The Online Life & Death of Bianca Devins
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(upbeat music) - On July 14th, 2019, 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. So I was reading all the messages, and they're saying, "Guys, in the Discord, someone posted that Bianca "is like dead or something." And I was like, "What?" Some people in the Discord actually had to call the police. - You took a place. - Good morning. I believe someone may have been murdered. - Okay, where? - Okay, so I'm on an online group, and somebody posted a picture of someone getting murdered, and I believe it to be Miss Bianca Michelle Devins. - Before I knew it, the photo was being circulated around my community, and then beyond it. (upbeat music) - So tell me, what did you see that day? - I was on Twitter, as I usually do, just to gauge what stories are trending that day, and I saw that Bianca's name was trending. I didn't know very much at that point, just that images had been posted, and we're going viral on social media. And I just knew that I wanted to find out more. - I think we were all just very confused. Someone saw something on the internet where they, you know, Bianca may have been hurt. I am Kim Devins, and I'm Bianca's mother. - Bianca is a talented artist, inspiring model. I knew she had an online presence, but I found that granddaughters do not share their online presence with their grandfathers. So I wasn't aware of the depth of it. - Social media was a huge part of Bianca's life, and online, she could be whoever she wanted to be. She was definitely a social media chameleon. She had multiple Instagram accounts, which is not uncommon for kids her age, but one of them was clearly reserved for her online friends, you know, was fairly edgy. She was obviously very, you know, popular on Discord. It was common for some people in the community to try and escape, or maybe to get attention, to fake their deaths. - As this photo is circulating on Discord, and then to other social media platforms,
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How did images of a 17-year-old girl's murder go viral? CBS News national correspondent Jericka Duncan reports for "48 Hours."