Mom of 4 Young Boys Who Died in House Fire Convicted After She Left Them Locked in to Go Shopping

Mar. 15, 2025

Twins Bryson and Kyson and Leyton and Logan Hoath.Photo:Metropolitan Police

Metropolitan Police

A woman has been convicted of manslaughter over the deaths of her four young children in a house fire in London.

Deveca Rose, 30, appeared in court on Thursday, Oct. 3, after leaving her two sets of twin boys locked up at home while she went out shopping on Dec. 16, 2021. The boys were then trapped in a fire at the house in the Sutton area of south London, and died, the Metropolitan Police stated in anews release.

Rose had been charged with four counts of manslaughter and child abandonment on Nov. 9, 2023. She was convicted of manslaughter on Oct. 3, according to the release, but not found guilty of the second charge.

Deveca Rose has been charged with manslaughter over her four children.Metropolitan Police

TheBBCreported that the time that the four children had run to the upper floor of the house to cry for help, but had not been able to escape the property.

Roses' four twin boys were killed in a house fire in South London in December 2021.SplashNews

SplashNews

Call data on the mother’s mobile phone “showed no contact details” of the woman ‘Jade.’ On the night of the incident, Rose also attempted to call ‘Jade’ in front of police using a phone number “notably similar to her own,” per the release.

Rose said in a statement in December 2021 that she would “never get over” the loss of her sons, per U.K. newspaperThe Times.

According to an Oct. 3 report fromThe Times,the Old Bailey had previously been told that five months before the fire social workers had determined the family needed assistance, but after Rose “refused to engage," the case was closed.

Rose was sentenced on Oct. 3.Jordan Pettitt/PA Images via Getty

Jordan Pettitt/PA Images via Getty

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The boys’ family said in a statement on Oct. 3: “Bryson, Kyson, Leyton and Logan Hoath were cruelly taken from us in a senseless act of negligence. The impact this has had on us, their father Dalton, and our family cannot be overstated."

“The last three years have been a nightmare,” they described, adding that the family “will now take time to heal" and that “justice is done.”

“This has been a difficult investigation for everyone involved,” Detective Chief Inspector Samantha Townsend of the Met’s Specialist Crime Command said in a statement on Oct. 3. “Deveca Rose was the very person who should have protected and nurtured the four boys, but instead, put her own self-interest above their safety.”

“Had she been in the house when the fire started she may have been able to put it out, or at the very least get the children to safety," DCI Townsend added.

DCI Townsend described “the sadness at the needless loss of four young lives," as “beyond our comprehension.”

Rose was released on bail on Oct. 3 and will appear again in court on Friday, Nov. 15 for sentencing.

source: people.com