State officials are looking into how the adoptive mother charged in the disappearance of two missing siblings was able to become a foster parent.
Avantae Deven, 63, was charged last month with two counts of first-degree murder, child abuse and kidnapping in the disappearance of her two adoptive children, Blake and London Deven.
Warrants filed by the Fayetteville Police Department detail accusations that Avantae Deven starved and tortured her five adopted children. Police accused her of killing two of those children, Blake Deven and London Deven, before dismembering them and burning their bodies.
Family members told police that Blake Deven has not been seen in "several years." London Deven was last seen in 2019, according to police. Both lived with the same adoptive family, who moved to Fayetteville in 2015.
The North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services is looking into how Avantae Deven was chosen as the siblings’ adoptive parent.
In North Carolina, the child welfare system is state supervised and county administered. NCDHHS said state law gives local social service departments the authority and responsibility to administer child welfare services for their county.
“NCDHHS continuously reviews and assesses policies and requirements to ensure that changes occur as needed. As the supervising and oversight agency, NCDHHS is providing intensive technical assistance to support Cumberland County as they provide services, and it will conduct an assessment of services provided to these children and of decision making that led to selection of Ms. Devan as an adoptive parent,” NCDHHS said in a statement.
Police said Avantae Deven had adopted five children in total, three boys and two girls, from three different counties in North Carolina. The three boys were biologically related, and the two girls were unrelated to each other and unrelated to the boys.
In November of last year, officials said they responded to a report of a mental health crisis at the Deven household on Berridale Drive in Fayetteville. The victim later told them that he hadn't seen his brother, Blake Deven, in five years, that the last time he saw him he had a broken arm and that he was now dead.
Avantae Deven did not report Blake missing until after the investigation had begun, though police said he had been missing since 2017. She never reported London missing.
When asked why she wasn't arrested sooner, authorities said Avantae initially told investigators that it was possible Blake was at a Buddhist retreat in the mountains.
"While conducting interviews in a separate police investigation, several members of Blake's family reported they have not seen him in several years. On March 27, 2024, the Fayetteville Police Department and the FBI searched three locations in Fayetteville, North Carolina, as part of the expanding investigation to find Blake," FBI officials said.
Felicia Chandler, Blake’s biological mother, posted on Facebook in April, asking for the public’s help to find her son. She said Blake’s birth name is Trenton Dewayne Shuler, and was changed when “he was tak[en] from me” and given to a foster family.