A judge told the white couple found guilty of beating their adopted Black children, “May God have mercy on your souls because this court will not.”
The white couple from West Virginia was found guilty of making their adopted Black children work as slaves on their farm and was given a sentence of hundreds of years in jail.
Donald Lantz, 62, and Jeanne Kay Whitefeather, 63, adopted five kids from a centre for homeless and at-risk kids. The kids are between the ages of 6 and 16. According to the prosecutors, the couple chose the children because of their race and then abused them horribly for years. The kids were treated like “slaves” and made to do hard work without even basic needs being met.
An upset neighbour called Child Protective Services in October 2023 to report the abuse. When cops got to the couple’s home in Sissonville, they found two of the kids, ages 14 and 16, locked in a shed with only a portable toilet and no running water. The kids told police that they had been locked inside for 12 hours and had to sleep on the cold floor.
Court papers said the kids were dressed in dirty clothes and the 14-year-old boy had cuts on his feet. The house was locked up with a 9-year-old child inside. Later, Lantz came back home with an 11-year-old boy and led police to a 6-year-old girl who was living with family friends. Whitefeather and Lantz were charged with 16 counts of human trafficking, forced labour, and breaking the children’s civil rights. The couple said they weren’t guilty, but in January they were found guilty.
The judge for the Eighth Judicial Circuit Court told the defendant, “You brought these children to West Virginia, a place that I know as “almost heaven,” and you put them in hell.” “This court will now put you in its.” If this court doesn’t forgive you, may God do it for you.
Lantz got 160 years in jail after being found guilty of trafficking people, making them work for free, abusing and neglecting children, and human trafficking. Whitefeather got 215 years in prison after being found guilty of the same charges plus another charge of breaking the children’s civil rights. The two people were also told to pay each victim $280,000 in reparations.
Whitefeather is said to have apologised to the children during the sentence, saying, “I just want the court to know that I have made mistakes.” I’m sorry about that, and I love my kids. I have never, ever done anything to my kids that was meant to hurt them. NBC News says, “Children, I do love you.”
The kids are looking forward to a better future. They now call their last adopted parents “monsters.”
One of the kids told the news source, “I will be something amazing.” “I’ll be beautiful and strong.” “You will always be awful, just the way you are.”
