Teenager describes tumultuous life at trial of adoptive parents accused of neglect and forced labor

[January 18, 2025]  By JOHN RABY

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 tumultuous lives in substandard conditions, including being forced to sleep on the floor and use buckets as toilets.

The oldest daughter's testimony wrapped the first week in the trial of Jeanne Kay Whitefeather and Donald Ray Lantz, who are accused of mistreating their five adopted children, all of whom are Black. Whitefeather and Lantz, who are white, each face more than a dozen felony counts that include forced labor, civil rights violations, human trafficking and gross child neglect.

During the couple's arraignment last June, Kanawha County Circuit Judge MaryClaire Akers said the indictment alleged the children were used as “slaves.”

Facebook messages seeking comment from attorneys for the couple weren’t immediately returned Friday night.

On the stand, the daughter, now 18, was the first sibling to testify. She described a difficult life over the course of years following their adoption. Akers ordered news outlets not to publish the teen's name.

The children were made to stand in their rooms for hours “to prevent us from falling asleep,” she testified. They also were told to keep their hands on their heads, and Whitefeather would often use pepper spray on them if they didn't, the teenager said.

“It would be the entire day, then go to sleep and do it again the next day,” she said.

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

The oldest sibling said the children were cursed at “all the time,” especially by Whitefeather, who used racially derisive language.

The couple adopted the 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 ranged in age from 5 to 16.

A financial intelligence analyst who reviewed bank statements testified Friday that Lantz and Whitefeather pocketed $318,000 in child assistance alone from the state of Minnesota.

Whitefeather and Lantz were arrested in October 2023 when neighbors called police to report seeing Lantz lock the oldest girl and her teenage brother in the shed and leave the property.

All five children were placed under the care of Child Protective Services. The teenage daughter said she currently speaks to her siblings once a week but doesn’t live with them or get to see them.

The teenager said the children were given a diet of peanut butter sandwiches at scheduled feedings, some that were left over from a previous meal. The children were not allowed to eat at other times if they were hungry and only were allowed to drink water after they finished their meals.

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

Defendants Donald Lantz and Jeanne Whitefeather enter Kanawha Circuit Court Judge Maryclaire Akers' courtroom with Kanawha County Sheriff Deputy Matthew Dingess for the first day of their trial Tuesday, Jan. 14, 2025, in Charleston, W.Va., following jury selection. (Chris Dorst/Charleston Gazette-Mail via AP)

She also said she wasn't provided menstrual products, even though she asked Whitefeather for them.

Lantz dropped off food to the children in their rooms and handled their daily chores, which included carrying supplies, gardening, digging holes for trees, clearing land, gathering water from a creek and looking after the animals on their farm. The teenager said some of the children were forced to use their hands for digging.

She said the outdoor work occurred mostly on a farm in Washington. Those tasks stopped in West Virginia when neighbors observed the children standing in line or performing hard labor. The children mostly stayed indoors afterward.

“By then, Jeanne wasn't saying anything to me,” the teen said. “We were always locked up.”

She said the door to the shed where she and her brother slept and were kept in when Whitefeather and Lantz left was locked with a key required to open it from either side. She said she wouldn’t have left if the door wasn’t locked because she was afraid her siblings would bear the brunt of any ensuing punishment from Whitefeather.

Attorneys in the case have said the oldest boy had attempted to run away from home and that the lock on the shed was aimed at keeping him from trying it again. A video surveillance system was installed “because Jeanne said she didn't trust us,” the daughter testified. “She told us to stop being stupid.”

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

“I felt like I wasn't ever going to get out of that situation,” she said. She returned after two days.

Just prior to the couple's arrest, the teen and the oldest boy shared a room, including the same bucket for using the bathroom while the other child held up a sheet for privacy.

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

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

She said Whitefeather gave preferential treatment to the youngest child, who was 5. Whitefeather had told the other children that she wished for a life without them.

“She would tell us all the time, she wanted to go with (the youngest girl) without the rest of them, and how they are wasting time on us because we would never amount to anything," the teenager said.

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