WRAL documentary 'Broken: Foster Care in North Carolina'

701 to see this is the emergency

Right now I'm to engage you

OK

How old are you I'm 15 You do you want

EMF to take you to the hospital or you just

want someone to come and talk to you I want

to hear that

All right right now hurry please

I'm gonna hang up the phone now but please send

them OK

Tell me how this case started

So the mental health calls what kicked off this entire

investigation for this case

I thank everybody for joining us today

In November of 2023 officers with the Federal Police Department

responded to a call at the Devon home on Barrydale

Drive for a mental health crisis

The victim that was going through the mental health crisis

told authorities that he had not seen his brother Blake

in 5 years and that the last time he had

seen him he had a broken arm

A person at that home told officers that Blake Devin

had not been seen in 5 years 5 whole years

Fed detectives have confirmed Blake Devin has been missing since

2017

Avonte Devin is the adoptive mother of Blake Devon

Avante only reported Blake missing after our investigation began

791 what's the address of the emergency I need to

file missing persons report

All right it's time to call 511

So your 17 year old son is missing Yeah

What what was he last been wearing I don't even

know ma'am

He told me he was going to a Buddhist retreat

I never called back

When was that ma'am Um it was a year ago

Where was he at when he went missing I have

no idea to be honest with you ma'am

When did you last see him what time The last

holiday Thanksgiving and Christmas

2023 or 2022

0 goodness

422

And then that led to more questions where OK well

this person's been missing for so long you're now just

you know reporting it

Was there any picture of this Blake Devin We did

get a picture and there was one photo that was

from 2012 that was the last known photo of him

Do you think it's a little strange That over the

course of 12 years not one other photo was available

and that's when we also hear that another person was

missing related to the same case and that this is

an adoptive sister so London Devon went missing

When investigators began to look into Blake's disappearance they learned

that 28-year-old London Devon had also not been seen in

quite some time

Avonte never reported London missing

The last confirmed independent sighting of London was in 2019

We knew this story was really unlike anything we had

covered since the beginning

Two people missing from the same home

Both hadn't been seen in years

My name is Kristin Severance and I'm the investigative documentary

reporter at WREL

We will take you through this entire case with people

like my colleague Chris Levinggood who has covered this story

from the very beginning

The story just has so many holes

We'll take you through police reports and court documents share

interviews with biological family members

My first love he is oh goodness where do you

even begin with him He's just so beautiful

Former social workers who worked with the family

All we knew that these children were missing for years

and no pictures and no credible story

But this documentary isn't just about Blake and London Devon

As detectives began to unravel the facts we discovered 5

children were adopted by Avonte Devin

From 3 different North Carolina counties 5 children taken out

of homes

Now you got 2 just completely disappeared but there's no

really record of any of them

It's about the foster care system in North Carolina

She fooled everybody

We'll investigate how the foster care system

Set up and how it failed the very kids it's

supposed to protect

How broken is the foster care system in North Carolina

It's broken

How broken is the adoption system in North Carolina Exceptionally

broken because somewhere these kids fell through the cracks

These parks are some of the last places I got

to see them play

We met Felicia Chandler at Lake Louise Park in western

North Carolina in late 2024

There's Mr

Trent and he had lost his two front teeth

She brought hundreds of pictures of her son with her

Oh yeah honey I've got lots and lots and lots

He was born Trenton Schuler on May 10 2006

I mean it's just so beautiful

He had the biggest blue eyes

That's all Trenton

This is actually a picture of him in the hospital

He fought to be here you know he was so

little

He's only 3 pounds and 10 ounces

He was born early but he was a fighter and

he came right out of that EQ

He wasn't in there in no time at all

He was very strong

Always very strong

Tell me about those first few years

I mean as a family

Oh it was amazing

It was wonderful

It was everything I ever dreamed of to be honest

with you

Felicia had two more sons Devin born in 2008 and

Gabriel born in 2010

I mean I got lucky

I got three boys

I really did

You couldn't go wrong with three boys and they loved

their mama

In 2011 when the boys were 53 and not even

1 the Department of Social Services in Madison County entered

their lives

What happened with DSS Why did they get involved They

initially got involved due to alleged domestic violence

When there was no domestic violence going on at all

at that time Felicia said the alleged domestic violence incident

was not with the children's father and the kids were

not home at the time of the incident

What do you think is going to happen Everything's going

to be OK

I've not done anything wrong

They're going to come see my house and it's going

to be fine

Feed my children

I love my children

Anybody that knows me knows that Felicia said after DSS

got involved her sons stayed with family members for one

night and then were placed into foster care

Even if there was a domestic dispute ma'am why didn't

you save me and my children Why would you just

take my children away from me I never understood that

She was assigned a social worker Katherine Hubbard who worked

for Madison County DSS at the time

What I can say is that Felicia was incredibly motivated

I was very determined and the case was reunification

That was the goal

That was the plan

Avanta Devin entered the picture around 20

Nabonte was already involved because of respite

She was like a babysitter for these foster people

That's how she got involved with my boys

Like if they had an emergency or something she would

be like an on-call babysitter

Felicia was fighting to keep the boys together

If they're not going to be with me

They need to be together so I met Avante Devin

as a foster parent who was interested in adopting the

three children in our custody at that time

And so when she stepped up and said that she

would take all three honestly I looked at it like

a blessing in disguise at the time and I hate

to say that first I thought maybe she was trying

to

Help me and the boys or something you know

Felicia was allowed phone calls with the boys and visits

This was at this part right here was a visit

here

They would meet at places like Lake Louise Park where

we did our interview

Those are some of my also last memories of them

too

I supervised many visitations for months and months and months

This case went on for

Years Avante Devin had two other adopted children in her

home a daughter named London and a daughter named Cherish

Here is a picture of Cherri Felicia took during one

of her visits with the boys

She was usually always at visits with Avante and the

boys

She had two children legally placed in her home

She had already gone through multiple agencies multiple courts multiple

judges in order to have those children placed in the

home

Felicia's case dragged through the Madison County DSS system and

the courts from 2011 to 2013

I know that it was portrayed to me more than

once that regardless of how this turned out if I

was

Get my kids back or not Avonte would always let

me be a part of my children's life and that

was very well known even with the social worker

That's not what happened at all

Katherine said Felicia tried her best but it was a

drawn out and complicated case

She did work very hard and I know that she

loves her children but I will also say something that

I had learned many years ago through this career

Is that often love is not enough

Avante Devin eventually adopted all three boys

It was a closed adoption meaning Felicia had no rights

to her biological sons

I didn't just stop like I tried to call all

kinds of different places to figure out what to do

next

And I just kept hitting brick walls and nobody would

give me anything

Nobody would do anything for me

Avante Devin was living with all five children in Leicester

in Buncombe County and then she broke all contact and

that was it

I never seen heard anything from them again and that

was like in 2013

Is anyone checking on these kids Well no after the

adoption's done I mean the state basically just backs away

unless there's some kind of financial support that a family

is still getting post adoption and we know that Avante

Devin declined financial benefits back in 2013

A former landlord confirmed Devon moved the family from a

rental home in Leicester to Fayetteville in 2015

She changed all the kids' names

Trenton was now Blake Devon

Adopted daughter Mariah who's now London and her other adopted

daughter Brianna was now cherish

A lot of the people in this story their names

are not their birth names

It gets confusing

It gets muddy

State records showed Devon homeschooled the children at a school

called Devon Academy

5 children taken out of homes taken out of public

school

10 years go by

Felicia hears nothing from Avante Devin

Like they don't exist literally changed all three of my

boys' names

In November of 2023 someone at the Devon home on

Berrydale Drive in Fayetteville calls 911

How old are you Fayetteville detectives told Felicia that call

was made by Her middle son Devin now a teenager

he proceeded to try to take his life to get

attention because you know what was going on because he

hasn't seen his brother in 5 years

Fayetteville police start investigating in late 2023

Avanta Devin calls 911 to report Blake Devin missing in

January of 2024

Call essentially says that she hasn't seen Blake in a

while he went to some sort of Buddhist retreat

Do you think he is a runaway I think so

but he is generally religious and he used to go

back and forth about a Buddhist retreat and meditation things

like that but this time he never called back

It's how he's very independent high strugg and very bossy

so it's not really unlikely of his character

See I'm sorry what was your question I'm very upset

here

I understand you're very upset

Do you think he's a runaway I would say so

yes

Do you have a good phone number for your son

Um no I don't

I don't have any phone number

When the 911 call was released publicly none of that

makes sense to me

As a mother as a social worker

How did he get there How would he not have

phone contact Fayetteville police put out a press release in

March of 2024 that Blake Devin is missing and while

he's 17 years old the last known photo of him

is from when he's a child

They also released an age progression photo of what he

might look like

And then we hear about London Devon later in April

police report Blake's adopted sister

London Devon is also missing

She's 27 years old

Her picture is also from when she's a child

Avante never reported London missing

The last confirmed independent sighting of London was in 2019

I can't even begin to fathom how Avante did not

have any pictures of these children

When is the big break where some of these things

start making sense We received the press

At least that skeletal remains have been found and then

I learned from both Blake and London's biological mothers that

the FBI had taken DNA samples from them but they

wanted DNA they wanted and that was the scary part

Fayetteville police confirm Felicia's worst fear in June of 2024

Our investigation has led us to evidence that both Blake

and London are currently deceased

Homicide police did

Arrest Avan Avante Devon was arrested at her home on

Berrydale Drive

So the actual charges she's facing first degree murder concealment

of death kidnapping and felony child abuse

Now in terms of what specifically happened that's a little

more hard to hear

Fayetteville police allege Avante Devin abused the children

Avante Devin kept them in small rooms in complete darkness

at times

They were given little or no food

And could earn nourishment through by doing paperwork that means

they had to write hundreds of paragraphs to apologize for

behaving

It is alleged some of the children were also beaten

to the point of needing medical care but only natural

cures like honey were given

I can't even say some of the words that was

done to my child

I can't even say them

And no child should ever have had to went through

that in a small room having to write and write

and write and write and write and make sure that

it's good enough and make sure it's perfect enough because

if not he's gonna have to do it again and

again and again until it is just so we can

get something to eat

The investigation uncovered Blake likely passed away while the Devin

family lived at the Eichelberger Drive home

We believe he was mentally abused

He was physically starved and his body could no longer

take the inhumane treatment

Then Levante developed a plan to hide Blake's remains and

she forced another person in the household to participate

They dismembered him

And burned his remains

Detectives allege London Devon also died from abuse

Interviews uncovered information that a number or a different member

of the household had been forced to participate in removing

London's body from that home

She is believed to have died in the same painful

way in the same painful callous manner that Blake died

from starvation

And neglect

Police said they found a metal burn barrel at a

home where the Devin family lived

Forensic testing confirmed the barrel contained two separate sets of

human remains

The first round of testings confirmed one set of remains

belongs to London Devon

Testing on the second set of human remains is ongoing

Avante Devin has pleaded not guilty

She's in jail awaiting trial

Her attorney declined our multiple requests to comment

But you keep finding out more information and people started

sending me tips including with one person who actually had

a recorded confession of the person who admits to dismembering

the body of Blake Devin after Avanta Devin's arrest a

man named Nathan Mitchell reached

to Chris Lovinggood who was involved in this needs to

be held accountable

Mitchell had an audio recording he took in 2022 of

someone who lived in the Devon household talking about what

happened to Blake Devin

Here's a portion of that recording

Parts of it are graphic

To talk to somebody

My mother starved my oldest brother

She starved him so much that she killed him bro

Then she didn't call the ambulance

She didn't call the police

She didn't try and make up a story to tell

them Oh well he passed away

She literally had me buy a trash can dude and

a keep him in there for a month

And then after that she literally had me buy a

saw to cut open and disintegrate body dude like this

messing with my head and I'm

When you hear that your immediate question is well why

didn't you say something sooner if you heard this in

the recording and what he says is that he didn't

believe this person he said they sort of lied to

them in the him in the past but then after

Avante Devin was arrested his wife messaged him and goes

hey I think you need a

Listen to it and the FBI eventually reached out to

him

He gave them a copy of that recording

I just don't understand how you could even do that

to somebody let alone a child and then you hear

about the burning barrel then you hear about a chainsaw

I hate chainsaws

Sometimes that's all I can hear

Because that person in the recording has not been charged

we have made edits to remove words that would identify

the person and we've altered their voice

In the original story you never named the person on

the recording

Well no because you know they weren't charged so you

know why name the person if they're not facing charges

but then fast forward some months and they actually reached

out to me requesting to be interviewed

And who was it Cheri Devon Blake Devin's sister

OK my legal name is Cherish Devon

Cherish the little girl Avante Devon adopted before the boys

was now an adult

She wanted to talk about what she says she experienced

in the Devon household

I was being starved as well and being beaten and

locked into a bathroom as well you know it got

to the point where I was hiding dog food in

the vents just to

Eat because I was that hungry she said she was

there when Blake Devin died

I'm panicking

I'm crying because I'm scared

I was in the room when he took his last

breath

I was in the bathroom where he took his last

breath and I said he's not breathing

Something's wrong and she wouldn't listen to me

She confirmed she was the person on Nathan Mitchell's recording

Just to clarify that was you in that recording that

you're you're

Former partner provided what else did she say She said

Avante Devin made her dismember and dispose of Blake's body

It wasn't that I

Was like I wanted to do this on my own

again I was forced to do it

And 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 she

was using me and so I thought that

As a child because when I was in the foster

system I thought that that was love

I had no idea what love is so I trauma

bonded with her

She said she will testify if called to at trial

That's why I wanted to come on here today because

no one understands what we've been through just not me

not just me but 5 kids 55 kids

Just to torture them mentally and physically just torture them

Why Who does that Coming up just who is a

Monte Devin and how did she adopt 5 kids They

died

They went from one home

Into foster care got adopted and then died

What happened in the system that clearly failed these two

Someone needs to be held accountable because of Vonta Devin

It's not the only one at fought here

This is not London and Blake's fault and I'm sorry

I just feel like if you're going to take a

child away from their biological parents point blank

You should do some thorough investigation on that person you're

going to be handing that kid over to

She presented as someone who had had experience

Former Madison County DSA

Social worker Katherine Hubbard said certain things felt off about

Avante Devin but nothing she could take to a judge

There didn't seem to be any logical way that she

had the financial resources to have 5 children in her

home and yet she had been approved for that

Devin was a licensed foster parent from

2007 to 2013 through a nonprofit at the time called

Grandfather Homes

That role of checking on Avanta Devin's records was not

part of what was my job because she was licensed

through a private entity of grandfathered homes

The agency requires 40 hours of training and a background

check

The agency said Devon gave them 7 letters of recommendation

including 2 from behavioral health agencies

Cheri Devon said Avante Devon should have never been allowed

to adopt her or the other kid

There's no way on this god's earth that Ava could

have gotten away with adopting 5 kids single and with

9 different aliases

There's no way

We were all lied to and misled by someone who

Never had anyone else's best interests at heart

Fayetteville police released information in August of 2024 that Avanta

Devin had at least eight possible aliases

Detectives released this photo of Devon from the 1990s when

she went by Prentice Adams or Michelle Spiegel and I

don't understand

How all the different aliases and never caught up to

her until now

I have no idea how Grandfather Holmes and all these

agencies DSS and all them missed all that information

There are nearly 11,000 kids 21 and under in the

foster care system and 6000 foster care homes

North Carolina is one of just 9 states in the

country with a state-supervised county administered system that means the

state supervises 100 counties who all run their own programs

I think that having 100 counties administer statewide policy in

100 different ways is extremely problematic

Democratic

Senator Sydney Batch who represents Wake County is also a

family law attorney and social worker

I equate DHHS as a life coach

They're like Good job DSS

We want you to do really well

Oh by the way this is a new strategy or

a policy she said

It's really up to the county DSS director if they

even listen to the state

DHHS does not have the ability except for Very extreme

conditions to be able to go into a county and

really oversee what they're doing

You have counties some are performing really well

Some are struggling and some are in a state of

crisis

Karen McLeod runs the nonprofit Benchmarks and is a member

of the state's child fatality Task Force

She said of the nine states with a county administered

system

North Carolina spends the least so the cost of running

the child welfare system falls on the county

Those counties that are of lower wealth they have a

lot less money to be able to spend so they

have a lot more turnover which creates huge stressors for

There is no central statewide IT system for DSS departments

meaning a social worker in one county can't log on

and see a child's history from another county

The data and where children are in the state is

completely fragmented

If you wanted to know how many placements the child

had in the state of North Carolina where they were

where are you going to go I mean we're

Building a statewide system to track children and their well-being

etc

but we're still building it

There is no statewide central phone number or uniformed intake

system to report abuse or neglect

Right now every county has a number an individual number

that you call for a report of abuse and neglect

and that means that there's 100 different counties that are

reviewing those calls

Senator Batch introduced Senate Bill 625 in 2023 that would

have meant big changes to the child welfare system

And so when we filed the bill we gave DHHS

the ability to go ahead and have more oversight

It passed unanimously through the state Senate so it's a

really large swath of people that have actually supported the

bill

Unfortunately it stalled in the House and did not pass

before crossover

Who blocked it from my understanding and what I've been

told is Representative Sarah Stevens

She did not like the authority piece with regards to

oversight from the Department of Health and Human Services and

did not feel like they should have as much power

over local DSS offices

What I would say is if we had a functional

system right now we could continue to work with 100

different counties but we have children dying in care

Are there Republicans who support this effort Senator Bergen is

also someone that has worked with me tirelessly in the

child welfare space

Republican Senator Jim Bergen represents

Lee and Samson Counties I tell folks that every time

you take a child and and put them in a

different environment sleeping on a different pillow you chip off

a little piece of that child and eventually you know

you crack them and and uh we just can't keep

doing this

So the legislation that that failed um it passed the

Senate bipartisan support made it to the house now obviously

you're on the Senate side but there was a Republican

you know representative who

Blocked it Sarah Stevens Sarah and I are friends and

and and she's a lovely lady and a good legislator

and I think we just need I think there were

some things that we just didn't explain well enough and

we just need to sit down and go through things

with her and you know politics is a is a

funny thing sometimes timing is everything

Stevens told WREO

She thought the legislation was too broad and so did

the counties so I asked what should be changed for

a stronger and better system

She ignored our multiple requests to do an interview or

to clarify her comments

I don't know why you would sit there on your

hands and do nothing

Our kids deserve more

Batch plans to reintroduce a new version of the bill

in 2025

Even without the legislation DHHS said changes are happening to

the foster care system

We have a lot of things in progress

Susan Osborne is a deputy secretary at DHHS

She said there is now a regional system for the

100 counties

So we have 7 regions 14 or 15 counties in

each region

And one person supports each of those 14 or 15

counties in safety so they focus only on are you

making the right intake decisions Are you providing the right

good strong safety plans

The state will now reimburse family members up to $400

a month who step up to foster a child but

aren't licensed

This is called kinship care and we want to do

that because we know when kids are placed with their

families their well-being improves there's less trauma in their life

There are funds set aside for mental health

$22 million recurring dollars to focus on gaps in the

mental health system for children in foster care all improvements

to help what Osborne calls a struggling system

But not a broken one so I don't think we

meet the definition of broken

I I think um we are the system has struggled

We did interview all these people lawmakers social workers and

they do have some tough things to say right They

say the 100 county system doesn't work

There's no IT system so if they're saying it's broken

but as you as someone who's in charge is saying

it's not

Are you worried how that's gonna look We've made progress

and there are a lot of things in place now

that weren't in place 5 years ago and there will

be more on our list in the future

Next this isn't your typical story of where the mother

didn't fight

Felicia's fight to make sure no child ever slips through

the cracks

I did fight for my boys and I still am

and I always will

Felicia Chandler has been carrying her boys baby items and

stacks of paperwork and folders for more than a dozen

years now

They deserve to know the truth and that is one

reason I have kept and made sure to keep all

these files because you're probably wondering

What what made you keep all these things because one

day I hope I can sit down with them and

go through all this with them and explain to them

really what happened and tell them the truth cause there's

so much more there's so much more to this story

Seeing her two sons is something Felicia dreams about

I hope one day my my boys figure out who

I am

And I hope they would like to meet me

We are at the Madison County DSS

But she knows the system who took them away the

same system caring for the now teenagers would have to

make that happen

I really wish they would just give me my voice

back

It seemed pretty cut and dry and simple for them

to take them away from me and put them with

complete strangers but so

Complicated to

To just give them back to their mother

Here's Cheyenne just put those down and hold this one

She's stood in front of the Madison County DSS office

several times with posters hoping to share their story

I don't want Trenton to be forgotten

I don't want his brothers to be forgotten

I don't want Mariah

London to be forgotten

All their stories deserve to be told

She's fighting to get the state to do some sort

of check in on kids at least 6 months after

they're adopted even if foster parents don't sign up for

financial assistance

I hope all all moms dads grandparents aunts uncles I

hope every one of them there is to help stand

and fight this with me but if not that's OK

Because I I will do it by myself

I'm just hoping not to this time

I hope this message finds Deben and Gabriel

I am your biological mother

Felicia Chandler

I was really hoping to be able to Tell you

this in a different way

But here we are And I just want you to

know that I love you both so very much

Always have always will

There is not A day that goes by that I

don't think about y'all or look at y'all's pictures or

I long for the day

To meet you boys to see you again

I'm always here

If you ever need anything

I'm always here

I'm always here

And I do love you very much