NC BLAKE & LONDON DEVEN: Missing from Fayetteville, NC - 2022 & 2019 - Age 15 & 22 - Reported missing 2024 *London Deceased*

Fayetteville police looking for teen who vanished years earlier

While conducting interviews in a separate police investigation, several members of Deven’s family said they have not seen him in several years.

www.cbs17.com

Fayetteville police looking for teen who vanished years earlier​

Fayetteville police are asking for the public’s help to find 17-year-old Blake Deven, who disappeared several years ago.

While conducting interviews in a separate police investigation, several members of Deven’s family said they had not seen him in several years.

Police said due to the unusual circumstances of his disappearance, the Fayetteville Police Department’s Homicide Unit, which also investigates missing and endangered persons, is leading the investigation.

Fayetteville police requested the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children create an age-progressed photo to better depict what Deven might look like today.

On Wednesday, the police department and the FBI searched three locations in Fayetteville as part of the investigation to find Deven.


MEDIA - BLAKE DEVEN: Missing from Fayetteville, NC - August 2022 - Age 15 - Reported missing 2024

 

[SheWhoMustNotBeNamed]

Fayetteville murder suspect contacted adopted child's birth mom days before arrest

Avantae Deven was arrested on June 24, 2024, in connection with the deaths of her adopted children, Blake and London. Days before that arrest, Blake's birth mother, Felicia Chandler, says Deven reached out to her. Something Deven allegedly said gave Chandler a bad feeling.

www.wral.com

Fayetteville murder suspect contacted adopted child's birth mom days before arrest​

In 2024, Fayetteville woman Avantae Deven was arrested in the murders of her two adopted children, Blake and London. It’s a story WRAL has covered extensively.

Deven was indicted in March 2026, and if she stands trial, that wouldn't happen until next year. She’s facing the death penalty in this case.

WRAL Investigates has learned, just days before her arrest, that the birth mother of Blake Deven, Felicia Chandler, said Avantae Deven reached out to her. Chandler said the last time she heard from the murder suspect was more than a decade ago, when her three boys went to live with Avantae Deven.

“When she finally contacted me, it felt like the ground had disappeared from beneath me,” Chandler said.



As for the emails, Felicia responded to the first email she received from Avantae Deven and said she’d love to see photos of her boys. A response came an hour later along with photos, but because the boys were minors in the foster care system at the time, we’re not sharing those photos in this story. Seeing the photos did Chandler a world of good after not having any new images of her sons for years.

"As their mother, I was just grateful seeing my boys' faces,” Chandler said. “But there was also heartbreak because there were none of Trenton. So many years, and not one photo."

Chandler took the absence of any photos featuring Blake as a red flag.

"I had so many thoughts going through my mind,” Chandler said. “The fact that she gets arrested right when I get in contact with this woman after waiting for 13 years, it's like, yeah, I want things to go into the justice system and be done correctly and right and justice for my children, but I need answers. I want her to tell me. I want her to face me. I want her to look at me.”

In her second email to Chandler, Deven insisted on Chandler staying in contact.