
Avantae Deven's daughter Cherish admits she's the woman in a recording sent to a news station that offers even more harrowing allegations against her mom, who was arrested after the remains of two of her adopted children were found in a burn barrel.
Avantae Deven is already behind bars following her June 2024 arrest in Fayetteville, North Carolina after the bodies of two of her adopted children, London and Blake, were found in a burn barrel -- but a new recording and admission offers even more disturbing evidence.
Deven (inset above) has been charged with two counts of first-degree murder, two counts of concealment of death, one count of kidnapping related to the death of London, and two counts of felony child abuse related to Blake.
A few months later, Raleigh NBC affiliate WRAL received a recording of a woman saying she was forced to help dismember the body of Blake Deven. According to the man who delivered the recording, he recorded it in April 2022, two years before Avantae's arrest.

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View StoryCherish Deven Admits Her Voice on Recording
In December 2024, Cherish Deven (above right), Blake's adoptive sister, admitted to Fayetteville Police that it was her voice on that recording confessing to dismembering Blake's body
In an interview with WRAL Investigates, Cherish said she was 16 or 17 when she dismembered his body, but the station reports she states she was 18 in the full recording.
When asked about the fear in her voice in the recording, Cherish told WRAL, "I was afraid of what Ava was going to say and do because I know the type of woman she is."
When asked how she was asked to dismember her brother's body, Cherish replied, "There was no asking. There was just, ‘You do it. You’re doing it. If not, you’re getting in trouble.' I’m sitting there as a young child just thinking, ‘Oh, my God. What do I do?'"
When asked if she feels any remorse for her actions, Cherish explained, "It wasn't that I was like I wanted to do this on my own. Again, I was forced to do it. Detectives know this. Everybody knows this already."
"It disgusts me that I can live with myself knowing what I've seen, what I've done, because someone led me on and forced me to do something as a child myself," she continued. "I am a victim, regardless of what anyone says."

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View StoryRecording of Cherish's Admission
"I've been going through hell and I'm tired," the voice on the recording says. "She starved him to the point where it killed him and she never called the f--king cops or the ambulance. She starved him so much that she killed him, bro!"
"She didn't call the ambulance, she didn't call the police," the voice continued. "She didn't try to make up a story to tell them, 'Oh, well he passed away, he's a preemie.'"
The woman went on to emphasize, "You don't know what I had to do; it's been on my f--king mind and I don't know what the f--k to do. And I'm really trusting you not to go back and tell her this s--t."
"Like, she literally had me buy a f--king trash can, dude, and keep him in there for a month," the recording continued. "And then after that, she literally had me buy a f--king saw to cut his [expletive] open and disintegrate the f--king body, dude."
"Like, this s--t is messing with my [head] and I keep having nightmares and s--t since I've been back here. I had to watch his f--king body burn."

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View StoryCherish Speaks on Abuses
As one of the five children in Avantae's home, Cherish also opened up to WRAL Investigates about some of her alleged experiences under that roof, as well as what she would say to her adoptive mother today.
"I hate you. You told me that you were my mother, you told me that you loved me. You told me that you would be there for me and you never were," Cherish said she would tell Avantae if given the chance.
"I went through a lot as a child, and for me to sit here right now today talking to you about it is even hard for me," Cherish told the news station.
"It got to the point where I was hiding dog food in the vents just to eat, because I was that hungry," she revealed.
She also said that Avantae would hit the children with curtain rods, lock them in a bathroom and starve them. She said it was these abuses that led to Blake's death, and what she herself did afterward.

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View StoryAvantae's Arrest After Discovery of Bodies
Authorities in Fayetteville, North Carolina became aware of the situation after one of Avantae's surviving foster children made a mental health call to police.
According to local ABC affiliate WTVD, officers responded to the call of a child who told them he hadn't seen his brother Blake in years. Blake had last been seen in 2022, when he was approximately 15 years old.
As authorities dug into the disappearance and death of Blake, they learned of another death in the family, a young girl named London last seen in 2019. Avantae did not report either child missing at the time, and only reported them missing last year
While investigating multiple homes the family had lived in, officers found remains at multiple residences, before making their most harrowing discovery. Inside of a metal burn barrel were the remains of two distinct individuals, a girl between the ages of 15 and 19 and a boy between the ages of seven and 10 years old. The bodies had purportedly been dismembered.

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View StoryLab tests positively identified the body of the girl as London. According to investigators, London died of starvation and neglect, per Raleigh NBC affiliate WRAL. London had special needs, per her siblings. The other remains were ultimately identified as belonging to Blake.
Aside from these horrific discoveries, per police, they uncovered the living conditions inside the Deven house, attributing them to at least Blake's likely death.
After interviewing the children, social workers detailed some of the alleged living conditions in the home, including the children being kept in a small, dark room and given little to no food. According to the children, they could "earn" food by writing papers to apologize for their behavior.
They also expressed that they were beaten at times to the point where they would have needed medical assistance, with Locklear saying they lived in "inhumane conditions" and were only offered "natural cures like honey."
Avantae is being held without bond at the Cumberland County Detention Center and could face the death penalty for the murder charges alone.
If you are experiencing or witness child abuse, call the Childhelp National Child Abuse Hotline at 1-800-4-A-Child or 1-800-422-4453, or go to www.childhelp.org. If you believe a child is in immediate danger, call 911.