Mom accused of murdering 2 of her 5 adopted kids enlisted another to dismember them: report
A North Carolina mom accused of killing two of her five adopted kids allegedly got another one of her children to dismember the bodies — and threatened to blame them for the murders if they spoke out, according to disturbing court records.
Avantae Deven, 63, was arrested late last month and charged with two counts of first-degree murder after remains were found of her daughter London and others assumed to be of her son Blake, according to documents obtained by the Fayetteville Observer.
Blake is thought to have been around 10 when he died in 2017 — when “his body could no longer take the inhumane treatment” of being beaten, starved and abused, according to the documents. His sister was a teenager when she is thought to have died in 2019 following similar abuse, officials said.
However, their mom never even reported them missing — with the alarm only raised in 2022 when an unidentified 15-year-old sibling called 911 to report being suicidal, the report said.
Deven then claimed that she’d last seen her son as he headed on a Buddhist retreat — while also getting a family friend to pretend he was Blake to suggest he was still alive, the documents said.
Instead, she’d actually forced one of Blake’s siblings to purchase tools from a store to dismember his body, before she incinerated the remains in a burn barrel in their backyard, according to the affidavit.
Deven allegedly then forced the same child to help cover up London’s death and threatened all of her kids against ever speaking out, the affidavit said.
“If this ever gets found out, you need to take the blame because I will get the death penalty and because of your age you won’t get in trouble if you take the blame,” she warned them, according to the warrant.
Investigators later uncovered surveillance video of Deven with her remaining adopted children purchasing a red cooler at a Walmart, which officials said was where London’s remains were found.
Detectives recovered a metal burn barrel containing two sets of human remains, one confirmed by DNA analysis to be London while a preliminary test of the second are expected to confirm they are Blake, the report said.
“Video, testimonial, physical and written evidence of the abuse, torture and starvation at the hands of (their adoptive mother) Avantae Deven has been located during the investigation into the missing children,” the record states.
That included being locked with another sibling in complete darkness in small rooms with little to no food and only a plastic container for a bathroom — and being forced to write “hundreds and frequently thousands of sentences and paragraphs apologizing for some misdeed they had supposedly done,” the documents alleged.
Deven also allegedly beat the children to the point of needing medical care, but then would refuse to provide adequate care and would only use natural cures like applying honey to open wounds, according to court documents.
Deven has been charged with two counts of first-degree murder, two counts of child abuse causing serious bodily injury, two counts of destroying human remains/concealing an unnatural death and one count of kidnapping.
She is being held without bail at the Cumberland County jail.
