Tough one. (Kidding!)
In October 2023, a call to child welfare in Sissonville, West Virginia led authorities to a locked shed at the the home of Jeanne Kay Whitefeather, 62, and Donald Ray Lantz, 63. When they pried open the lock on the door, police found the couple’s 18-year-old daughter and her 16-year-old brother, both clad in filthy clothes, with a Port-a-Potty, no light, and no running water. One of the teens told police they had been locked in the barn without food for 12 hours, and had been forced to sleep on the concrete floor.
Police then broke into the main residence and discovered a 9-year-old girl, crying. Three hours later, Lantz arrived with an 11-year-old boy; Whitefeather soon followed with his 5-year-old sister. All five of the couple’s children were taken into custody by Child Protective Services as their parents were arrested. An investigation revealed that Lantz and Whitefeath had adopted the five black siblings in Minnesota, moved to a farm in Washington state in 2018, then moved to Sissonville in May of 2023.
The indictment stated that the couple targeted the five children because of they were black, and forced them into involuntary labor…slavery. Neighbors testified for the prosecution that they never saw the children playing but did see them standing in line and performing hard labor. The oldest daughter testified that most of their outdoor work took place at the family’s Washington farm, where some of them were forced to dig using only their bare hands. Testimony indicated that the children’s meals mostly consisted of peanut butter sandwiches at scheduled times.
Jeanne Kay Whitefeather was sentenced to 215 years in prison and Donald Lantz to 160 years after a jury found them guilty of forced labor, human trafficking, child abuse and neglect. “You brought these children to West Virginia, a place that I know as ‘almost heaven,’ and you put them in hell. This court will now put you in yours,” Circuit Judge Maryclaire Akers told the defendants at their sentencing last week. “And may God have mercy on your souls. Because this court will not.”
In a humorous note to this horrible story, the couple’s attorneys approached some kind of record for desperate defense arguments. Their basic strategy was to claim the couple was just “overwhelmed,” and that being bad parents isn’t a crime. Whitefeather’s attorney, Mark Plants, said during closing arguments “These are farm people that do farm chores,” Plants said. “It wasn’t about race. It wasn’t about forced labor.”
Right. I don’t think that even qualifies as a “nice try.”
I would like to know how a couple is approved to adopt five children without rigorous screening. I know that it is desirable to keep siblings together if possible—they had been removed from their biological parents after being abused by them—but five seems excessive unless the adoptive family is named Kennedy or Warbucks.
Ethics Alarms 
Based on the headline I thought this was going to be a Harry and Meghan article.
Though it’s easier to conclude they’re unethical than the couple in the article.
I wonder if Whitefeather claimed Native American ancestry and her defense was that it is in her cultural to take children hostage and put them to work in fields
Yeah, the headline made a point that they couple was “white.” I wondered about that too…
Based on the information provided in EA’s post, the child abuse and neglect charges were certainly justified, but what was the basis for the forced labor and human trafficking charges? Was it just because the oldest sibling was already 18, or (as my attorney husband opined) the State’s Attorney & perhaps the judge “wanted to move on to bigger & better things”? Also, a 20 or 30-year sentence, given the defendants’ ages and assuming no parole, would have sufficed to ensure that this couple would never again harm another child, so the century-plus sentences given seem a bit over the top. Agreed that this couple were horrible people and deserved long stays in prison, but over a hundred years each?
Sincerely,Catherine McClarey(NB: Unable to log into the EA combox with my Facebook credentials again, hence the email comment.)
Excellent point, and one I should have picked up on. The link emphasizes that the oldest was 18, so her abuse alone must account for the forced labor count. It must be technically impossible to prosecute parents for forcing labor on their legally adopted children.
Hey, it’s another “Snow White” connection! Snow was turned into a castle worker by the evil Queen, her stepmother, but in the fairy tale Snow White was just 16…the Queen was a bad parent, but not a slaveholder.