Charleston, W.VA. – A couple of Western Virginia accused of negligence and forced labor Involving his adopted children was convicted by a jury on Wednesday after eight hours of deliberations.
Jeanne Kay Whitefeather and Donald Ray Lantz were In trial in mid -January And each one faced more than a dozen positions, including forced labor, civil rights violations, human trafficking and child negligence.
The couple, who are white, were accused of mistreating their children, all of whom are black, enclosing them in a shed, forcing them to sleep on the floor and use buckets like bathrooms, and more.
The jury of the Kanawha County Circuit Court condemned Whitefeather for the 19 charges against her, including civil rights violations. Lantz was convicted of 12 charges of 16. He was acquitted of four positions of civil rights violations. Both showed little emotion when the verdict was read.
Kanawha County fiscal lawyer, Debra Rusnak, said she cried when she listened to the “guilty” word was repeated again and again.
“These cases mean a lot to us: we take a lot of this personally,” he said at a press conference later. “This is our community, and these are the children of our community. If we are not going to fight for them, who will do it?
Whitefeather and Lantz adopted the five brothers while living in Minnesota, moved to a farm in the state of Washington in 2018, and then brought West Virginia to the family in May 2023, when the children had ages between 5 and 16 years .
The couple was Arrested in October 2023 After the neighbors saw Lantz lock the older girl and her teenage brother in a shed and leave the property. A deputy used a lever to get them out.
Within the main residence, a 9 -year -old girl was found alone crying in a loft without protection against the fall, according to a criminal complaint. A fourth boy was with Lantz when he finally returned. The agents were taken to the couple’s youngest daughter.
The children were found with dirty clothes and smells of body smell, the agents said, and the older child was found barefoot with what seemed to be sores on their feet.
The five were delivered to child protection services after the couple’s arrest.
During the trial, the neighbors in Sissonville testified that they never saw the children play and witness that Lantz made them queue or perform difficult tasks around the patio, including the lifting of heavy items. After Lantz noticed the curious neighbors, the children stayed mostly inside.
The eldest daughter of the couple, now 18 years old, testified that outdoor work occurred mainly in Washington and that some of them were forced to use their hands to dig.
She also said that the children were fed with a stable diet. of peanut butter sandwiches In scheduled times, some remained of a previous meal. Some children were forced to stand in their rooms for hours and keep their hands on their heads. The older girl and boy shared a room, including the same bucket to use the bathroom, while the other lifted a privacy sheet.
The couple and their lawyers retreated the accusations, with Lantz testifying that the tasks were assigned to teach children responsibility.
Whitefather called the shed, the children were found in a “meeting place for adolescents” and said adolescents had access to a key and were free to leave as they wanted.
Whitefeather’s lawyer said the older child had tried to flee from home and that the shed lock was destined to avoid trying again.
The testimony showed that the children did not know where a key was: the detectives found one out of view in a cabinet in the shed.
Prosecutors said that the couple’s tactics had less to do with the responsibility of teaching and, instead, on control.
“The objective of treating them in this way is that they become less than humans,” said Kanawha County prosecutor Chris Krivonyak.
Krivonyak added: “How do you do that to someone you love?”
Prosecutors also entered racist text messages as evidence that they said they were from Whitefeather, who denied having written them. The eldest daughter testified that the children were cursed in “all the time” and that Whitefeather used a racist language.
Whitefeather also refused to eat the same plates used by the children, whom he was “dirty,” the girl testified.
“Do you want to know what racists are like?” The assistant prosecutor Madison Tuck asked the jury, then told the defendants. “Look at them.”
The defense argued that the couple was simply overwhelmed by trying to obtain help for children’s mental health problems, the abuse and trauma of their biological home.
Lantz’s lawyer, John Balenovich, said the state’s child welfare agency, which the family requested help several times, “left the ball more in this case.”
Tuck said the couple never sought help for the older child despite the fact that a behavioral health clinic was only minutes from their home.
A forensic psychologist from the Prosecutor’s Office testified that the treatment of the couple’s children had worsened their conditions.
The older child, whose physical altercation with Whitefeather in 2022 was summoned by lawyers as the beginning of family’s internal struggles, currently receives full -time care in a psychiatric center.
Whitefeather’s lawyer, Mark Plants, said during the final argument that the couple was only guilty of making poor parenting decisions.
“These are agricultural people who do agricultural tasks,” said plants. “It was not race. It was not forced labor. “
Whitefeather faces a maximum of 215 years in prison, while Lantz could receive up to 75 years in prison.
The couple will return to the Kanawha County Circuit Court by sentence on March 19.
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Associated Press’s reporter, Leah Willingham, contributed to this report.
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