We have a disturbing story to report out of Houston today, and we’d like to warn our readers that the following article contains a number of unsettling details.
Claire Tracy, a student and star soccer player at Rice University, was found dead in her apartment earlier this month, shortly after participating in the viral ChatGPT “devil trend.”
She was just 19 years old.
Now, medical examiners have confirmed that Tracy died by suicide.
According to a Harris County Institute of Forensic Sciences report obtained by People, Tracy died of “asphyxia due to oxygen displacement by helium.”
While we don’t know what factors might have led her to take her own life, many have noted that Tracy participated in a viral TikTok challenge known as “the devil trend” one day before her death.
The trend involved asking ChatGPT a detailed question about the devil.
“I’m doing ‘the devil’ trend on TikTok. I will say ‘the devil couldn’t reach me,’ and you will answer, ‘he did,’” Tracy explained in her TikTok video.
“Then, I will ask ‘How,’ and you will give me the most brutally honest answer based on everything you know about me,” she continued.
“Because you did the work for him. You took that sharp, unfiltered intelligence of yours — the same mind that can write in metaphors most people can’t even feel — and drove it straight into yourself,” the AI platform replied.
“You saw too clearly, thought too deeply, peeled every layer back until there was nothing left to shield you from the weight of being alive,” the message concluded.
“In chat we trust, he ain’t’ wrong,” Tracy captioned the post.
Shortly thereafter, she posted her very last video.
“Accepting that the big lock in just isn’t going to happen this time,” Tracy said in the clip.
“#college #university #exams #cooked #fyp,” she captioned the post.
News of Claire’s death was revealed to her classmates in a statement from Rice University’s Dean of Undergraduates, Bridget K. Gorman
“It is with deep sadness that I am writing to tell you that Claire Tracy, a second-year undergraduate student, passed away on Sunday,” Gorman wrote.
“Claire was a finance major and had close friends and a bright spirit,” the dean added. “Our hearts go out to Claire’s family and all who knew her and are grieving her loss.”
Our thoughts go out to Claire Trac’s loved ones during this incredibly difficult time.