PRESS CONFERENCE
26TH JUNE
CHIEF - Good afternoon. I'm Chief Kem Braden of the Fayetteville Police Department. Thank you for coming today, I know some of you have travelled a great distance over only a few hours notice. We have 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 and London Deven, who were reported missing. Since then, the Fayetteville detectives, the FBI agents, have followed hundreds of leads and conducted dozens of interviews. Our investigation had led us to evidence that both Blake and London are currently deceased.
This morning, between 9-11, we arrested the adopted mother, Avantae Devon, at her home located at 1433 Berrydale Drive. At this time, I'd like to turn over to Sergeant Locklear to provide information that he can share at this time.
SERGEANT - Good evening, my name is Sergeant Jeff Locklear, the Fayetteville Police Department's homicide unit. As Chief Braden said, Avantae Deven was arrested this morning. She's charged with 2 counts of first degree murder, 2 counts of felony child abuse, 1 count of kidnapping, 2 counts of concealment of death.
Now, I'll briefly detail the evidence that has led us to these charges today. In November, 2023 officers of the Fayetteville Police Department responded to a call at the Deven home on Berrydale Drive for a mental health crisis. 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 had been interviewed - that mental health crisis we're talking about, when we got there and we began to do the interviews, the victim that was going through the mental health crisis told authorities that 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 begun to unravel the facts, we discovered five children were adopted by Avantae Deven 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. Avantae Deven is said to have kept them all.. or kept them in small rooms in complete darkness at times. They were given little food or no food, and could earn nourishment through by, quote, "doing paperwork"; that means they had to write hundreds of paragraphs to apologise 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 Deven 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, Avantae 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 Deven 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 began to look into Blake's disappearance, they learned that 28 yr. old London Deven had also not been seen in quite some time. By now, the Deven family had moved to a home on Berrydale 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 from - literal starvation and neglect. Additional Information led FPD detectives to locate a metal burn barrel. When the contents were removed and methodical process to preserve any evidence inside, partial human remains were found.
Forensic testing confirmed the barrel contained two separate sets of human remains. One is consistent with a female between 15-19 yrs. of age. The second set is consistent with a child from 7-10 yrs. 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 Deven. Testing on the second set of human remains is ongoing.
Fayettville Detectives have confirmed Blake Deven has been missing since 2017. Avantae only reported Blake missing after our investigation began. Avantae never reported London missing. The last confirmed independent siting of London was in 2019; even though London was an adult, she had special needs and depended on Avantae to care for her.
CHIEF - It's difficult to explain the amount of work it took us to get to where we're at today. The FBD, 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. We'll open the floor for questions from the press.
REPORTER - Where specifically were the remains found that you mentioned?
SERGEANT - So, those remains were located in an address in altrafield (?), community of Cumberland County.
REPORTER - Is that the same address that the Cumberland County Sheriff's Office assisted you with?
SERGEANT - Yes.
REPORTER - What happened in March that prompted the police to put out the first press release about the incident?
CHIEF - I would say that we were tempted to initiate this investigation looking for people who may have had information that could help us investigate further into the complaint about the missing juveniles.
REPORTER - Why exactly did it take this long to arrest her if the first 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 an arrest - why so long?
CHIEF - There's an investigative process, you know, to make sure that we have the case secured - we meet the elements of the crime and we present something to the DA's office that's prosecutable. We want to ensure the integrity of that case and the quality of that case is there.
REPORTER - And I understand that. My thing is, you know, she reported that she hadn't seen Blake since, what, late, 2022? here we are in 2024 and she's coming forward, at the minimum, I believe if anyone else were to do that, negligence would have been brought up way sooner.
CHIEF - Right, and to be fair, you know, we have to investigate the claims and truly find out, take into account what actually happened, not just what we believe happened.
REPORTER - 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?
SERGEANT - 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. There was some semblance of a story as to where he may have been, right? so it takes time. I got a saying that I use often in the office 'we'll measure it twice so we only have to cut once.
REPORTER - When did you arrest her?
SERGEANT - We arrested her this morning.
REPORTER - 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 Avantae Deven was exploiting her bank account.
CHIEF - I would say this - we are presenting today the charges that we fully investigated, and that we feel comfortable moving forward with at this time.
REPORTER - Where did you arrest her?
SERGEANT - She was arrested at her home by our fugitive team.
REPORTER - You mentioned that there was someone else in the home who had helped, who was that?
SERGEANT - We're not going to get into the specifics about that. Remember there's some things that we just won't be able to answer.
REPORTER - How was she when you arrested her?
SERGEANT - Cooperative.
All right, I thank everybody for joining us today.
