A couple was found guilty by a jury in West Virginia of neglecting and mistreating their adopted children by putting some of them in a shed, making them sleep on the floor, and making them use buckets as toilets.
Jeanne Kay Whitefeather was found guilty on all 19 of the charges against her, which included child maltreatment, human trafficking, civil rights crimes, and forced labor.
Donald Ray Lantz, her spouse, was convicted on 12 of 16 counts. Four charges of civil rights abuses were dropped against him.
The couple’s trial started in mid-January, and the jury pondered for eight hours before returning a decision on Wednesday.
Whitefeather and Lantz, who are white, were charged with abusing their Black children.
While residing in Minnesota, they adopted the five siblings. In 2018, they relocated to a farm in Washington state, and in May 2023, with children ages 5 to 16, they took the family to West Virginia.
After neighbors witnessed Lantz lock the eldest child and her adolescent brother in a shed and depart the home, the pair was taken into custody in October 2023. To free them, a deputy used a crowbar.
According to a criminal complaint, a 9-year-old child was discovered sobbing by herself in a loft without any safety measures in place. When Lantz finally returned, he had a fourth child. Later, the couple’s youngest daughter was shown to the deputies.
According to deputies, the oldest boy was discovered barefoot with what looked like lesions on his feet, while the other youngsters were found wearing filthy clothes and smelling of body odor.
Following the couple’s arrest, all five were given to Child Protective Services.
Neighbors said throughout the trial that they never saw the kids play and that Lantz forced them to stand in line or do challenging tasks in the yard, such as moving heavy objects.
The kids generally stayed inside after Lantz saw the interested neighbors.
According to the couple’s 18-year-old eldest daughter, the majority of the outside labor took place in Washington, and some of them had to dig with their hands.
She said that the kids were given a consistent diet of peanut butter sandwiches at set times, some of which were leftover from an earlier meal.
Some children were made to stand with their hands on their heads for hours in their quarters. While one held up a sheet for privacy, the oldest girl and boy shared a room and the same bucket for bathroom breaks.
She added that the kids hardly took a bath and slept on the floor.
Lantz testified that the chores were given to the kids to teach them responsibility, and the parents and their lawyers denied the accusations.
According to Whitefeather’s lawyer, the shed’s lock was put in place to prevent the oldest boy from attempting to flee the house again.
The older kids had a key and could go whenever they wanted, according to Whitefeather, who referred to the shed as a “teenager hangout.”
Detectives discovered a key hidden on top of a cabinet in the shed, but testimony indicated the kids were clueless about its location.
The couple’s strategies, according to the prosecution, were more about control than they were about teaching responsibility.
“These kids weren’t there to be raised as children, but served another purpose entirely,” Kanawha County Assistant Prosecutor Chris Krivonyak stated.
“The whole point of treating them this way is they become less than human,” Krivonyak continued. “They become more like machines. That way they’re more useful.”
“How do you do that to someone you love?”
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Additionally, prosecutors included racist text messages they claimed were written by Whitefeather—who denied doing so—as evidence. According to the eldest daughter’s testimony, Whitefeather used racial words and the kids were cursed “all the time.”
The girl said that Whitefeather also objected to eating from the same plates that the others used, calling them “dirty.”
“You want to know what racists look like?” Madison Tuck, the assistant prosecutor, gestured at the accused after asking the jury. “Look at them.”
The defense contended that the couple was just overburdened with the demands of seeking assistance for the children’s trauma, abuse, and persistent mental health problems from their birth family.
The state’s child welfare agency, from which the family repeatedly sought assistance, “dropped the ball the most in this case,” according to Lantz’s lawyer, John Balenovich.
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Although there was a behavioral health clinic four minutes from their house in West Virginia, Tuck said the couple never took the oldest kid there for treatment for his mental health problems.
The prosecution’s forensic psychologist testified that the children’s ailments had gotten worse as a result of the couple’s care of them.
The oldest kid is currently receiving full-time care in a psychiatric facility after a physical incident with Whitefeather in 2022, which lawyers said marked the beginning of the family’s severe internal conflicts.
During his closing statement, Whitefeather’s lawyer, Mark Plants, claimed that the couple was only at fault for their bad parenting choices.
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