After 12 days of harrowing testimony, jurors on Wednesday discovered a West Virginia couple responsible of kid neglect and human trafficking, amongst different prices.
Jeanne Whitefeather, 63, and Donald Lantz, 65, resist 215 years and 160 years in jail, respectively, and fines totaling $2.4 million every. They’ll be sentenced March 19 after being discovered responsible on 31 of 35 felony counts in opposition to them.
The white couple had adopted 5 Black youngsters, all siblings. Testimony revealed the children lived in squalor and degradation and endured years of bodily abuse and racist taunts.
Whitefeather and Lantz had been arrested in October 2023 of their dwelling close to Charleston, West Virginia, after a neighbor advised police she noticed Lantz lock the couple’s two oldest youngsters into the barn they had been compelled to stay in.
Deputies had to make use of a sledgehammer to interrupt into the ability, the place they discovered a 16-year-old lady and 14-year-old boy reeking of physique odor with sores on their ft. They slept on a concrete flooring with no bedding and shared a bucket as a bathroom. Inside the primary residence, a 9-year-old lady was discovered alone crying in a loft with no guardrail, in accordance with prosecutors.
Kanawha County Prosecuting Lawyer Debra Rusnak mentioned she was overwhelmed with emotion once they heard the jury’s verdict.
“These circumstances imply loads to us — we take plenty of this personally,” she mentioned at a information convention afterward. “That is our group, and these are the kids of our group. If we’re not going to combat for them, then who will?”
Whitefeather and Lantz adopted the 5 siblings whereas residing in Minnesota. They took the kids with them to Washington state in 2018 earlier than settling in West Virginia in Might 2023, when the kids ranged in age from 5 to 16.
A monetary intelligence analyst who reviewed the couple’s financial institution statements testified they pocketed $318,000 in baby help from the state of Minnesota alone.
When she was arrested, Whitefeather appeared shocked, a detective testified. She later advised a welfare employee that the children “favored it” within the barn, which her lawyer had likened to a “teenage hangout.”
Three of the couple’s youngsters testified within the case. The eldest sibling, now 18, advised jurors the kids had been made to face of their rooms for hours “to stop us from falling asleep.” In addition they had been ordered to maintain their arms on their heads, and in the event that they didn’t, Whitefeather would douse them with pepper spray, the teenager testified.
As prosecutors introduced pictures inside the house, the 18-year-old recalled an incident the place Lantz hit one in every of her brothers on the pinnacle with a PVC pipe.
The oldest sibling mentioned the kids had been cursed at “on a regular basis,” particularly by Whitefeather, who was discovered responsible on 4 counts of civil rights violations.
The youngsters lived on a food plan of peanut butter sandwiches, a few of which had been left over from a earlier meal. They weren’t allowed to eat besides throughout these scheduled feedings and drank solely water after their meals, the 18-year-old testified.
She had solely a sleeping bag on the ground within the barn wherein to sleept, whereas her teenage brother was given only a piece of cardboard to make use of a pillow. The oldest baby mentioned she went about two months with out showering or brushing her enamel.
She was additionally denied menstrual merchandise.
They labored daily, carrying provides, gardening, digging holes for timber, clearing land, gathering water from a creek and taking care of the animals on their farm. {The teenager} mentioned generally, the kids had been compelled to make use of their arms to dig. Not one of the youngsters obtained any education.
After neighbors seen them performing laborious labor outdoor, the 18-year-old testified they spent most of their time inside.
“By then, Jeanne wasn’t saying something to me,” the teenager mentioned. “We had been all the time locked up.”
She ran away as soon as whereas the household lived in Washington however returned after two days.
She mentioned she wouldn’t have left once more if the door wasn’t locked as a result of she knew her siblings could be severely punished in her stead.
A video surveillance system was put in after the oldest boy tried to run away “as a result of Jeanne mentioned she didn’t belief us,” the daughter testified. “She advised us to cease being silly.”
The daughter testified that when the household lived in Washington, the kids had been made to sleep in tents on a hill as a result of Whitefeather advised them, “We had been soiled and that we stunk.”
“I felt like I wasn’t ever going to get out of that state of affairs,” she mentioned.
Whitefeather, the oldest baby, testified that she gave preferential remedy to her youngest sibling, who was 5.
“She would inform us on a regular basis, she wished to go together with (the youngest lady) with out the remainder of them, and the way they’re losing time on us as a result of we might by no means quantity to something,” {the teenager} mentioned.
In his closing argument, Whitefeather’s lawyer, Mark Vegetation, mentioned that the couple was solely responsible of constructing poor parenting choices. The protection maintained the couple was merely overwhelmed with making an attempt to get assist for the kids’s psychological well being points, abuse and trauma from their organic dwelling.
The youngsters at the moment are residing individually, with the oldest boy present process psychological remedy.
