A 63-year-old woman in the US has been arrested and charged with killing two of her adopted children after their bodies were discovered inside a burn barrel. According to the Independent, two of Avantae Deven’s adopted children, Blake and London Deven, hadn’t been seen for years. London was last seen in 2019, but her mother never reported her missing. Blake hasn’t been seen since 2022, but Deven didn’t report him missing until earlier this year. 

Authorities in Fayetteville, North Carolina were alerted of the situation in 2023 after one of her surviving foster children made a mental health call to police. When cops investigated the multiple homes the family had lived in, they found remains at multiple residences. Detectives found a burn barrel with partial human remains inside it. Forensic tests revealed that they belonged to a female aged 15 to 19 and a male aged 7 to 10. 

Investigators believe that Deven abused the children and ultimately killed and dismembered them. As per NBC affiliate WRAL, London died of starvation and neglect while testing continues on the boy’s remains.

More chilling details released by the authorities this week revealed that the siblings, along with three other adopted children, had lived in brutal conditions while in the care of Deven. Blake and London were adopted by Deven in 2013 and 2011 respectively, according to court documents obtained by ABC11.

They were kept in a small, dark room and given little to no food. They were allegedly able to “earn” food by writing hundreds of paragraphs to apologise for their behaviour. The children told social workers that they were also beaten at times to the point where they would have needed medical assistance.

During a press conference, police said they have the forensic evidence to support allegations of torture, starvation, and isolation. 

”We believe he (Blake) was mentally abused and starved. His body could not sustain the inhumane treatment. Then, Avantae developed a plan to hide Blake’s remains. She forced another person in the household to participate,” Sgt. Locklear said. London Deven died ”in the same painful way that Blake died, starvation and neglect,” Mr Locklear added. 

Deven is now facing two counts of first-degree murder, concealment of death, kidnapping and felony child abuse, according to the Fayetteville Police Department.  She is being held at the Cumberland County Detention Center with no bond.

“All of us have soft spots for children and cases with children are the most difficult that we deal with. The fact that this involves allegations of the abuse in the death of children was certainly the thing that grabbed my attention first, particularly how the allegations suggest the way they died,” Cumberland County District Attorney Billy West said. 

A woman in the US was sentenced on Friday to at least nine years in prison for manslaughter after she fed her diabetic daughter a diet consisting mainly of Mountain Dew. According to the New York Post, her 4-year-old daughter Karmity Hoeb died in January 2022 from complications related to diabetes and severe dental decay.

Prosecutors said Tamara Banks caused her daughter’s death through malnutrition and lack of proper medical care. She often gave the girl bottles of baby formula mixed with the neon-green sugary soda. Many of the girl’s teeth had rotten away at the time of her death, the court heard.

Mountain Dew notably contains 77 grams of sugar, far more than the less than 24 grams recommended by experts, according to the report. The little girl’s father, Christopher Hoeb, 53, also pleaded guilty to involuntary manslaughter and is set to be sentenced on June 11.

NEW: Cincinnati parents Christopher Hoeb and Tamara Banks plead guilty to involuntary manslaughter of their 4 year old daughter.

The child was almost exclusively fed Mountain Dew. They went as far as to mix it in with baby formula.

The parents were originally indicted with… pic.twitter.com/CbaamYxzI6

— Joshua Walker (@RedsRepair95) April 28, 2024

“This is one of the most tragic cases I have ever encountered. This child did not have to die,” Clermont County Assistant Prosecuting Attorney Clay Tharp said.

The case came to light when the girl suffered a “serious medical issue” in January 2022. Her symptoms worsened as the days progressed and her mother only called 911 after she turned blue and stopped breathing, the Cincinnati Inquirer reported. 

First responders were able to revive the child for a short time before taking her to the hospital, where doctors performed scans that showed she was brain dead. An autopsy showed that she died from a diabetes-related brain injury and being fed a sugary drink through a bottle that dissolved her teeth. She was never taken to the dentist, the paper reported.

Prosecutors also pointed out Banks has several other grown children who were treated poorly in her custody, including a son who fell into a coma at 4 years old from previously undiagnosed diabetes.

However, Banks regularly refilled her prescriptions and even had doctors visit her apartment to ensure that her medical needs were met.

“It’s hard to be a good parent but you expect at least mediocre parents, everybody should expect that. Not knowing what to do is not an excuse, the judge said during Friday’s hearing. 

Under Ohio state law, Banks could serve as much as 13 and a half years if the Department of Rehabilitation and Correction decides to extend her sentence based on behaviour while jailed.

An American woman travelling on American Airlines Flight 2790 from Punta Cana, Dominican Republic, to Charlotte, North Carolina, tragically passed away after experiencing a sudden illness on the flight, according to The New York Post.

The 41-year-old passenger, identified by family members as an Indiana mother of two, became ill during the flight, prompting the crew to divert the plane to Providenciales International Airport in the Turks and Caicos Islands.

Despite the crew’s efforts to revive the woman and the prompt response of medical personnel upon landing, she was pronounced dead at the local hospital. The Royal Turks and Caicos Island Police Force confirmed the incident and stated that a post-mortem examination will be conducted to determine the cause of death, according to the news outlet.

“A commercial flight was diverted to the Turks and Caicos this evening after a female passenger fell ill mid-flight. At 6:12 pm, the Police Control Room received a call from the Air Traffic Control Tower requesting medical assistance for a 41-year-old female, who at the time was receiving cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR),” reads the Facebook post.

While the official identification of the dead is pending, a woman on Facebook also identified the passenger as her sister-in-law.

“We are in disbelief, and our hearts are broken,” Stephanie Quinn wrote in response to the Royal Turks and Caicos Island Police Force’s announcement.

Quinn described her sister-in-law as the only girl out of five siblings and the mother of two “beautiful children with big hearts and straight as.”

“She is still down there, so please take good care of her as she ventures home,” pleaded Quinn, who did not immediately respond to messages Friday.

A woman in the US has opened up about her unique illness – Aquagenic Urticaria or allergy to water. Tessa Hansen-Smith told ABC News that she developed the allergy when she was 8 and it has worsened over the years. She played, swam and drank lots of water as a child but after the onset of the disease, she started developing symptoms. Taking baths or drinking water causes itching, rashes and hives on her skin. Ms Hansen-Smith has shared more about the journey and hospitalisations on Instagram.

“I would come out of showers and have huge welts on my skin, and my scalp would be bleeding after showering,” she told ABC News.

“So, the first things we kind of did was, ‘OK, let’s take away your shampoos, take away your conditioner, take away any soaps you’re using’,” Ms Hansen-Smith added.

Drinking water causes a burning sensation in her throat and body so the 25-year-old claims she drinks milk because the fats and proteins and sugars in milk help the water molecules to “sneak past” her immune system.

Her mother Karen Hansen-Smith is a doctor who has seen many rare illnesses, but watching her own daughter suffer is very difficult.

“I feel a little guilty as a mom for not having seen when she would get out of the shower that she had hives and figuring it out way earlier that it was a water issue,” she told the outlet.

“It is heartbreaking. I still have my daughter. But she’s not living the life she wanted to live,” the doctor said.

Ms Hansen-Smith has an older sister who does not have a water allergy.

The family has set up a GoFundMe page to pay the bill for her recent hospital stay, which rose to $8,000 (Rs 6.65 lakh). She has thanked all her supporters for helping them collect $10,000 in just three months, which will also help her in doctor’s appointments, follow ups and physical therapy.

But she has had her tough moments. Ms Hansen-Smith said the scepticism of people around her was more painful than the condition.

“When I did tell people about it in college, I would have people try to purposely splash water on me, or I would have people throw ice cubes at me,” she told ABC News.

However, despite her condition, Ms Hansen-Smith thrived in college. She attended UC Davis after graduating from Clovis Unified’s Buchanan High School.

She takes walks but must avoid sweating too much, so she spends much of her days indoors, working on art, playing with her cats and reading.

It is that estimated only 100 to 250 people have Aquagenic Urticaria worldwide.

A 10-year-old boy and his sister, aged 11, were arrested in Florida for taking their mother’s car and going for a joyride in the middle of the night after she took away their electronic devices. According to local news outlet KBTX, the siblings were stopped by the police on a highway around 3.50am on Thursday (September 21). They were surprised to see the 10-year-old boy driving the car and his sister sitting on the passenger’s seat. The car had been reported stolen out of North Port.

Their mother had filed a missing person complaint.

The Alachua County Sheriff’s Office said the siblings were upset because their mother took away their gadgets. It’s believed the gadgets were taken away because the children “were not using them appropriately”, the police were quoted as saying by the outlet.

The children were spotted during a “high risk traffic stop” as the white sedan had been reported stolen, the police said in a Facebook post.

“It was learned that the siblings had been reported as missing to the North Port Police Department and that the stolen vehicle belonged to their mother,” the post said.

The police further said that they called the mother of the children who said she doesn’t want to pursue charges and drove 3 hours north to Alachua County to take custody of the boy and the girl.

The police’s social media post included two photos of the children exiting the vehicle with their hands raised. The department covered their faces in the images to conceal their identities.

NBC News said the brother and the sister had travelled about 200 miles (320 kilometres) from home.

A police officer told the outlet that the driver could have been booked on an allegation of driving without a license. However, it is a misdemeanour traffic violation and would not lead to detention in a juvenile facility, the officer added.

“Our detectives did speak with their mother at length,” the sheriff’s office told NBC News. She “was clearly doing her best to raise two young children and she was very receptive to the recommendations they provided in helping her get assistance”.

A 21-year-old woman in the US had a narrow escape when a sharp chunk of metal blasted through her Jeep windshield and impaled itself only inches away from her face. The woman told police she was driving south near Mile 61 on the Maine Turnpike in Gray at about 10:20 a.m. when a vehicle in front of her ran over and kicked up a piece of metal debris.

Images from the scene shared by Maine State Police show the metal piece sticking out of the red Jeep Wrangler on the driver’s side. Thankfully, the woman was able to pull over to the side of the road, as per the police. 

See the pictures here:

On Tuesday morning State Police responded to a crash near Mile 61 on the Maine Turnpike in Gray. The driver, a 21 year old woman from New Hampshire was traveling SB when a vehicle traveling in the same direction in front of her ran over and kicked up a piece of metal road debris pic.twitter.com/3heM5tKux2

— Maine State Police (@MEStatePolice) September 5, 2023

She suffered only minor injuries and was checked by paramedics on the scene. Troopers safely reunited her with her family upon leaving the crash scene. Owing to the accident, one lane was shut down for approximately 1 hour. 

Internet users who saw the pictures were left terrified and were happy and relieved to know that the woman was safe. 

One user wrote, ”Lucky had a guardian angel.” Another commented, ”Most terrifying and it happens too often.”

A third said, ”Glad she’s ok! She should play the lottery!” A fourth added, ”Never assume that things are just fine for the cars in front of you. Leave room. Remember the old adage of a car’s length per 10 mph of speed. If you don’t have a patient on the table, throttle back. Arrive in one healthy piece.”