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Jeanne Kay Whitefeather took the stand Tuesday as the second
week began in the trial of her and her husband, Donald Ray
Lantz. They are accused of mistreating four of the five
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.
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
in Sissonville.
Whitefeather called the shed a “teenager hangout.”
“They weren’t locked in,” Whitefeather testified. “They had a
key. They could come and go as they pleased.”
But the oldest daughter, now 18, testified last week that she
didn’t know about access to a key, which a detective had
testified earlier was found out of sight on top of a cabinet in
the shed.
The daughter also said the children were given a steady diet of
peanut butter sandwiches at scheduled times and were not allowed
to eat at other times, even if they were hungry. But
Whitefeather said the children were allowed to use the
refrigerator and said she cooked food every night.
After the couple's arrest, all five children were placed under
the care of Child Protective Services. 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. The oldest
boy is receiving full-time care in a psychiatric facility.
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