Teen describes tumultuous life in trial of adoptive parents accused of neglect and forced labor

CHARLESTON, W.Va. (AP) — A teenager whose discovery in a locked shed led to the arrest of her adoptive parents testified Friday that she and her siblings lived a tumultuous life in substandard conditions , including being forced to sleep on the floor and use buckets as toilets.

The eldest daughter’s testimony capped the first week of the trial of Jeanne Kay Whitefeather and Donald Ray Lantz, accused of mistreating their five adopted children, all of whom were black. Whitefeather and Lantz, who are white, each face more than a dozen counts, including forced labor, civil rights violations, human trafficking and gross child neglect.

At the couple’s arraignment last June, Kanawha County Circuit Judge MaryClaire Akers said the indictment alleges the children. were used as “slaves”.

Facebook messages seeking comment from the couple’s lawyers were not immediately returned Friday evening.

On the stand, the girl, now 18, was the first sister to testify. She described a difficult life in the years following their adoption. Akers ordered media outlets not to publish the teen’s name.

The children were forced to stay up in their rooms for hours “to keep us from falling asleep,” she testified. They were also told to keep their hands on their heads, and Whitefeather often used pepper spray on them if they didn’t, the teen said.

“It was all day, then I would fall asleep and do it again the next day,” she said.

During her testimony, the teen described photos shown from the home in which she said Lantz yelled at one of the children for not listening and hit the boy in the head with a PVC pipe.

The older brother said the children were yelled at “all the time,” particularly by Whitefeather, who used racist and derisive language.

The couple adopted all five siblings while living in Minnesota. They moved to a farm in Washington state in 2018 before moving again to West Virginia in 2023, when the children were ages 5 to 16.

A financial intelligence analyst who reviewed bank records said Friday that Lantz and Whitefeather pocketed $318,000 in Minnesota child aid alone.

Whitefeather and Lantz were arrested in October 2023 when neighbors called the police reporting seeing Lantz lock the older daughter and her teenage brother in the shed and leave the property.

All five children were placed in the custody of Child Protective Services. The teenage daughter said she currently speaks to her siblings once a week, but does not live with them and cannot see them.

The teen said the children were fed a diet of peanut butter sandwiches during scheduled meals, some of which were leftovers from a previous meal. Children were not allowed to eat at other times if they were hungry and were only allowed to drink water after finishing their meal.

The girl used a sleeping bag on the floor, while her teenage brother slept on the floor with only a piece of cardboard for a pillow. Children rarely bathed. The girl said she went about two months without showering or brushing her teeth.

She also said she was not provided with menstrual products, even though she requested them from Whitefeather.

Lantz would drop off food for the children in their rooms and take care of their daily chores, including carrying supplies, gardening, digging holes for trees, clearing land, drawing water from a stream, and tending to animals on their farm. The teenager said some children were forced to use their hands to dig.

She said the exterior work took place primarily on a farm in Washington. These tasks stopped in West Virginia when neighbors saw children waiting in line or doing heavy labor. Afterwards, the children mostly stayed indoors.

“At that point, Jeanne no longer said anything to me,” the teenager said. “We were still locked up. »

She said the door to the shed where she and her brother slept and where they were kept when Whitefeather and Lantz left was locked with a key needed to open it on both sides. She said she wouldn’t have left if the door wasn’t locked because she was afraid her siblings would take the brunt of Whitefeather’s punishment.

Lawyers handling the case said the older boy had tried to run away from home and the shed lock was intended to prevent him from trying again. A video surveillance system was installed “because Jeanne said she didn’t trust us,” the girl testifies. “She told us to stop being stupid.”

The daughter said she also ran away from home when the family lived in Washington.

“I felt like I was never going to get out of this situation,” she said. She returned after two days.

Just before the couple’s arrest, the teenager and the older boy shared a bedroom, including the same bucket for going to the toilet, while the other child held a sheet for privacy.

When the family lived in Washington, the daughter said the children were forced to sleep in tents on a hill because Whitefeather said “we were dirty and we stank.” She said Whitefeather used the same reasoning in not using the same dishes the children used.

The teen said she attended public school in Washington until the COVID-19 pandemic began, but received no formal education after arriving in West Virginia.

She said Whitefeather gave preferential treatment to the youngest child, aged 5. Whitefeather had told the other children that she wanted to live without them.

“She told us all the time that she wanted to go with (the youngest daughter) without the others, and that she was wasting time with us because we would never achieve anything,” the teenager said.