We dwell in a home the place a mom killed her 4 kids… right here is how locals deal with us otherwise to all our neighbours
Neighbours of a mother jailed over the death of her four young sons who died in a house fire remain ‘traumatised’ from the deadly inferno more than three years on.
Deveca Rose, 30, was jailed for 10 years after she left her two sets of twins to die alone in a horror house fire while she went shopping with a friend.
The single mother left her children surrounded by rubbish and human faeces in a locked home in Sutton, south London, as she popped out to buy ‘non essential’ items at the supermarket.
Kyson and Bryson, aged four, and Leyton and Logan, aged three died in hospital after the blaze broke out in December 2021.
Onlookers saw all four boys being rescued from the house unconscious and given CPR dressed in their pyjamas. The house, which went up in flames, believed to be sparked by a discarded cigarette or upturned tea light was renovated and a family, the first since the tragedy, have been living there since June 2023.
The current occupants told MailOnline: ‘I really sympathise with her as a mother. She was in such a vulnerable state, and clearly desperately needed support.’
They said the house is ‘completely new’ but groups of teenagers cruelly knock on the door on Halloween referencing the deaths of the boys. They added: ‘There’s nothing scary it’s just devastatingly sad. It’s a constant reminder, it’s part of the history all we can do is respect and honour it.’
Ian Rooke, 70, a retired distribution manager told MailOnline: ‘The street was in shock. It was ominously quiet. The only noises were the screaming of the ambulance and the fire brigade.
Kyson and Bryson, aged four, and Leyton and Logan, aged three, all perished in the fire
Emergency workers carried out CPR on the four boys on the street outside the burning building (pictured) but they were all declared dead in hospital shortly after
Deveca left her two sets of twins in the locked terraced house on the evening of December 16 2021
The house (pictured) went up in flames while Deveca was at the shops. It is believed to have be sparked by a discarded cigarette or upturned tea light
‘The fire engine was at the end of the street, so they were here within minutes. They couldn’t get into the house because the front of the property was on fire.
‘They entered through the back of the building up the stairs and found the children unconscious or dead. More than likely unconscious due to the smoke.
‘They broke the children out. Everyone on the street could see them. The ambulance crew were doing CPR on the children on the street. It was something you see in a movie. It’s not something you see in your own street. It took a couple of days before it actually sunk in that the boys had died.’
Rose sobbed in the dock, wearing a hood over her head, as she heard the victim impact statements before she was jailed for 10 years on Friday on four counts of manslaughter.
As she was sent to prison for a decade, the youngsters’ step-grandmother said justice had been done.
Neighbour Ryan told MailOnline she should have been jailed for ten years per child.
Willem Blekkenhorst, 51, a funeral director who lived just doors down from Ms Rose, told MailOnline: ‘I absolutely feel for the woman you lose your kids, four of them in one go and people think the worst of you, but nobody knows what happened, I obviously feel bad for her.
‘She used to walk past with the kids they were funny, cheeky they were so young they were always together the four of them when the boys were out, they were with their mum.
‘They would ask to see my cat, they waited at the door and I brought him out. They were gentle with him. The kids always looked well-dressed they always had good haircuts they looked like really happy boys.’
A mural and bench remembering the tragic loss of the boys sits inside the Collingwood Recreational Ground, just 200 metres away from the house
The boys were rushed to two separate hospitals, but attempts to save them failed and they died from inhalation of fumes later that night
Mr Rooke added: ‘I saw the kids going up and down the street, they were nice kids, genuinely nice kids. As far as I knew she was a good mother.
‘They were clean and well prepared. They were always smartly dressed going to school, didn’t have any silly haircuts.’
Another neighbour, who wished to remain anonymous said: ‘It’s a difficult one because we don’t know what the cause was it’s tragic because she’s lost all four kids.
‘It was horrific and indescribable. It was all cornered off so everyone was trying to do what they could, traumatic is the word.’
Multiple neighbours, three years on, said the fire was still too traumatic to talk about.
A mural and bench remembering the tragic loss of the boys sits inside the Collingwood Recreational Ground, just 200 metres away from the house.
The family had been living in squalor when tragedy struck. The home was so full of rubbish it made the fire spread quicker and human excrement was found smeared on the walls.
‘The kids they were funny, cheeky they were so young they were always together the four of them,’ a neighbour said
The children had also not attended school for three weeks before the fire broke out.
On December 16, Rose went to Sainsbury’s leaving the young children at the rented home alone.
She later arrived back while firefighters were still tackling the blaze and was taken in by a neighbour.
The boys were rushed to two separate hospitals, but attempts to save them failed and they died from inhalation of fumes later that night.
Rose claimed she had left the children with a friend called Jade, which prompted firefighters to go back into the house to search for her.
Police carried out extensive inquiries to find Jade and concluded she either did not exist or had not been at the house that day.
