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Fayetteville police revealed gruesome details that underscored brutal living conditions and indicated children in Avantae Deven's care were isolated, starved and beaten. Deven was charged with murder and child abuse on Wednesday.


Detectives: Adoptive mother linked to disappearance of Fayetteville siblings kept children in isolation, darkness

<p>Jeffjeff. Smile. Ok. It right. All right. Good afternoon. I'm Chief Kim Braden of the Fayetteville Police Department. Thank you for coming to today. I know some of you have traveled, uh, a great distance over only a few hours notice. We have an important news to share a significant update to an investigation that has understandably attracted a lot of attention from our community and beyond. In early April, we announced the sad news of two young people Blake in London, Devon who were reported missing since then. The fabled detectives, the FBI agents have followed hundreds of leads and conducted dozens of interviews. Our investigation has led us to evidence that both Blake and London are currently deceased the morning. Uh, this morning, between nine and 11, we arrested the adoptive mother of a Devin at her home, located at 1433 Barry Dale Drive. At this time, I would like to turn over to Sergeant Locklear to provide information that he can share at this time. Good evening. My name is Sergeant Jeff Locklear of the Federal Police Department's homicide unit. As Chief Braden said, Avante Devin was arrested this morning. She's charged with two counts of first degree murder, two counts of felony child abuse, one count of kidnapping, two counts of concealment of death. Now I'll briefly detail the evidence that has led us to these charges today. In November of 2023 officers of the Federal Police Department responded to a call at the Devon home on Barry Dale Drive for a mental health crisis. Officers conduct or officers contacted the Cumberland County Department of Social Services who quickly responded. The victim later told officials he had not seen his brother Blake after he would have been interviewed uh that that mental health crisis we're talking about when we got there and we began to do the interviews. Um The victim that was going through the mental health crisis told the authorities that uh he had not seen his brother Blake in five years and that the last time he had seen him, he had a broken arm and that he's now dead as detectives began to unravel the facts. We discovered five Children were adopted by Avonte Devin from three different North Carolina counties. The three boys were biologically related. The two girls were also adopted. They were unrelated to each other and also unrelated to the boys. In multiple interviews, information was provided detailing appalling conditions. At least three of these Children apparently grew up in Avante Devin is said to have kept them all or kept them in small rooms in complete darkness. At times they were given little food, they were given little or no food and could earn nourishment through by quote doing paperwork. That means they had to write hundreds of paragraphs to apologize for behaving. It is alleged some of the Children were also beaten to the point of needing medical care but only natural cures like honey were given the investigation uncovered Blake likely passed away while the Devin family lived at the Eichelberger drive home. We believe he was mentally abused. He was physically starved and his body could no longer take the inhumane treatment. Then Levante developed a plan to hide Blake's remains and she forced another person in the household to participate. They dismembered him and burned his remains during a forensic search of a previous residence of the Devin family, biological evidence was located and sent to the crime lab for further testing. These items did support evidence of isolation, torture and starvation. When investigators begin to look into Blake's disappearance, they learned that 28 year old London David had also not been seen in quite some time by now, the Devon family had moved to a home on Barry Dale Drive. Interviews uncovered information that a number or a different member of the household had been forced to participate in removing London's body from that home. She is believed to have died in the same painful way in the same painful callous manner that Blake died for little starvation and neglect. Additional information led Fayetteville police departments um detectives to locate a metal burn barrel when the contents were removed in a methodical process to preserve any evidence inside partial human remains were found. Forensic testing confirmed the barrel contained separate two separate sets of human remains. One is consistent with a female between 15 to 19 years of age. The second set is consistent with a child from 7 to 10 years of age. Now, you need to keep in mind that those are general ranges due to the condition of the remains and the need to expedite the testing. We sent the remains to a private accredited lab in the last week. The first round of testings confirmed one set of remains belongs to London Devon. Testing on the second set of human remains is ongoing favor. Detectives have confirmed Blake Devon has been missing since 2017. Avante only reported Blake missing after our investigation began. Avante never reported London missing. The last confirmed independent sighting of London was in 2019. Even though London was an adult, she had special needs and depended on Avante to care for her. I'm gonna turn it back over to uh Chief Braden and uh to open it up for questions before we open up some questions. It's difficult to explain the amount of work it took us to get where we're at today. The Fayette Police Department, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Cumberland County District Attorney's Office have worked countless hours on this case. We did not do it alone. There are over 20 other agencies that are credited to assisting in this investigation. Uh We will name each of each one of uh these organizations in our follow up release. But first, I'd like to turn it back over. Uh We'll open the floor for questions from uh the press. Uh where specifically were the remains found um that he mentioned. So the those remains were located in an address in al in Orchard view community of Cumberland County. Is that the same address that you assist? That the Cumberland County Sheriff's office assisted you with that one? Ok. What happened in March uh that prompted the police to put up the first press release from the incident. Go ahead, I would say that we were tempted to, to initiate this investigation looking for people who may have had information that could help us investigate further into the uh the complaint about the missing juveniles. Why exactly did it take this long to arrest her if the 1st 911 call came out a while ago? And then finally the press release that we got late March early April. But now we're seeing arrest, why so long? And there's an investigative process, you know, to make sure that we have the case uh secured, we meet the elements of the crime and we present something to the District Attorney's office that's prosecutable. We want to ensure that the, the integrity of that case and the quality of that case is, is of, of is there. So, and I understand that my thing is, you know, she reported that she hadn't seen Blake since what 2000, I think late 2022 here we are in 2024 and she's coming forward with this at the minimum. I believe if anyone else were to do that negligence would have been brought up way sooner. All right, and to be fair, you know, we have to investigate the claims and, and, and truly find out take into account what actually happened, not just what we believe happened. Well, what I'm getting at is this is the adoptive mother saying I have not seen my child. The last time was in 2022 where a year plus later, why were charges like nothing brought up since then? So initially, she's giving us a story that Blake was possibly at a Buddhist retreat in the mountains. So of course, it takes time to run that kind of information down. I'm sorry, a Buddhist retreat. I'm sorry. Yeah. So she gave there was some semblance of a story. Blake. Yes, sir. There was some semblance of a story as to where his where he may have been, right? So it takes time. I got to say that I use often in the office we'll measure twice. So we have to cook once, right? When did we arrest her this morning? Are there any additional charges that she could be facing in relevance at all to her mother's death. Her mother died, I believe a month ago in the hospital and she was taken, there was on a ventilator for some time. And I believe the Cumberland County Department of Social Services even petitioned to have her removed and even have her assets frozen because of fear that Avante Devin was exploiting her bank account. And I would say this. we're presented today the charges that we fully investigated and we feel comfortable moving forward with this time when she was arrested at her home by our fugitive team of violent criminal apprehension. 1433 Barry Dale Drive, you mentioned that there was someone else in the home who had helped um who was that? We're not gonna get into specifics about that. Remember some of the things that we, some, there's some things that we just won't be able to answer. Understood my question over here. How was she when you arrested her cooperatively? All right. I thank everybody for joining us today. Question chief, are you able to all answer if she was still collecting her adoption assistance checks? And um you're a girl friend. So I'm meeting you for the first time. Chris Lo again. Nice to meet you. Yeah.</p>

Avantae Deven

Fayetteville police describe neglect, abuse children suffered under Avantae Deven

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