
of people who had been the victim of

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violent crimes in an attempt to gain
popularity or harass others. Two years later,

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a version of Byanca's law was passed, making it illegal to share or

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post images with the intent to abuse
or degrade other people. However, the

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fight to make sure that Bianca was
respected in death was not over. Byanka's

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family had learned that the Oneida County
District Attorney's office had been sharing footage of

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Bianca's murder, as well as video
footage of her engaging in sexual activity.

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Multiple documentary makers who had covered the
case had allegedly been shown or sent the

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footage, and Bianca's family ended up
suing the DA's office, claiming that they

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were guilty of distributing child pornography by
sharing these images of seventeen year old Bianca.

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Thousands of people have seen the pictures
of Bianca's body, and in some

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online communities there are still people who
argue that Brandon Clark did nothing wrong.

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