The woman said she hadn’t seen her son for over a year.
“He told me he was going to a Buddhist retreat and never called back,” she told the emergency dispatcher in a recently released 911 call.
That call was made in January. Now, her son has been missing for 632 days.
In an over eight-minute recording punctuated with sighs, a story peppered with inconsistencies emerges in the 911 call. The woman, 63-year-old Avantae Deven, first says her 17-year-old son disappeared a year ago, then says it was “around the holidays” between Thanksgiving and Christmas 2022. She later says she doesn’t have the phone number he last called her from, or even the phone where she received the call.
Police would eventually find that by the time she first made a missing person’s call on Jan. 19, 2024, that boy — Blake Deven of Fayetteville — had been missing since Aug. 1, 2022. The Fayetteville Police Department announced his disappearance in a March 28 news release. A week later, the case got a new twist: Police announced a female relative of Blake’s, 27-year-old London Deven, was also missing.
And then one more revelation: Police announced on April 12 that skeletal remains were discovered at an undisclosed location during the investigation. Investigators say they are awaiting test results from the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner that may identify the deceased.
As the search for them approaches the one-month mark, Cumberland County residents are asking: what happened to Blake and London?
Who’s involved
According to Fayetteville Police Department news releases, court documents and police reports, the key people tied to the case include:
What we know
Before the Devens moved to Fayetteville, it appears Avantae Deven was living in Buncombe County — IRS tax records show her living in Enka, an unincorporated community there, while she was the registered agent for a nonprofit called the Infinity Institute from 2011 to 2016.
The Infinity Institute was established in Nevada by Robert Adams, a teacher of a philosophy of Hinduism called Advaita Vedanta, in 1996, according to the nonprofit’s website and Nevada state records.
Property records show an LLC created in New Mexico owns Avantae Deven’s Berriedale Drive home. According to records from the New Mexico Secretary of State’s website, Avantae Deven registered the LLC, called Nelson & Johnson, under a Sedona, Arizona, address in September 2016. The LLC’s purpose was listed as “gatherings for various artists [sic] showings and book sharing/readings.”
According to police records, the first chapter in the Deven family mystery came to light Jan. 19, 2024, when Avantae Deven called 911 at 1:17 p.m. to report her teenage son was missing.
“I need to file a missing person’s report,” she tells the dispatcher.
Avantae Deven goes on to say that her 17-year-old son, who will turn 18 on May 10, 2024, is missing. She describes him as white with “blondish-brown” hair but adds that she can’t recall what he was last wearing, according to a recording of the 911 call.
She last saw him a year ago, she guesses.
“It was around the holidays, after December,” Avantae Deven says. “It was between Thanksgiving and December.”
When the operator asks if Avantae Deven thinks her son has run away, she replies that she believes he has.
“He is generally religious, and he used to go back and forth about a Buddhist retreat, and meditation, things like that,” Avantae Deven says. “My daughter did that once for six months, and she called, so I thought, OK. He’s very independent and high-strung and very bossy, so it’s not very unlikely of his character.”
Avantae Deven tells the operator her son doesn’t have any medical or mental health conditions, apart from being diagnosed with static encephalopathy when he was younger. According to the Child Neurology Center, static encephalopathy is permanent brain damage often associated with exposure to alcohol in the womb.
Throughout the call, Avantae Deven struggles to answer the operator’s questions, saying she doesn’t know where Blake called her from but that he was last seen at a store “on Pamalee, Ramsey.” It’s unclear what store Avantae Deven was referring to. She says in the 911 call that she believes the store has closed since Blake’s disappearance.
An incident report tied to the case says Blake was last seen Aug. 1, 2022, at 1 p.m., meaning he would have been 16 at the time. The address on the report is for the Ramsey Street Walmart.
Police have not released any details about what transpired in the time between Avantae Deven’s report Jan. 19 and the Fayetteville Police Department’s first news release March 28, saying only that “several members of Blake’s family” reported they had not seen him in years during “a separate police investigation.”
Court records show Avantae Deven was also facing another problem at home: Her mother, Leonie Maxwell, 95, had sustained an anoxic brain injury in November 2023, rendering her nonverbal and nonresponsive and in need of “round-the-clock care.”
At some point, court records state, Maxwell was admitted to the cardiac ICU at Cape Fear Valley Medical Center and placed on a ventilator.
“[Maxwell’s] daughter, Avantae Deven, has not been responding to calls from medical staff concerning necessary medical decisions for [Maxwell] since March 27, 2024,” a petition to place Maxwell in emergency protective care states. “Cape Fear Valley Medical Center sent a welfare check to Ms. Deven’s home on March 30, 2024 and no one answered the door.”
A next-of-kin listed for Maxwell also did not respond to calls, according to the petition.
That’s when DSS officials stepped in, requesting to temporarily make emergency decisions in Maxwell’s care and appoint her a guardian ad litem — a guardian chosen by the court — on April 10. That same day, court records show, DSS also asked the court to freeze Maxwell’s financial assets and grant officials permission to inspect her financial records.
“Upon information and belief, [Maxwell] has a bank account with Wells Fargo containing a sum in excess of $15,000,” the petition states. “[DSS] is unaware of the extent of [Maxwell]’s assets at this time; however, [Maxwell] is unable to resist financial exploitation and is in need of protective measures at this time.”
The order granting DSS’s request states officials believe Avantae Deven may have been financially exploiting her mother. The petition notes that Avantae Deven’s home “has been searched by law enforcement multiple times” in connection with London and Blake’s disappearances.
Reporters from CityView and The Fayetteville Observer were not allowed into a court hearing regarding Maxwell’s case Wednesday afternoon. Court officials said that particular courtroom is “always closed” for confidentiality reasons. An attorney with the North Carolina Press Association’s hotline told CityView keeping a courtroom perpetually closed is illegal, noting that a judge must issue a written order each time explaining why the courtroom should be closed.
What’s next
Police announced on April 12 skeletal remains were discovered on an undisclosed date at an undisclosed location — but confirmed they were not found at the Berriedale Drive home. The remains were sent to the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner for testing, according to a news release, which could take months. As the public awaits the results, the Fayetteville Police Department has largely kept quiet about the case.
Public Information Officer Rickelle Harrell declined to answer any questions sent by CityView Tuesday, writing, “[A]t this moment, the Fayetteville Police Department does not have any further information to provide regarding your inquiries. While it’s not easy to admit, it’s important to acknowledge that this investigation is still in progress.”
In response to questions sent by CityView, an FBI spokesperson said they did not "have anything to provide" beyond the Fayetteville Police Department's news releases. Avantae Deven and the next-of-kin listed for Maxwell on court documents could not be reached for comment.
Editor's note: This story has been updated to reflect that Avantae Deven used the term "static encephalopathy" when describing Blake Deven's medical issues.
Click HERE to see a comprehensive timeline of the circumstances surrounding the Deven case.
Anyone with information on London and Blake Deven’s disappearance should contact the Fayetteville Police Department at 910-578-2697 or the FBI at 1-800-CALL-FBI or tips.fbi.gov.
Reporter Lexi Solomon can be reached at lsolomon@cityviewnc.com or 910-423-6500.
This story was made possible by contributions to CityView News Fund, a 501c3 charitable organization committed to an informed democracy.
