CHARLESTON, W.Va. — A West Virginia couple convicted within the mistreatment in their followed youngsters, together with locking some in a shed, is due in court docket Wednesday for sentencing.
A jury on Jan. 29 discovered Jeanne Kay Whitefeather and her husband, Donald Lantz, to blame on a couple of counts of pressured hard work, human trafficking, and kid abuse and forget. Whitefeather additionally was once convicted of civil rights violations in accordance with race.
Whitefeather faces as much as 215 years in jail and Lantz as much as 160 years when they’re sentenced Wednesday in Kanawha County Circuit Court docket.
The couple, who’re white, followed the 5 Black siblings whilst residing in Minnesota, moved to a farm in Washington state in 2018, then introduced the circle of relatives to West Virginia in Would possibly 2023, when the youngsters ranged in age from 5 to 16.
5 months after their arrival in Sissonville, the couple was once arrested after neighbors noticed Lantz lock the oldest woman and her teenage brother in a shed and depart the valuables. A deputy used a crowbar to get them out.
Inside of the principle place of dwelling, a 9-year-old woman was once discovered crying in a loft by myself with out a coverage from falling, consistent with a legal grievance. The youngsters had been present in grimy garments and smelling of frame smell, deputies mentioned, and the oldest boy was once discovered barefoot with what gave the impression to be sores on his toes.
A fourth kid was once with Lantz when he in the end returned, and deputies had been later ended in a 5-year-old woman. All 5 had been became over to Kid Protecting Services and products after the couple’s arrest.
Final month the oldest daughter, now an grownup, sued the couple, alleging critical bodily and emotional abuse and forget that has scarred her completely.
Right through trial, neighbors testified they by no means noticed the youngsters play and witnessed Lantz cause them to stand in line or carry out tricky chores across the backyard, together with lifting heavy pieces. After Lantz spotted the curious neighbors, the youngsters most commonly stayed indoors.
The eldest daughter testified the outside paintings befell most commonly in Washington and that a few of them had been pressured to make use of their fingers for digging. She additionally mentioned the youngsters had been cursed at “at all times” and that Whitefeather used racist language.
The daughter mentioned Whitefeather gave preferential remedy to the youngest kid, who wasn’t focused on any of the costs, and that Whitefeather had instructed the opposite youngsters that she needed for a lifestyles with out them.
The daughter additionally mentioned the youngsters had been fed a gentle nutrition of peanut butter sandwiches at scheduled occasions, some left over from a prior meal. Some youngsters had been pressured to face of their rooms for hours and stay their fingers on their heads. The oldest woman and boy shared a room, had been pressured to sleep at the flooring and used the similar bucket for the toilet whilst the opposite held up a sheet for privateness from the house’s safety cameras, consistent with testimony.
The couple and their legal professionals driven again at the accusations, with Lantz attesting that the chores had been assigned to show the youngsters accountability.
The protection argued the couple was once merely crushed with looking to get lend a hand for the youngsters’s psychological well being problems, abuse and trauma from their organic house. Lantz’s legal professional, John Balenovich, mentioned the state’s kid welfare company, which the circle of relatives asked lend a hand from a number of occasions, “dropped the ball probably the most on this case.”
A forensic psychologist for the prosecution testified that the couple’s remedy of the youngsters had worsened their prerequisites.
Assistant Prosecutor Madison Tuck mentioned the couple by no means sought lend a hand for the oldest boy regardless of a behavioral well being sanatorium being simply mins from their house. The boy, whose bodily altercation with Whitefeather in 2022 was once cited by means of legal professionals as the beginning of the circle of relatives’s inside struggles, recently is receiving full-time care in a psychiatric facility.
Whitefeather’s legal professional, Mark Vegetation, mentioned all over remaining argument that the couple was once handiest to blame of creating deficient parenting selections.
“Those are farm those who do farm chores,” Vegetation mentioned. “It wasn’t about race. It wasn’t about pressured hard work.”
