A West Virginia jury convicted Donald Lantz and Jeanne Whitefeather of forcing their adopted children to perform hard labor and live in squalid conditions. The couple faced charges including forced labor, civil rights violations, human trafficking, and child neglect. Whitefeather was found guilty on all 19 counts, while Lantz was convicted on 12 out of 16 counts.
The trial revealed harrowing details of the children’s lives. The siblings, all Black, were adopted by Lantz and Whitefeather, who are white, while living in Minnesota. They moved to Washington state in 2018 and then to West Virginia in 2023. The children, aged 5 to 16, were forced to sleep on the floor, use buckets as toilets, and perform grueling chores like digging holes and gathering water from a creek.
Testimony from the eldest daughter, now 18, described being locked in a shed with her brother and enduring verbal and physical abuse. She recounted being pepper-sprayed and forced to stand for hours. The children were fed a diet of peanut butter sandwiches and were rarely allowed to bathe.
The couple was arrested in October 2023 after neighbors reported seeing Lantz lock the children in a shed. Prosecutors argued that the couple’s actions were about control, not discipline. Racist text messages from Whitefeather were presented as evidence, which she denied writing.
The defense claimed the couple was overwhelmed by the children’s mental health issues and blamed the state’s child welfare agency for failing to provide support. However, prosecutors noted that the couple never sought medical help for the children in West Virginia despite living near a behavioral health clinic.
All five children are now under the care of Child Protective Services.
Whitefeather faces a maximum sentence of 215 years in jail, while her husband faces up to 75 years behind bars. They will be sentenced on March 19.
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